Book cover of Into a Desert Place: A 3000 Mile Walk around the Coast of Baja California

Book description

"I had never been particularly good at anything except catering to my own comfort and safety," begins Graham Mackintosh with cheerful frankness in this engaging, suspenseful, and finally stirring travel adventure.

An Englishman, Mackintosh fell in love with Baja California on a visit and, despite a glaring shortage of both…

When you buy books, we may earn a commission that helps keep our lights on (or join the rebellion as a member).

Why read it?

1 author picked Into a Desert Place as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

A formerly comfort-seeking Brit takes a very difficult walk around Baja and learns a lot about himself, and of course, about this “desert place.”

What’s not for me to like in a story like that? There is adventure and struggle, but also plenty of humor, and the thread that binds it all together is the author’s dawning love for a land that became his special place.

Mackintosh is still living much of the time in Mexico and has written five more books about Baja, burros, beer, and even dogs, but this adventurous paean to the peninsula will always have a…

If you love Into a Desert Place...

Book cover of These Blue Mountains

These Blue Mountains by Sarah Loudin Thomas,

A moving story of love, betrayal, and the enduring power of hope in the face of darkness.

German pianist Hedda Schlagel's world collapsed when her fiancé, Fritz, vanished after being sent to an enemy alien camp in the United States during the Great War. Fifteen years later, in 1932, Hedda…

Want books like Into a Desert Place?

Our community of 13,000+ authors has personally recommended 100 books like Into a Desert Place.

Browse books like Into a Desert Place

Book cover of The Log from the Sea of Cortez
Book cover of Miraculous Air: Journey of a Thousand Miles through Baja California, the Other Mexico
Book cover of Almost an Island: Travels in Baja California

Share your top 3 reads of 2025!

And get a beautiful page showing off your 3 favorite reads.

1,395

readers submitted
so far, will you?

📚 If you like Into a Desert Place, you might also like...

Book cover of Need to Know: World War II and the Rise of American Intelligence

Need to Know by Nicholas Reynolds,

The authoritative but accessible history of the birth of modern American intelligence in World War II that treats not just one but all of the various disciplines: spies, codebreakers, saboteurs.

Told in a relatable style that focuses on actual people, it was a New Yorker "Best of 2022" selection and…

Book cover of Tsunami

Tsunami by LeeAnn Pickrell,

On the morning of December 26, 2004, an undersea earthquake struck off the coast of Sumatra in the Indian Ocean. The resulting tsunami killed an estimated 230,000 people across fourteen countries, from Indonesia to Sri Lanka to Thailand to the Maldives to India and all the way to East Africa.…

5 book lists we think you will like!