Hey TTers,
Am looking to build a comprehensive list of the best fictional travel writings out there - the ones that really inspire wanderlust and convey a sense of place - being there; being transported there.
Please share your favorites! And, if there are ones you think especially make good gifts, pls note that too.
Thanks a bunch!

Drifter's Gold by Don Blanding is a little book of poetry I just got its realli good
Quest
A man will know when he's chosen
By the gods for a life of quest,
For the restless urge within him
Is an eagle in his breast
An eaglewith frantic pinions
Which may not be cages nor tamed,
With eyes on the far horizon
And beckoning stars unnamed.
The goal may be veiled in mystery
And the seeker may have no chart,
But let himturn fromthe seeking
And the eagle will hurt his heart
Then after the search is over,
After the finding......rest?
There is no rest for he seeker
With an eagle in his breast.
The book is full of gems like that one
I do not know if it fills your critera OP, but Thomas Mann's 'Death in Venice' gives me, the strongest sense of a place that i can think of.
Why fictional? Can any travel writing be fiction? Or did you mean something like "Around the World in 80 days" by Jules Verne, or "Gulliver's Travels" by Jonathan Swift?

fictional travel writing? that's tough
maybe paul bowles sheltering sky & his short stories, etc
the travel writers' writings i like best are all non-fict: chatwin, naipaul...
and the fiction that i think of as especially strong for sense of place is not travel related.
for example: few writers express los angeles better than raymond chandler...