Short Stories About Journeys: 10 Classics Explained
Quick answer: Ten classic short stories about journeys, from Master and Man and The Outcasts of Poker Flat to Boule de Suif, Love of Life and The Snow Queen, summarised and compared.
The road is the oldest shape a story can take, and the short story trims it to a single leg: one night in a snowstorm, one coach out of Rouen, one crawl toward the sea. Readers reach for these when they want to be moved and returned by morning.
The collection begins with travellers who lose the road, moves through the ones who share a vehicle, and ends with two strangers telling stories on trains. Each title links to a page that summarises the story and explains its ending.
The stories
Master and Man by Leo Tolstoy. A merchant and his peasant set out in a sledge on a snowy afternoon to buy a wood before a rival can, and lose the road three times. The last time, in a ravine, the merchant tries to ride off alone on the horse and comes back.
The Outcasts of Poker Flat by Bret Harte. A gambler, two women and a thief are escorted out of town and meet an eloping young couple on the trail, and the whole party is snowed into a cabin on the pass. The gambler keeps count of the rations and the days.
To Build a Fire by Jack London. A man and a dog walk a Yukon trail toward a camp where the boys are waiting, in cold the man has been told is too deep for travelling alone. The dog is the only one who arrives.
Love of Life by Jack London. Two men limp across the northern barrens with their gold, and when one sprains his ankle the other keeps walking. The one left behind crawls for days, followed by a wolf too sick to attack, toward a river and a ship.
The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky by Stephen Crane. A town marshal and his new wife ride the Pullman from San Antonio toward a town where he has told nobody he was getting married. The plush seats and the porter's condescension occupy them until the platform.
Boule de Suif by Guy de Maupassant. Ten people fleeing occupied Rouen in a coach spend a freezing day without food until the prostitute among them opens a hamper. At the inn that night the coach is not permitted to leave.
The Open Boat by Stephen Crane. Four men in a dinghy row toward a lighthouse and then toward a beach through a day and a night, taking turns at the oars and wondering why nobody on shore has seen them. The last mile is swum.
The Snow Queen by Hans Christian Andersen. Gerda sets out barefoot after her friend Kay, carried north by the Snow Queen, and is helped and hindered by a sorceress, a prince, a robber girl and a reindeer. She reaches the palace with nothing but herself.
The Storyteller by Saki. An aunt, three children and a bachelor share a railway carriage to Templecombe, and the aunt's efforts to keep the children quiet fail until the bachelor tells a story of his own. The children argue about it on the platform.
The Hungry Stones by Rabindranath Tagore. Two travellers waiting for a connection are joined by a stranger who talks of everything and then, as the night goes on, of a marble palace by the river where he was once posted. The train arrives before the story ends.
Reading them together
The collection's argument is that a travel story is about who is in the vehicle and what happens to the rations. Tolstoy's sledge, Harte's cabin, Maupassant's coach and Crane's dinghy are closed rooms in motion, and in each the people inside are sorted by hunger and cold into what they are. London removes the vehicle and gives his travellers only their legs.
Saki and Tagore end the collection with the train as a frame for a story told inside it, and both use the arrival to cut the story off before it can be judged.
Writory's contest rubric gives a mark for Setting, and a story that keeps its travellers inside one moving space tends to earn it without a paragraph of description.
If you want to write about journeys
What writers can take from this
- Read Master and Man and To Build a Fire together for two men who should have stayed home.
- Boule de Suif and The Outcasts of Poker Flat both trap a mixed party and sort them; note who each writer spares.
- The two Crane stories are a pair on arrival, one comic and one nearly fatal.
- The Snow Queen is long and episodic; read Gerda's road north as seven separate stories.
- The Storyteller and The Hungry Stones are both frame stories set on trains; read them last, one after the other.
Try it yourself
Write a story that takes place entirely inside one moving vehicle, in which the passengers are strangers at the start and, by the arrival, have sorted themselves into the people they are.
Questions
What is the best short story about travel?
Master and Man is the most admired, and The Open Boat the most studied. Boule de Suif is the fullest portrait of travellers in a confined space.
Which travel stories are good for students?
To Build a Fire, The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky, The Storyteller and The Outcasts of Poker Flat are short and clear. The Snow Queen suits younger readers in instalments.
Which classic travel story is the shortest?
The Storyteller, at about two thousand words, then The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky at roughly three thousand.
By the Writory editorial team, reviewed by working writers. Updated September 2026.
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