Even if you're hunkered down close to home for the duration of our current economic miasma, you can still soar to faraway places on the magic carpet of your imagination. Veteran armchair wanderers know the ritual: pick a quiet corner, a comfortable chair, a refreshing drink and immerse in the pages of a mesmerizing book. For your personal pleasure or for thoughtful holiday gifts, here are recommendations from the 2008 top crop of travel literature conveying that ultimate sense of place.

Rolf Potts, sometimes dubbed the Jack Kerouac for the Internet Age, is in the vanguard of a new generation of writers who have cut their teeth writing not for print-based publications but for the Web. His new book "Marco Polo Didn't Go There" (Traveler's Tales) may be the finest — and quirkiest — example of post-modern travel-writing. This book documents the author's boldest, funniest and most revealing journeys — from getting stranded without water in the Libyan desert, to crashing the set of a Leonardo DiCaprio movie in Thailand, to learning the secrets of Tantric sex in a dubious Indian ashram. Makes you wanna be there if you're a twentysomething.

Dutch journalist Geert Mak unravels history and cultures in "The Bridge," (Harvill Secker) his compelling tale of Istanbul's landmark Galata Bridge that straddles the city's European and Asian sides. The reader cannot forget the sharply drawn images of the great cultural, religious and social divisions in Turkey that threaten the foundations of a bridge between East and West. A fascinating read for all who love the beautiful, mysterious city of Istanbul.

Fifth volume in an annual series, "The Best Travel Writing, 2008" by James O'Reilly and Sean O'Reilly (Traveler's Tales) celebrates the world's preeminent travel writing — much of it never before published — from Nobel Prize winners to up-and-coming new authors. The stories provide a perspective and depth of understanding that can only come from people who have actually been there, done that all over the globe and are eager to commit the fullness of their experiences to paper for your enjoyment.

In "Empires of the Indus — The Story of a River," debut-author Alice Albinia (John Murray) has penned a thoughtful, learned, perceptive and stereotype-shattering book. This engaging blend of travel writing and history follows the mighty Indus, the longest river in the Indian subcontinent, from its delta on the coast of Sindh up to its source in Chinese-occupied Tibet. Illuminating.

Over the course of a year, Colin Thubron traveled by bus, truck, donkey cart and camel on the ancient network of trade routes that connected central China with the Mediterranean Coast, traversing along the way several former Soviet republics, war-torn Afghanistan, Iran and Turkey. His offbeat adventures by third-class transport along the greatest land route on Earth are masterfully presented in "Shadow of the Silk Road" (Vintage), a New York Times bestseller.

A haunting memoir, "Wizard Of The Nile: The Hunt for Africa's Most Wanted" by Matthew Green (Portobello), traces the 20-year civil war in Uganda under the rebel insurgency to the north led by Joseph Kony, the brutal, Bible-quoting Wizard of the Nile. From his perilous trek to locate Kony, Green offers keen insight into this former "Pearl of Africa" with its ghastly conflict that remains largely forgotten by the outside world.

Andrew Mueller's, "I Wouldn't Start From Here: The 21st Century and Where it all Went Wrong," (Soft Skull Press) is a contemporary original — a fresh, irreverent and jovial jaunt of a guidebook around this baffling modern world of ours. In these pages you will encounter intriguing, exotic locations and a cast of revolutionaries, rock stars, politicians, hitmen, warmongers and peacemakers. All for real.

No list of this year's top travel books would be credible without the inclusion of Paul Theroux's latest offering, "Dark Star Safari: Overland from Cairo to Capetown." On his harrowing itinerary down the Nile, through Sudan and Ethiopia, to Kenya, Uganda, Malawi and ultimately to the tip of South Africa, Theroux passes through some of the most beautiful — and often life-threatening — landscapes on Earth. Seeing firsthand what is happening across Africa, Theroux is as obsessively curious and wittily observant as always, and readers will find themselves right there with him on an epic and enlightening journey.

Irene Croft Jr. of Kailua, Kona, is a travel writer and 40-year veteran globetrotter. Her column is published in this section every other week.