Susan Veness, author of The Hidden Magic of Walt Disney World, has something in common with the author of another recent review, Mousejunkies. She also first visited Walt Disney World as a child, and also wasn’t properly captured by the magic until she returned as an adult.

Hidden Magic of Walt Disney World by Susan Veness

Nowadays Veness is firmly hooked and this combined guide book and history of the four theme parks – The Magic Kingdom, Epcot, Disney’s Hollywood Studios and Disney’s Animal Kingdom – is actually the kind of book you could read for entertainment, not just information. Veness has obviously spent plenty of time exploring these parks (apparently she lives just down the road, which certainly makes it easier) and doesn’t stop at basic hints or tips for visitors. There are interesting snippets of history, “fascinating fact” boxes and maps with useful visiting tips.

An unknown fact that caught my eye, for example, was the fact that the plans for the Japanese pavilion at Epcot originally included a Mount Fuji roller coaster. However, the idea was scrapped, and one of the reasons for this was that the major sponsor, Kodak, didn’t want visitors being reminded of their competitor, Fuji Film! These kinds of tidbits are littered throughout Hidden Magic and make it a more than worthwhile read.

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Book Review: The Hidden Magic of Walt Disney World

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Fun on Foot in New York, by Warwick and Nola Ford, has a long but informative subtitle: “The runners’ and walkers’ guide to New York City and its surrounds in New York State and New Jersey”. This basically sums up exactly what this book is about.

The introductory section of Fun on Foot gives useful background information, which even includes detailed crime statistics if you’re worried about the safety of jogging in the streets of New York City, and information and maps for the New York City Marathon.

The remaining ten chapters take the reader through different regions of New York City, New York state and New Jersey. Each chapter gives details and maps of eight or nine different running routes. Photographs help runners check that they are on the right track. Each chapter concludes with a list of running clubs found in the area.

Whether you’re visiting New York or its surrounds and want to know some convenient routes for a jog or a walk, or are a resident who’s keen to discover some new paths for exercise, you will find Fun on Foot delivers what it promises – although getting out there and actually running is up to you.

photo credit: Diego_3336

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Book Review: Fun on Foot in New York

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Pulse Guides recently started a Night + Day series of guide books and one of their first was Joyce-Ann Gatsoulis’s Night + Day Athens. The goal behind the Night + Day books, which are part of the Cool Cities Series, is to provide travelers with not only the typical daytime sights to see, but also to provide some good tips for enjoying the evenings, and as far as this Athens guide is concerned, they’ve done well.

Joyce-Ann Gatsoulis Night + Day Athens Guide

If you haven’t got too much time for pre-trip reading and research, then the first section of this guide will help you out. It describes the “99 Best of Athens” – three picks for each of three categories. You can find the top three for things like art spaces, dance clubs by the sea, romantic dining, ouzeries, souvlaki places and even sushi restaurants.

There’s more detail in the rest of the guide with a series of three-day itineraries depending on how you want to experience Athens: the classic way, the hip and cool version, the downtown way or the by-the-water version, with information for shopping, hotels, restaurants, nightlife and sightseeing attractions. And if you’re like me and consider the best parts of Greece are actually outside of Athens, then the “Leaving Athens” section will be useful too – it has information on how to enjoy historic towns like Delphi and Olympia or romantic islands like Santorini or Mykonos.
photo credit: Panoramas

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Travels through Africa tend to make for fascinating travel narratives because the depths of Africa are usually places that fewer of us get to – and for that reason alone Tahir Shah’s In Search of King Solomon’s Mines: A Quest in Ethiopia is already a great armchair travel story. The premise, too, is a great start: Shah come across “an inky hand-drawn map hung on the back wall of Ali Baba’s Tourist Emporium” in Jerusalem’s Old City, and when the shopkeeper explains it is a treasure map leading to King Solomon’s mines, the quest is on.

With research into old folklore and the experiences of travelers in bygone eras, Shah sets off to Ethiopia. Things start badly when a rabid guide dog bites him shortly after he arrives, but then the real search beings. And while the search gives a goal to the trip, the story is really in the local people that Shah meets along the way. A great set of photos in the middle of the book introduce the reader visually to some of these interesting people. But if you want to know if Shah’s quest ends up in a real gold mine, you’ll have to read the book yourself.
photo credit: Marc Veraart

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Book Review: In Search of King Solomon’s Mines

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There are plenty of Disney World guides out there – and some people would argue that a theme park visitor doesn’t really need to read a whole guide book before a visit – but at least Bill Burke’s Mousejunkies! Tips, Tales and Tricks for a Disney World Fix makes the tips and tricks entertaining – and it’s been put out by the reliably-interesting publisher, Travelers’ Tales.

Burke first visited Walt Disney World as a kid in 1981, and loved it as all normal kids do, but he didn’t get back there again for almost two decades. In 1998 he flew down to Florida with his wife, and the vacation started badly – but turned out well in the end and started off Burke’s Disney addiction. Burke goes on to introduce some fellow “Mousejunkies”, who feature throughout the rest of the book with some of their personal tips.

There is some standard guide book style information in this book, but it’s introduced most often as part of an anecdote or past Disney travel experience, so it’s very readable. There are, however, also some slightly mind-boggling tables about the costs for various parts of a Disney experience and how they vary from season to season. Chapters on hotels, restaurants and the various rides and attractions give you very detailed information on how to get the best experience, although for me, the overwhelming feeling I’m left with is that these Mousejunkies have spent far too much time at Disney World!

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Book Review: Mousejunkies!

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A book with the Travelers’ Tales imprint is often a reliably good read, but just come across one that’s better than good – it’s one of the funniest books I’ve read in ages. Gary Buslik’s A Rotten Person Travels the Caribbean, with its long but important subtitle, “A grump in paradise discovers that any place it’s legal to carry a machete is comedy just waiting to happen”, is a book full of stories about Buslik’s travels in the Caribbean, a region of the world which surely should have banned him from entering by now, if even half the tales in his book are true.

The opening story, for example, takes place in Mustique, a small privately-owned island in St Vincent and the Grenadines which has been known to host more than a few famous vacationers. But rather than have a story featuring a wild night out with Mick Jagger or Kate Moss, Buslik’s tale of Mustique centers on a run in with the late Ugandan dictator Idi Amin. It turns out, if you can believe it (and I’m inclined to, because it’s too odd and too funny to be invented), that Buslik accidentally urinated on Amin, who then became slightly obsessed with Buslik’s wife – so at least they had something to tell their friends back home.

This book continues in this vein, wandering throughout many parts of the Caribbean, sometimes focusing on the people they meet, or on domestic squabbles, or movies, or sharing a bit of history or culture – but whatever’s happening, it’s funny, and highly recommended.

photo credit: Topyti

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Book Review: A Rotten Person Travels the Caribbean

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Melanesia is a part of the world that not many people get the opportunity to travel to, tucked away in the south-western corner of the Pacific Ocean near Australia – it’s a region including Papua New Guinea, Fiji, Vanuatu and the Solomon Islands. From his childhood, author Charles Montgomery had exotic visions of Melanesia gained from records of his great-grandfather’s travels there a century earlier as a missionary, and as an adult, Montgomery decides he must find out more about the region.

His research and travels have turned into the compelling travel narrative The Shark God: Encounters With Ghosts and Ancestors in the South Pacific, a tale blending historical fact with Montgomery’s own experiences, and dipping back into the memoir his great-grandfather Henry Montgomery wrote, The Light of Melanesia, about his experiences as a bishop trying to “save the heathens”.

The younger Montgomery’s travels take him from libraries in Britain to Fiji, Vanuatu and the Solomon Islands, uncovering local customs and trying to trace the route of his great-grandfather’s journey and meet the descendants of those the bishop dealt with. Being rich in historical and cultural facts, The Shark God is occasionally heavy going, but does provide enough gems of insight into the Melanesian peoples to make it well worth reading.

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Book Review: The Shark God, in the South Pacific

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If you buy one of these travel guide books from Rough Guides, you can be at least reasonably sure that the information inside is not too far out of date, because they’ve all been published in the first half of 2009:

• The Czech Republic guide is being sold as a first edition, and while there’s an emphasis on capital city Prague, it also covers the rest of the country with information and maps.
• Rough Guides has started really going in depth on parts of Italy, with two new releases this year: a guide to Naples and the Amalfi Coast as well as one for Florence and the Best of Tuscany.
• Heading south, Rough Guides has released a new guide (its eighth edition) to the north African country of  Tunisia, a great safe place to go as an introduction to the cultures of the region.
• With more than 800 pages, if you are planning a cheap trip around Central America, the new Central America on a Budget guide might be the one for you – it’s targeted at backpackers or other budget travelers but it still includes “Treat Yourself” sections with suggestions for more expensive experiences that might be worthwhile.

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Highlights from 2009 Rough Guides Catalog

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British bushcraft and survival expert Ray Mears is probably one of the most appropriate people to write a book about wandering through the Australian outback, and his book Ray Mears Goes Walkabout was published recently to accompany a BBC TV series of the same name. It’s a nearly coffee table-sized book, with an appropriate amount of glossy pictures, but with plenty to read as well. The book is divided up into sections looking at topics such as early British exploration in Australia, the rock art of the Aboriginal people, the real desert outback of the country, and a special section on the often overlooked Torres Strait Islands off the north of Australia.

The text includes a mix of Australian history, the current state of the Australian bush, and tales of Ray Mears’ own experiences there. As most people would expect, there are also tales of the dangers of the Australian outback, both in terms of weather and conditions, and the dangerous creatures that can be found there. The book also includes transcripts of interviews or descriptions of stories told by locals who met with Mears during his journey, and would certainly make a great pre-trip read for anyone contemplating an exploration of the Aussie bush.
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Book Review: Ray Mears Goes Walkabout

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Sing, and Don’t Cry: A Mexican Journal by Australian writer Cate Kennedy is the kind of travel narrative that will interest you deeply, but either make you want to run off to an exotic location as a volunteer, or stay firmly forever at home.

Sing, and Don't Cry: A Mexican Journal by Australian writer Cate Kennedy

Kennedy finds herself working in a Mexican rural development organization helping out in a “microcredit cooperative” – basically, a bank for local peasants. Her very first experiences there teach her much about the local situation, when someone explains the five reasons this “bank” might give you a small loan – for medical help, education, home improvement, important celebrations, or to join a pilgrimage. The lessons don’t stop coming as Kennedy spends two years in Mexico meeting all kinds of interesting people and learning a whole lot of life lessons while she also tries to teach locals to sew and speak English.

With Kennedy being a well-known fiction writer in her home country, it’s not surprising that the prose of this travel narrative is particularly strong and enticing. Sing, and Don’t Cry’s close examination of poverty and getting out of your comfort zone might make some readers uncomfortable, but because Kennedy is so honest and open about her experiences, it really does make for a fascinating read.
photo credit: Christian Frausto Bernal

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Book Review: Sing, and Don’t Cry: A Mexican Journal

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The old adage that says a picture is worth a thousand words seems to hold true especially well for travel. Browsing through Lonely Planet’s One Planet: Inspirational Travel Photographs, a collection of some of the best photos from the Lonely Planet Images Library, will give you plenty of inspiration for your future travels; alternatively, you could simply use it as an excellent armchair travel experience.

The introduction to this (smallish) coffee table book says that the pictures were chosen for beauty, of course, but also “for their sense of capturing a moment in time, a moment that is shared across the globe”. And it’s a good point, because this collection is relatively free of those vast landscape photographs or impossible-to-replicate air shots that some travel books love. In fact, in the vast majority of photographs there are people, keeping the collection far removed from typical postcard shots.

The photographs are, as you can imagine, from across the world: a teenager in Chile, divers in Indonesia, street parades in London and people struggling against typhoon winds in Hong Kong. It’s a book to dip into again and again, whether you’re looking for ideas to help you plan a trip or just wanting to escape for a moment from everyday life.
photo credit: gezelle

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Book Review: One Planet from Lonely Planet

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Germany’s cities are not sexy destinations like Paris or Rome, but they certainly have a lot to offer – and that’s the message that comes through in the most recent Rick Steves’ Germany 2009 guide. With some cities given a real boost, others, however, are not spoken of so highly, and most of the country areas seem to be ignored. For the typical visitor to Germany, the guide probably provides what is necessary, but it certainly wouldn’t suffice for a second visit.

There are huge sections devoted to Munich and Salzburg – the latter, of course, is in Austria rather than Germany, but being relatively near to the border, is thrown in as an extra. Both of these cities are covered extensively, using up about 10% of the book each. There are then chapters for various cities and regions including the Black Forest, Frankfurt, Dresden and Berlin, but this is by no means an extensive coverage of the country. In fact, the guide is really just centered on a few parts of German, particularly cities and not much of what’s in between.

In addition, Steves labels the university town of Heidelberg a tourist trap full of Americans and not worth a visit – in reality, most consider Heidelberg still worthwhile and it’s easy to find Heidelberg gems off the main tourist beat. Also, the cursory history section of the guide – a very short ten pages compared to the 50 or 60 devoted to some of the cities – doesn’t really provide enough information for visitors to appreciate many of the historical sights they will come across in a proper context.
photo credit: Spigoo

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Book Review: Rick Steves’ Germany 2009

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Drink, Play, F@#k: One Man’s Search for Anything Across Ireland, Vegas and Thailand by Andrew Gottlieb keeps ending up in the travel narrative shelves – not least of all because it’s clearly cheekily reminiscent of Elizabeth Gilbert’s Eat, Pray, Love – and it reads like a travel narrative too. Traveler Bob Sullivan, the “one man” of the title, is apparently the fictitious invention of the author; but one can hardly stop from wondering how autobiographical this novel/travel story might be.

In any case, the premise of the story is simple: Bob Sullivan’s wife suddenly leaves him for another man after eight years of marriage. He’s in his late thirties, suddenly single, unsure of what to do next so he decides to go around the world. Well, not quite around the world, as he just picks three places to spend his “year off”: Ireland, Las Vegas and Thailand.

And off he goes, with all the usual travel tales of disaster, mayhem and companionship along the way. Fiction this may be, but there are plenty of cultural and touristy anecdotes and details to tell us plenty about life in these parts of the world. It’s also written in an entertaining style and features plenty of the activities suggested by the title, making it a good vacation read.

photo credit: mandj98

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Book Review: Drink Play F@#k

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Frommer’s 500 Places to See Before They Disappear by Holly Hughes is another in a long list of “must see” books doing the rounds of the the travel shelves in the last few years. This one says it is intended for eco-tourists who are keen to visit places that are affected by environmental change or by a lack of preservation, and covers 500 sites that are both natural and man-made.

There are nine chapters in this book, dividing the 500 places into categories like mountains, ruins, architecture and water. Famous spots like the Grand Canyon, the Amazon rainforest and Machu Picchu feature, but there are also lesser known places like the El Fuerte de Samapiata fort in Bolivia and the Mabi Forest in Queensland, Australia. There’s a big bias towards American sights with many of the 500 sites to be found within the 50 states.

Each entry gives a good description of the place involved, plus a paragraph or two on why this site is endangered and what is being done to help preserve it. To finish off, there are also hotel recommendations.

Of course, the question is clearly whether such a book should exist or not. If these 500 places are in danger of disappearing, is it really a good idea to encourage tourists (even eco-friendly ones) to go traipsing off to visit them?
photo credit: Birdfreak.com

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Book Review: 500 Places to See Before They Disappear

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There are ever more travel narratives coming out of Russia, and Strange Telescopes: Following the Apocalypse from Moscow to Siberia, the new book by Daniel Kalder, is certainly one of the more unusual ones – in fact the “strange” of the title is definitely an apt adjective.

The opening prologue of Strange Telescopes is curious and you might wonder whether you are holding a story of travel or a cultish self-help book, but whichever the case, you do get a book that tells of all kinds of novel experiences across Moscow (and even under it). Kalder was living in Moscow when he heard about “the Diggers”, people who were allegedly living (literally) underground in Moscow, in a secret world variously thought to be a hidden metro line for government officials or an enormous KGB underground bunker. He decided to explore these theories and that’s how Strange Telescopes evolved.

This book reads at times like a suspense novel and at others like a cultural travelogue; it does give you an insight into sides of Russia and Russians that most of us will never come across even if we do make a trip to Moscow and beyond – but it will certainly make you see what you experience there with different eyes.
photo credit: acidka

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Book Review: Strange Telescopes in Moscow

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Hopping on the topical bandwagon of “slow travel” meant, for British writers Dan Kieran and Ian Vince, driving the full width of England in an electric milk float. This adventure led to the new book Three Men in a Float: Across England at 15mph, a somewhat mad and often hilarious discovery of England and its lesser known nooks and crannies.

The story really starts back in 1958 when this milk float was built and started life delivering milk around Oxford. Fast forward to 2007 and it was sold for £1,400 on eBay, and the new owner was one of the three friends (Dan, Ian and a third man, Pras) who would take on the challenge of driving the milk float six hundred miles across England, from east to west, at a maximum speed of 15 miles per hour.

The chapters in this book are written alternately by Dan and Ian, each covering another short leg of their journey. As with any odd trip like this, they meet unusual people, get involved in odd incidents and have moments where the whole adventure seems too ridiculous to be true. It’s all written with typical British tongue-in-cheek humor, so there are quite a few laughs to be had.

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Book Review: Three Men in A Float, Across England

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As Jeffrey Tayler points out in his new book Murderers in Mausoleums: Riding the Back Roads of Empire Between Moscow and Beijing, we hear a whole lot about Moscow and Beijing in the news these days – and thousands more tourists visit each city every month – but we don’t hear much at all about the places in between.

From the vantage point of someone who has lived in Russia since 1993, and can speak Russian, Turkish and enough Mandarin to chat with locals along the way, Tayler set out on a journey to figure out what’s going on in the twenty-first century version of these places in between. He traveled from Moscow across the Caucasus, through Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan and on through northern China to Beijing – an overland trip of some 7,200 miles.

When you open Murderers in Mausoleums you might initially get the sense that this will be a heavy-going historical and political narrative, but that’s only because Tayler includes the necessary background of Russian and Chinese history before he sets off on his journey. Get past that and out of the city, and the book focuses on the local people that he meets on his travels, with plenty of insightful descriptions of person and place but no didactic sociology lessons. It’s a great read about a part of the world that is set to become increasingly influential in the coming years, and about places that more travelers are likely to set foot in, too.
photo credit: AlphaTangoBravo / Adam Baker

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Book Review: Murderers in Mausoleums

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Celia Lyttelton has a new travel narrative book out that follows what’s becoming a fairly familiar route – travel writer gets something, then travels to where it came from. But the twist on this is that what Lyttelton “gets” is a scent: a special perfume created exclusively for her, using scents that originate from many countries around the world, and this is the path that her book The Scent Trail follows.

As she points out, “scent evokes memories”, and what better what to create a lasting memory of your travels than to be able to associate a particular scent with a particular place. Lyttelton started her career as a traveler young – her mother was an archaeologist and even as a child, Lyttelton accompanied her mother on some fairly hair-raising journeys. But this book is not based on archaeology, but a journey to find the origins of the scents used by a bespoke perfumer to create her personal scent.

The journey takes in such varied locations as France, Morocco, Turkey, Sri Lanka, Italy and Yemen, and along the way the reader learns not only about the customs of these countries and the lives of those involved in the scent trade, but also a lot of technical information about how perfumes are created – at times, perhaps a little too much for the average reader, although some of this is enclosed in pullout boxes that could be skipped over. Yet there are interesting facts to learn – like the fact that one component of some scents is derived from the vomit of sperm whales! On the whole, it’s definitely a sensually-described journey; an original idea and well carried out.
photo credit: Bob Cox Photography

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Book Review: On The Scent Trail Around the World

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You may not have had a chance to see the television series that inspired this book, but if you’re planning a trip to any part of Britain then taking a look at the Coast: The Walks book put out by the BBC will give you lots of ideas for walking outings along British coasts. You may not consider Britain as the ultimate destination for coastal hiking trails, but a quick flick through this book will convince you there is in fact plenty to be seen here.

Coast: The Walks: Over 50 Walks Inspired by the BBC Television Series

The book is laid out to make it both interesting reading and a useful guide. Fifty-four different walks on the coasts of England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland are each described in detail both with maps and by landmarks, with advice on what to look at and where to stop along the way. Each walk is labeled either easy, medium or hard, there is advice on parking your car in a convenient place for each walk, and the distances are given. There are also helpful photographs so you can have a better idea of the landmarks you’re looking for. Plus, each walk includes details of the local tourist information office and their website, so you can get any additional information you need to plan your trip.
photo credit: RATAEDL

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Book Review: Walk Around the British Coasts

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You might think you know New York City well, but until you’ve checked out a few of the attractions unearthed in Off the Beaten (Subway) Track: New York City’s Best Unusual Attractions by Suzanne Reisman, then you’ve really only just skimmed the surface.

As a local resident who craved travel, Reisman one day realised that there were dozens of unusual places to visit within an easy subway ride of her own front door. She set out to explore a bunch of obscure museums, almost famous sandwich shops and bakeries and hidden galleries, and compiled them all into a guidebook.

The unusual New York attractions are arranged in the book geographically, dividing metropolitan, subway-accessible New York into eight different districts, including Staten Island too. As well as a couple of pages describing Reisman’s own experiences, you will also find directions on how to get to each place and contact information too – many of the museums are so small they only open if you register your visit in advance. This book is certainly one way to discover some parts of New York City that both locals and tourists have rarely seen – although in some cases, there might be a good reason for that!
photo credit: WTL photos

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Book Review – Off the Beaten Subway Track

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