Audiobooks Like Eat Pray Love: 9 Memoirs About Finding Yourself Abroad

In the month the film came out, Publishers Weekly reported that Penguin had shipped 7.3 million trade paperbacks of Eat, Pray, Love in North America, plus 950,000 copies of the movie tie-in. That is a lot of women reading about one woman who left.

I did too, by a different route. I quit a New York corporate job for a Fulbright year in Luxembourg, then spent three years in Shanghai, and the search for where I belonged ran through Greece before it ended. So my test for a book like hers: the woman has to actually go, it has to cost her something, and she has to be able to laugh before she is okay.

Here are my picks for books like Eat Pray Love, all on audio, with the narrator named on every one:

The Short Version

• If you want the one where leaving means a grant, a lease and a visa, listen to Where to Nest by Kristen Van Nest, read by the author.
• If you want more Gilbert, listen to Committed: the sequel, with Gilbert reading her own case for getting married again.
• If you want the one where a widow rebuilds in Sicily, listen to From Scratch by Tembi Locke, read by the author.

How I Picked These Listens

I spent most of my twenties living abroad, on a Fulbright in Luxembourg and then working in China’s wine business, so I know the difference between a trip and a move. Here are my three criteria for a memoir that belongs next to Gilbert’s:

1. She left on purpose, and it cost her something: a marriage, a job, a savings account. If she has nothing to lose by going, it’s hard to care whether she finds herself.
2. The trip has a lease or a visa in it: she had to stay long enough to be bored, broke or lonely there, not just pass through on vacation.
3. She can laugh at herself before she is okay: the jokes arrive while things are still bad, so you do not sit through the hard part alone.

At a Glance

Five of the nine are read by the author. The other four are professional narrators, named on each entry.

Swipe sideways to see the whole table.

What Should I Listen to After Eat Pray Love?

I picked nine books similar to Eat Pray Love, in three groups. One to three left a marriage. Four to six left for a place. Seven to nine left for the road. If you only have one credit, start with Committed, Gilbert reading the part the film left out.

1. Where to Nest by Kristen Van Nest (2024)

Read this if: If you want the one where leaving means a grant, a lease and a work visa. If you want the one where the search ends somewhere she did not expect.

What you’re getting: Where to Nest is a comedic travel memoir, read by the author, about Kristen Van Nest living abroad in her 20s after quitting a New York corporate job: Luxembourg, Shanghai, and Greece during the crisis. 9 hours 17 minutes, free with an Audible trial.

Why Eat Pray Love fans will like it: Gilbert’s book is about choosing yourself and what it costs. Here is where that caught up with me, in Greece during the 2015 crisis:

Once again, I was projecting, and mad at myself. I had chosen myself over love, over career stability, over saving money to buy a home. That was hard to live with, at times.

Shoving my fresh sandwich back in my mouth, water welled in my eyes. Greece and I were one and the same, we were on our own journeys, figuring out the best path for ourselves, even if that meant being alone.

Where to Nest, Chapter 12

What readers say:

“Van Nest made the inexplicable choice to leave her comfortable life and corporate job in New York for Shanghai, where she sought a new career, a new home, and adventure.” Kelly Miller, Goodreads Reviewer, ★★★★★.

“A wise, witty, honest and inspiring account of how someone muddled through the many life choices of their twenties” Lucy McIlgorm, Goodreads Reviewer, ★★★★★.

“It is a coming of age story with a modern Eat Pray Love twist.” optimizer not satisficer, Amazon Reviewer, ★★★★★.

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2. Committed by Elizabeth Gilbert (2010)

Read this if: you finished the first book and want to know whether Bali lasted.

What you’re getting: Gilbert reads it herself, nine hours, Penguin Audio. When US immigration bars her partner Felipe, they spend months in Southeast Asian exile while she researches marriage to talk herself into one.

Why Eat Pray Love fans will like it: Kirkus called the material “intriguing and often insightful,” “Presented in the author’s easy-going, conversational style.”

Fair warning: half of it is a history of marriage.

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3. Eat, Pray, #FML by Gabrielle Stone (2019)

Read this if: you want the raunchy one.

What you’re getting: Stone reads it herself, about ten hours, Tantor Audio. An actress divorces, a rebound ends days before a planned trip to Italy, and she goes to Europe alone anyway.

Why Eat Pray Love fans will like it: it is the most literal riff on the template here: divorce, Europe, solo. Stone told the Television Academy how the book started as a journal she kept on that trip.

Fair warning: self-published and explicit.

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4. From Scratch by Tembi Locke (2019)

Read this if: you want the Italy leg with real weight in it.

What you’re getting: Locke reads it herself, 10 hours 15 minutes, Simon & Schuster Audio. An American actress falls for a Sicilian chef, loses him to cancer, then spends three summers with her daughter in his mother’s village.

Why Eat Pray Love fans will like it: Publishers Weekly wrote that “Locke’s raw and heartfelt memoir will uplift readers suffering from the loss of their own loved ones,” and her reading was an Audie finalist for Autobiography/Memoir.

Fair warning: the first third is a husband dying.

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5. Under the Tuscan Sun by Frances Mayes (1996)

Read this if: you want the one about a house.

What you’re getting: two recordings. Mayes reads the 1998 abridged edition herself, about six hours; Cassandra Campbell reads the unabridged anniversary edition, 12 hours 8 minutes. A poet buys an abandoned villa in Cortona and restores it, season by season.

Why Eat Pray Love fans will like it: Publishers Weekly wrote that “her observations about being at home in two very different cultures are sharp and wise.” The 2003 film is the Diane Lane version.

Fair warning: nobody leaves anybody in the book.

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6. Paris Letters by Janice MacLeod (2014)

Read this if: you want the quit-your-job math.

What you’re getting: Tavia Gilbert narrates, 6 hours 59 minutes, Tantor Audio. A burned-out ad copywriter saves enough to quit, lands in Paris, falls for a Polish butcher who speaks no English, and pays for it by painting letters for subscribers.

Why Eat Pray Love fans will like it: Kirkus called it “A romantic romp from Santa Monica to Paris with loads of advice on how to live minimally and take risks in life and love.”

Fair warning: Tavia Gilbert narrates, and it is the sweetest book here.

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7. Wild by Cheryl Strayed (2012)

Read this if: you want the outdoor version, with blisters.

What you’re getting: Bernadette Dunne narrates, 13 hours 3 minutes, Random House Audio. After her mother’s death and her marriage’s collapse, Strayed hikes eleven hundred miles of the Pacific Crest Trail alone, with no experience.

Why Eat Pray Love fans will like it: Kirkus praised Cheryl Strayed for writing that “admirably conveys the rigors and rewards of long-distance hiking.” It was also Oprah’s first pick for her relaunched book club.

Fair warning: Strayed does not read it.

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8. Love with a Chance of Drowning by Torre DeRoche (2013)

Read this if: you want the one where she says yes to the boat.

What you’re getting: Candice Moll narrates, 11 hours 34 minutes, Brilliance Audio. A water-phobic Australian falls for an Argentine man and agrees to sail the Pacific with him on a leaky boat.

Why Eat Pray Love fans will like it: Kirkus called it “A funny, irresistibly offbeat tale about the risks and rewards of living, and loving, with an open heart.”

Fair warning: Candice Moll narrates, and the US audio edition is on disc.

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9. Lands of Lost Borders by Kate Harris (2018)

Read this if: you want the smart one.

What you’re getting: Amy Landon narrates, eleven hours, Dey Street. A would-be Mars explorer bicycles the Silk Road with her childhood friend, from Turkey to Tibet.

Why Eat Pray Love fans will like it: Kirkus called it “Exemplary travel writing: inspiring, moving, heartfelt, and often breathtaking,” and it won the 2019 RBC Taylor Prize.

Fair warning: Amy Landon narrates, and it is more about borders than about her.

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Which One to Listen to Tonight

• You want the leaving to have a lease and a visa in it: Where to Nest, read by the author.
• You want to know what happened after Bali: Committed, Gilbert reading the sequel.
• You want to cry and then eat: From Scratch, read by Locke.

If none of those fits, my list of the best thriller audiobooks is where I keep the books with a body in them, and my post on how reading reduces stress has the numbers on what thirty minutes with a story does to your heart rate.

FAQ: Audiobooks Like Eat Pray Love

What Should I Listen to After Eat Pray Love?

Start with Where to Nest by Kristen Van Nest if you want the version where leaving means a grant, a lease and a visa, then Committed for Gilbert herself on what came next. For the kitchen version, From Scratch.

Is Eat Pray Love Read by Elizabeth Gilbert?

Yes. The US Eat, Pray, Love audiobook is read by Gilbert herself, from Penguin Audio, and runs a little under thirteen hours. She also reads the sequel, Committed.

Is There a Sequel to Eat Pray Love?

Yes. Committed picks up when US immigration bars her partner Felipe from the country and the two of them have to marry to live together; Gilbert spends the exile researching marriage to make peace with it. She reads it herself.

What Are the Best Books Similar to Eat Pray Love That Are Funny?

Where to Nest by Kristen Van Nest is the funny one: the self-discovery happens between a Shanghai wine job and a Greek crisis, with jokes. Goodreads reviewer Laura Donovan, ★★★★★, called it “such a hilarious treat.” Eat, Pray, #FML is the other one here that goes for the laugh first.

Which Memoir Is the Closest Modern Eat Pray Love?

Where to Nest by Kristen Van Nest, and I am not the only one who thinks so. Arab News wrote that “Fans of Elizabeth Gilbert’s Eat, Pray, Love will find an updated and funnier, more relatable millennial version in Kristen Van Nest’s debut memoir, Where to Nest.” For the same arc with Italy and grief in it, From Scratch.

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