Here’s a confession: for over a decade, I’ve had recurring nightmares that center around traveling. I usually find myself in some small town or remote village where I don’t speak the language and we have not booked accommodations in advance. Sometimes there are killers, sometimes hotels with creepy unfinished levels, sometimes I’m grappling with public transportation and getting utterly lost in the creepiest place on earth, sometimes barely surviving plane crashes and picking my way through alien streets in search of medical help.
The one undergraduate course in psychology I took would indicate that, um, this is a major stressor for me! And yet I love to travel. I don’t just mean vacationing, but actively exploring, getting as far from the quotidian hydraulic press of to-do lists and relentless sameness as I feasibly can. It’s one of the greatest joys in my life—and I’m not alone in this. In a recent poll, 81% of British respondents listed “travel” as a major priority in their household budgets. An upcoming vacation can serve as a carrot to get us through months of mundanity and stress. We envision sunshine, the quiet lapping of waves, perhaps, or the gracious immersion into a new culture, as well as time spent peacefully and joyfully with the people we love.
But as anyone who’s ever actually taken a “dream vacation” can attest, the reality is often a far cry from what we’ve imagined. It’s disorienting to navigate in new places, particularly if you’re not fluent in the local language. Complex logistics abound, creating a scenario rife for Things Going Wrong—which are only then compounded by the awkwardness of being a stranger in a strange land. Even if local residents are perfectly lovely, you can’t help but know yourself to be an outsider, an exciting sensation at best, frightening at worst. Add to that the pressure you’ve created for yourself to have an absolutely amazing time—and for all those loved ones you’ve travelled with to do the same, dammit—you’ve created a picture-perfect recipe for an outright disaster.
In Diavola, mining my own preoccupation with the highs and horrific lows of traveling abroad, I’ve plunked a dysfunctional American family into the absolute worst vacation rental villa in Tuscany. If you’ve taken a trip to Florence and brought along this novel—I apologize. And you’re welcome.
No matter what type of trip you’re planning next, here are five books that will pair with it nicely.
For a tropical getaway… The Ruins by Scott Smith
A group of young tourists take a break from lounging on the beach in Mexico to do a little jungle sightseeing. What could go wrong? I mean, a lot could go wrong, through poor decision-making, malevolent locals, disease, some sort of ancient evil, the possibilities are endless! You might already know what the main threat turns out to be. Even so, way back when I read this book, I was completely surprised and deeply, delightfully disturbed. Lesson learned for your next holiday? Pay attention to early warning signs rather than stubbornly insisting upon seeing your day trip plan through no matter what. And admire the greenery from a distance.
A romantic trip to Italy… Don’t Look Now by Daphne du Maurier
Okay, so you doubtless know the twist at the end of this celebrated short story, made even more famous by Donald Sutherland in the film of the same name. But it’s actually the days that lead up to the shocking conclusion that create the horror in du Maurier’s tale of a grieving couple taking some time away for themselves in Venice. The wife, having received a call, has gone home. Or has she? Why won’t the police listen to the British tourist when he voices concerns? Has something been lost in translation? Is everything merely a series of misunderstandings resulting from the complicated logistics of travel? In the end, the answer is…kind of. The last scene comes with an almost amused resignation from our hero, a fundamentally English sense of “Sod’s Law” about it all, making this one of the seminal tales of Brits abroad in literature.
A hiking holiday… The Ritual by Adam Nevill
So you haven’t seen your buddies from university for a while. Why not bond over a camping trip, exploring the forests of Sweden? This. This is why not. For me, very few things are more fundamentally unnerving than the barometer-drop moment in which you realize you are completely lost. Add to that a series of incongruities, folk horror red flags, and a hell of a monster, and, well, your college reunion is pretty effectively ruined. The tension in this award-winner rests on how the characters react to one another under the threat of isolation and gruesome death. Friendships between middle-aged men tend to be fraught, haunted by ghosts of the past, and Nevill plays on that to chilling effect here. Major takeaway, though? Just follow the damn map.
A honeymoon cruise… Adrift by K.R. Griffiths
I can see the appeal of being the very first passengers on a brand-new luxury ocean liner. Everything’s fresh and sparkly and sanitized and eager to meet with your five-star approval. Even so, I don’t know how you can go on a trans-Atlantic maiden voyage directly over the site of the Titanic sinking and not think, “This might not end so well.” In my experience, it’s unsettling enough to reckon with the fact that you’re in the middle of the ocean, days from land. Worse yet, I’d imagine, when you see something suspicious falling off the ship. And then the power goes out. The engines go dead. And the monsters show up. This, along with Gabriel Dylan’s Whiteout, is up there with my favorite takes on vampire mythology—and, along with 1970s disaster masterpiece The Poseidon Adventure, renders cruises absolutely terrifying. (For the record, Cunard, if you’re reading this, I’m still desperate to be a guest author on one of your crossings. I’ll pack night vision goggles just in case.)
Pretty much everything else… Worst Laid Plans: An Anthology of Vacation Horror edited by Samantha Kolesnik
Let’s see here. We’ve got American road trips. Amusement parks. Spelunking. Scuba diving. Staying at a campsite. Going to the movies. Nothing is safe here. And if The Ruins convinced you that the most prudent option is to stay on the grounds of your Mexican resort, take a look at “The Cucuy of Cancun” and get back to me. Reading this anthology made me fondly remember all the horror short story collections I devoured as a kid—usually on vacation with my family. The diversity of stories also illustrates beautifully the universality of horror. The unknown, the journey, the deviation from the norm are basic ingredients for things falling apart, life being revealed in its bare uncanny strangeness. But those ingredients are also the reasons we travel in the first place, and maybe why we love to read horror too. To see the world through a different lens—and feel a thrill in the process.
