How many times have you returned from a remarkable holiday in a beautiful location far removed from your usual life and wondered “What if…? What if we just upped-sticks and did something entirely different?” Or maybe you’ve been left longing for fresh adventures in far-flung places after watching an episode of Ben Fogle’s New Lives in the Wild. 

While not everyone acts on such dreams and impulses, there are plenty of people who have, as revealed in this Collection of non-fiction favourites on the theme of forging fresh starts in new places (tip: if you’re more of a fiction fan, check-out our Collection of fresh-start fiction).

Kicking off with a classic, Gerald Durrell’s Corfu trilogy, as brought to life by The Durrells TV show, is an entertaining, lively series that recounts the years he and his family spent on Corfu between 1935 and 1939. Often comic, sometimes fictionalised, and always suffused in the author’s love for the island’s fauna, the books are brilliant at evoking childhood and the impact of making monumental big moves as a family.

Staying in the 1930s, Elma Napier’s Black and White Sands (one of my all-time favourite books) is the engrossing autobiography of a Scottish-born aristocrat who abandoned high society in Britain for a wildly different new life on the wildly majestic Caribbean island of Dominica. In this enlightening, elegantly written memoir, we read how Napier became the first woman to sit in a West Indian parliament after navigating multiple ups and downs that mirror the island’s mountainous terrain. I can vouch that Napier’s love for her new home is utterly infectious: “With Dominica we fell in love at first sight, an infatuation without tangible rhyme or reason, yet no more irrational than any other falling in love”.

Moving to contemporary times, we recently loved Laura Galloway’s Dalvi, a memoir that shares how the writer headed to the Arctic tundra after discovering she shares DNA with the region’s indigenous Sámi people. Feeling dissatisfied with her life in New York in the wake of a disastrous marriage, Galloway’s time in this remote reindeer-herding region sees her fall in love, learn to live in nature, and discover that “home is inside you and all around you”.

Readers interested in the true stories of women who’ve gone solo in forging new lives will also want to read Kate Wills’ A Trip of One’s Own.

For more a family-focussed read, try Benjamin Mee’s We Bought a Zoo. When he and his family needed a new home and fancied some adventure, he and his wife bought a dilapidated zoo and eventually transformed it into Dartmoor Wildlife Park. As gripping as any thriller, this is a moving, entertaining walk on the wild side (pun entirely intended).

Staying on the family theme, Shape of a Boy is the fabulously funny memoir of a mother — travel journalist Kate Wickers — who took her three boys on an epic trip around the world. From southeast Asian jungles, to Cuba’s heady Havana, every page is alive with a sense of adventure, family dynamics, and lessons we can all earn from travelling together. 

Meanwhile, readers who love a touch of romance might want to check-out Instructions for Visitors: Life and Love in a French Town.

And finally, before we leave you to explore the Collection for yourself, if you’re starting to think about making your fresh-start dreams a reality, you’ll want to read Living Wild. This beautiful photo-rich book shares the experiences of families and individuals who’ve escaped the daily grind for a more meaningful, more sustainable way of life. 

Bon voyage!