These travel books are a must-have for your next visit to Ireland

Leslie Lee's "We Are The Land, Ireland" and "Leslie's Field Guide to Ireland" are equal parts informational and inspiring.

Traveling around Ireland, whether it’s your first trip or your hundredth, is always a learning experience. Curious travelers will find a rich and abundant history to delve into, as well as a warm and welcoming culture to immerse themselves in.

While international travel might be on hold at the moment, these travel resources will reignite your desire to visit Ireland and help get your future plans in motion.

As part of her "Leslie's Travel Companion" series, author and artist Leslie Lee has published two new resources: “We are the Land, Ireland," a historic exploration of Ireland, and "Leslie's Field Guide to Ireland," an informative, illustrated travel reference book.

Not only do Leslie Lee's travel resources provide guidance for traveling in Ireland, they also provide the space to chronicle your Irish experience creatively when the time comes (hopefully soon!)

We Are The Land, Ireland

First in Leslie’s Travel Companion journal series, “We Are the Land, Ireland” is an exploration of Ireland—its ancient history, DNA, and culture through the adventurous search of four sisters for their Irish ancestry.

Let the Lee sisters travels inspire your own future plans to visit Ireland.

Lee's interest in how ancient languages evolved and migrated leads readers through the heart of Ireland to the modern revolution of the ancestral DNA of the Irish people. 

This is a must-read for travelers to Ireland who want to know...Who are the Celts? Who are the Scotch-Irish or Ulster-Scots? Where did red hair come from? What was the land like at the dawn of modern humans? What were the origins of Irish hospitality, music, and scintillating wit? Who built the megaliths such as Newgrange, Knowth, and Dowth? What was the "potato famine"?

The book explores these and other questions for those of us with Irish heritage, and others, who wish to understand before we visit Ireland. 

“Lee’s ambitious book is brimming with photographs; hand-drawn art, including maps and notable visual spectacles; and original poetry.” - Kirkus Reviews

“Sometimes, to find your home, you have to cross the sea to a place you’ve never been before. That’s the journey Leslie Lee recounts in We Are The Land: Ireland, her luminous travelogue and memoir of Ireland.” - Will Green, Kirkus Reviews

You can purchase Leslie Lee’s “We are the Land, Ireland” on her website or on Amazon.

Leslie’s Field Guide to Ireland

Book two of Leslie's Travel Companion, published in 2020, is “Leslie's Field Guide to Ireland.” It’s an informative, illustrated, pocket-sized travel reference packed with information that travelers to the Emerald Isle will be glad to keep at hand.

Loaded with hand-drawn maps, places of interest, archaeological sites, mythological characters, DNA and genealogy, a pronunciation key to Gaelic, Irish place-names, the Ogham Alphabet, travel tips, and packing lists, it’s the perfect knowledgeable companion to take wherever you go in Ireland.

Even before the trip begins, "Leslie’s Field Guide to Ireland" will inform visitors about the origins of the Celts, the waves of invasions through ten thousand years, the significance of the Vikings, Normans, Ulster-Scots, and the English, the potato famine, and follow with a detailed timeline of Irish history so readers might orient themselves in the depths of the Old World before they arrive.

Blank pages are provided for the traveler to insert their own itinerary, calendar, and genealogy where personal phone numbers, names, lodgings, and a daily log may be kept. When the trip is done, this little book, along with its notes, drawings, and splashes of whiskey, will become a true memento of the trip.

You can purchase Leslie Lee’s “Field Guide to Ireland” on her website or on Amazon.

About author and artist Leslie Lee

Whenever Leslie Lee traveled, she carried a notebook, pen, and a tiny paint kit. These were her constant travel companions. After thirty years of travel writing, painting, and sketching, Lee has edited her illustrated books in a series called Leslie's Travel Companion. Now, encouraged to share with others, she has begun to publish them.

Book one of the series, “We Are the Land, Ireland,” was published in 2019 to excellent reviews. It chronicles her study of Irish history and culture before and after she travelled to Ireland in search for her ancestry in a glorious romp across the Emerald Isle with her sisters.

Book Two of Leslie's Travel Companion, published in 2020, is Leslie's Field Guide to Ireland, a pocket-sized, essential reference book of all things Irish to carry everywhere while traveling in Ireland.

To learn more about Leslie Lee, you can visit her website, Facebook, and Instagram.

* Originally published June 15, 2020.