Travel Books

Great book for getting outdoors. Taken 4 trails since the book arrived and the author described the trails perfectly. Buy the book and take a hike taday. Recommended!

Great book! Well written and accurate descriptions of the trails. Highly recommended for anyone looking to hike in the Sacramento valley - even those with kids and/or pets.

Any who would explore the valleys or mountains of California's state capital region must have TOP TRAILS SACRAMENTO: MUST-DO HIKES FOR EVERYONE in their collection. It covers opportunities both urban and rural and joins others in the 'must do' trips series, comes from a Sacramento resident and hiker, and reveals both major routes and lesser-known regions. With its trail feature charts documenting wildlife, scenic vistas and trails and its details on weekend getaways and maps, TOP TRAILS SACRAMENTO offers up key getaways for all and is a top pick for any California library, especially those closer to Sacramento.

Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch

The details in this book helped me find some hidden natural gems just an hour or so from my home in the busy suburbs, and provided much interesting historical, geological and biological background to enrich the experience. Clear directions and trail descriptions made planning and navigating much easier. The amateur photos that I took on these hikes are like postcards - mountains, hills, streams, flowers, and incredible trees. The natural beauty and grandeur that I encountered on these hikes got me through some troubled times, and provided soothing reminders that nature's beautiful rhythms still go on despite our best efforts to interfere with them. I'm giving this book as a gift to all my central CA nature-loving friends.

I've used many hiking books over the years, but Steve Evans' Top Trails Sacramento is by far the most user friendly. The book gives you good directions to each trailhead and a realisitic assessment of difficulty. Best of all, you feel like you have the author along with you, pointing out interesting tidbits and things to watch for along the way. The maps and trail directions are also easy to follow.

This book is hilarious!! I laughed out loud through out the entire book. Tim writes about his Camino de Santiago journey with a donkey starting with donkey basics - like being scarred to death of the donkey - to learning about it's basic care and feeding. From there he sets out on the journey and records the reactions of other pilgrims and of local Spanish towns people to his donkey.

I have since tried to get "into" some of Tim Moore's other books. Yeah, they're funny, but it was this book that sent me over the edge laughing. If you enjoy Tim Moore's books, buy this one!!!

For those of you seeking serious books about the purity of a spiritual journey while making the pilgrimage to Saint Jame's Field of Stars - there's lots of good books out there - but this one, though completely irreverent, tells it like it is/can be. I met a couple in Santiago de Compostella that had just finished the walk and their main impression of the walk was that it was a real Peyton's Place. If you are the serious type, reading this book before you go may just save you some disappointment during your own walk, or at least prepare you for the less spiritual side of the walk.

I read a number of books about the Camino de Santiago before I did it in July-August of 2007. They were either practical guidebooks or deeply personal memoirs. I'd begun reading "Travels With My Donkey" about two weeks prior to departing for Spain, but I didn't get past the introduction - too busy with preparations. I figured I'd read enough anyway, and I wanted to save what looked like a good book for post-Camino reflection. I'm glad I waited until after my pilgrimage to read "TWMD," because it was an excellent and uniquely humorous account that brought me right back to the Camino.

Mr. Moore first became aware of the Camino when he met a pilgrim on "a small boat in Norway." As is common with those who've walked the Way, the idea settled in his mind and bloomed after a period of germination. Also like the typical pilgrim, he began doing research and making preparations for the trek. However, unlike most of us he decided to bring along a donkey. After some searching, he finally found one named Shinto and committed to his adventure. He and Shinto were trailered to Valcarlos, Spain, and commenced their trek to Santiago one step at a time.

During the next forty-one days, Mr. Moore and Shinto experienced numerous adventures on the Camino. Shinto became somewhat of a focal point - most of the time for good, but sometimes for ill. The author soon discovered the difficulties involved in herding a somewhat truculent donkey, including health issues, finding enough food for both of them, and securing donkey-friendly accommodation. Even so, he persevered and eventually formed a bond with Shinto based on shared hardship.

"TWMD" reminded me a lot of Bill Bryson's "A Walk in the Woods," another humorous account of a trek along an old trail. Indeed, both books made me laugh out loud in some spots and cringe in others. However, since I was fresh off the Camino, I was actually able to identify with Mr. Moore's experiences. I loved revisiting familiar towns and fondly remembered (or no-so-fondly remembered) refugios. And I empathized with the author's trials and tribulations, such as blisters, prickly pilgrims, harsh climate conditions, and fast automobile traffic.

"Travels With My Donkey" made me miss the Camino, and it also made me glad to be a peregrino. Recommended for those contemplating the Camino, pilgrims who have already walked the Way, and wanderers in general.

What possesses a completely urban Londoner to want to walk 500 miles across northern Spain... with a donkey named Shinto? Herein lies a tail, er... tale of self discovery and adventure through torrential rains (no rein puns here!) sweltering heat and encounters with religious and secular pilgrims (peregrinos, en espanol) on the Camino de Santiago. This ancient Christian pilgrimage crosses northern Spain from the French Pyrenees to Santiago de Compostela, resting place of St. James, patron saint of Spain. On opening this wonderful book you find yourself in the company of a person and donkey you enjoy spending time with. Smart, funny and a keen observer of people, Tim Moore's humanity suffuses this book and makes you feel the value of compassion. This is also one of those books that earns you inquisitive stares in public when you laugh loudly at one or another of his unexpected observations. When you are done you can even say you learned somthing about the history of Spain. This is great light reading. - Marcos Dinnerstein, www.parlo.com

Moore's sense of humor and his complaints get him to the Pas de Roman to visit the Spanish Santiago Cathedral over the Pyrenees from the Atlantic Coast of France. Along the way, we are all drawn into his contacts with other, serious and not so serious pilgrims; the landscapes; the hardships of caring for this donkey animal he starts the trip with not knowing or caring much about; the incredible overnight sleeping accommocations he encounters; the meals; the brandy; the elevations; rain and shale; bridges and cobble stones. Having driven alot of the trail myself without knowing much about what it was or what I was doing, I was tied into this wonderful and hilarious story every bit of the way, enjoying his cynicism and suspicion until he reached the pinnacle of Santiago for all his cold dismissal of the energy required to make this pilgrimage. I sensed he made quite a turn by the time he reached the end of the journey but then perhaps he'd started out more committed to personal spiritual reasons for the journey than I'd understood at the beginning. I LOVED the book, his hilarious ability to laugh at himself and his circumstances, his brilliant evaluations of others' situations, his cautious thoughtful spiritual tussles along the path and most of all the subtle way he slipped in so much of the history of that great period when the Crusaders were displacing the Saracens or the Muslims. The weight of the themes sneaks in on the reader as the book develops - there are so many twists and turns that this book would be a fantastic book club or academic assignment as it calls out for interaction among readers. Would it ever become a book tape? Would it ever become a play? I feel it should have wider dissemination. Great book!

Tim Moore has taken me on some extraordinary journeys in the past, from the Tour de France to the Monopoly board via the arctic deserts of Iceland, but I found this one easily the most enjoyable. If you don't fall in love with the infuriating but utterly endearing donkey he takes with him on this Spanish pilgrimage, I'll eat my cat...

I am only a novel reader when I am trying to escape my own realities... Erica Miner's book was perfect for my mental escape; she creates beautiful imagery, accompanied with a titillating story that sweeps the reader along a fascinating emotional journey. "Travels with My Lover" was exactly what I needed when I wanted to indulge my need to vicariously live through the eyes of another.

Erica Miner has created a heady and exotic read, very rich. She engages the reader in the culture well. As I read I felt that I should be listening to classical music, sipping red wine, wearing silk pajamas and eating bon-bons and slipping the odd Italian or French phrase into my vocabulary. Miner does an excellent job of putting the reader into the setting.

"Travels" is a sensual armchair journey to places I can only read about and wonder.....

Dr. Laura Schlessinger would blisteringly attack the operatic violinist heroine of Erica Miner's autobiographical novel Travels With My Lovers, a kind of erotic and romantic Gulliver's Travels. Her opera conductor husband is a closet gay, and while traveling in Italy with her two young children Julian and Regina, she visits Florence, a.k.a Fiorenza or Firenze, and has a liberating affair with a young Florentine Romeo named Carlo. Every summer she leaves the children with their father for three weeks and has exotic voyages into the territory of amore and amour in France, Italy, and Switzerland, for a start. This reader thinks: Judge not, lest ye be judged. The heroine's marriage suffers a blow because of the husband's closet homosexuality-a subtle comment on our society's invasive tendency to control people's private loves.

Erica Miner's heroine strives to be a good mother, and this is reflected in the tolerant attitudes of the children during the heroine's five life stages: young married mother, new divorcée, mature mother, single mother yearning for a commitment, and free-spirited mother of a teenage daughter. The novel is an exercise in freedom and unexplored frontiers, immersing us in foreign lands and languages, reminding us, post-9/11, that life without discovery and emotional complexity is no life at all.

This is an extremely good novel. I could not put it down.the charactors are likable and interesting.I am really looking forward to the sequal..

Travels With My Lovers by Erica Miner is a sexual and transcendental novel. A New York woman who travels to Europe and experiences the depth and breadth of life and love. As a young wife and mother who uncovers a life-altering secret about her husband, to a gay divorcee with children to be concerned about, to a soulmate in a quest for a former love, and finally, returning to her home soil when her kids are grown, the heroine of this narrative experiences a broad range of emotion and maturity. Travels With My Lovers is a sensual and involving saga, adroitly presented and skillfully narrated.

This series of stories about about Francis Tucket is chocked full of encounters with Pawnee Indians, thieves, ruthless Comancheroes, sadistic murderers, and rattlesnakes. But the stories are also populated by such wonderful characters like Lottie and Billy, Jason Grimes, the one-armed mountain man, Garcia, and Iktah. Paulsen who has the deserved reputation as a great storyteller has created a series that will entertain as well as educate. You are given a glimpse of just how harsh conditions were for early settlers in the West but the stories also re-affirms our hope that there are truly good people out there as well.

I LOVE ALL THE GARY PAULSEN BOOKS. THE francis tuckets are some of my favorites because i've always wanted to go back in time to the western days and these books took me there.

travis l. blue.

I have already read both of the Misadventures of Maude March books. My grandmother bought me thiese books because I kept looking for more westerns. These Tucket books are very good but something is missing. Partly girls. Partly a lot of other people. Still I can't cut off any stars.

It's a good thing they are all five together. This book was so good even I (mom) didn't want to stop reading it! I even cried at the end. My son (9 yrs) and I read this together. It is a very good book to read aloud because you can explain things if you need, and you (as an adult) can really add some drama with your voice. One night my son had a friend stay overnight (8 yrs) and he wasn't excited about having me read to them (especially in the middle of the book and all) but he was hooked after one chapter. I think this would be a good book for those who "hate" reading because the story just pulls you in and keeps you wanting to know what happens next. There is even a little bit of historical information and things to learn (but don't tell the kids!) I would recommend it to grades 3 and up. My 6 yr old had trouble sitting still for it.

This was a great story!!! I loved it! If you are looking for a book, this would be the book to read!!!

We have used the other "Unofficial" Guide books and this one had good info that we used while in Vegas. Excellent reviews for shows and food. We were not disappointed. Would like to see Timeshare Accomodations included in the lodging. Our timeshare experience was excellent. A great option instead of the standard hotel. Another excellent "Unofficial" guide.

Great source of information for my Vegas trip. I love all of the unofficial Guides. Great for finding in city discounts and information.

My wife and I spent a week in Las Vegas recently. We've been going there every few years. The information and maps provided come in very handy. The hotel reviews are on the button. We stayed at the New York New York, and the review was about right. Last year, we stayed at the Monte Carlo, and again, the review was on the button. We had some excellent steaks at Mon Ami Gabi, not far from our hotel. If you plan on staying in Las Vegas for longer than a week, you will want this book.

I really like these "Unofficial" guides. Las Vegas changes so much that you almost have to buy a book yearly but I waited for 4 years to buy this one and it's just right! I can't tell you how accurate the information is until I take my trip but it sure has helped in the planning stages.

If you want the skinny on Las Vegas this is a great book to read. With a city as spectacular as "Sin City," you want an authoritative book that spells it all out. This book does just that. Definitely worth reading before you go to the glamor capital of the world.

Frank Scoblete: author of Golden Touch Dice Control Revolution! and Golden Touch Blackjack Revolution!

It is a great book lots of informatio

I found this book to be fantastic! I was especially impressed with the restaurant reviews. I have been to Disney twice since I read this book and I would not leave home without it. There are so many restaurants to choose from at Disney. This book will help you get through the maze!

I will have to say that this book is by far the best guide to the park available, with (for the most part) dead on evaluations of rides and restaurants. My only problem with the book is that some of the reviews of attractions exaggerate their attributes so much that you wind up disappointed. For instance, Star Tours and Body Wars, two similar rides, get high ratings and warnings about their intensity, yet wound up being more like a Wal Mart parking lot ride with a film projected in front of it. A great investment, if only for its touring plans for all of the theme parks.

I have used the guide for my last three trips and I find it very realistic. It also offered answered questions a Disney traveler may only ask once. For instance the chapter on weddings helped me to plan my own. Using the info in the guide coupled with creative planning and common sense I had a dream Disney wedding for $268.00 US dollars. Reception on property, cake made by Disney and memories that will last forever.This years valuable tip comes from the Universal chapter which we look forward to seeing for the first time in September

This guide provides a realistic view of planning and participating in a Disney World vacation (and often humorous insites from readers). The book praises that which is good and shoots down that which is not. This is the 3rd unofficial guide I have used. It can seem kind of "commando" at times. Use what you need and store the rest for info. Restaraunt reviews are great. It is very lacking in lodging specifics. You'll need to read another guide book for that. It is behind the times in a few areas but nothing that you can't live with. I'm waiting anxiously for November to arrive so I can purchase the 98 version. If you have never been to Disney World or have only been once before or you have not LEARNED from your past MISTAKES, this is a must if you want a vacation thats less stressfull than most Disney visitors--get this book. Most people do not realize that a Disney vacation can be stressfull. Read and find out why

Walking though California is great! What a way to spend the Civil War!
This book is loaded with virginal observations of the state and some of the effects that the gold rush had on the environment.

This book came in great shape. It is a very good book of very early california history. It's well put together for the fourth edition. I have thoroughly enjoyed the bookd

nice to read the words of a man long dead who lived in a young America.
great read, lots of details on california's transformation period

I loved this book, and have started giving copies as gifts. The synopsis explains well what it is, so I won't go into that. But the style is both easy and intelligent, an easy yet rewarding read. Brewer's writing sounds like you're sitting down to a cup of coffee with this guy as he tells you these great stories (not 'tall tales' though.)

I also loved the format, since it is a collection of letters. It allowed me to pick up the book and read 1 page or 20 pages depending on how much time I had, where I was etc. It's Ok to put it down for a week or more, but then you can jump right back in.

It is a 'long' book, but there's no compulsion to read it straight through, you can meander through this book over days, weeks or months, or 'real-time' in years even, that's how his family and friends experienced it.

If you live anywhere in California where Brewer went, or if you've visited there, it is fascinating to hear his descriptions of the places from 150 years before.

I can't rave enough about this book!

I bought this book last summer in Lee Vining CA while on a trip through the Eastern Sierra and after reading it found myself looking at California with new eyes.
One reviewer said that even those who are not Californians will enjoy this book. True enough, but I think that the reader who has a detailed knowledge of the geography of the state will come away from Up And Down California In 1860-1864 with a much greater appreciation for Brewer's accomplishments. I know California very well, and as I read along, I could picture nearly every place Brewer described in my mind's eye because I had been at those places myself.
This book is a riveting and thoroughly absorbing glimpse of the California that was. Brewer's style is informative, entertaining, and not bogged down by political correctness. He calls things as he sees them and gives the reader not only a physical description of his journeys with all their pleasures and hardships, but also a good look at the way people lived and rubbed along with one another in what was then a brave new world. His journeys covered most of the state save the Mojave/Colorado deserts, the San Diego area, the extreme Northeast, and the area between what is now Healdsburg and Eureka. Some of the places he does go are remote still today, such as the area of the New Idria mines in present San Benito County and the still wild Southern Sierra along the upper reaches of the Kern River.
I recommend Brewer's journal to all who have an abiding love for the diverse state that is California. After reading it, you will see the state with new eyes every time you take a road trip along its byways.

These DeLorme maps are great. I plan on visiting the state of Utah next spring and do some hiking while I am there and these look great. The details of the roads and all campsites are awesome. I plan to purchase more of these of other states. They even have details about fishing being available.

Quick delivery, good price, excellent travel guide for the state of Utah where you want to see terrain, not just highways.

I think the title says it all. It is very useful. I got it really fast and it is flawless.

Great maps as always from DeLorme.. I have 6 different states, great for fly fishing, fishing and hiking.. You can use the GPS cordinates to get to specific locations. A must have for the fisherman, hiker and camper.

I love these DeLorme maps. I love traveling in the West but since I live in New Jersey, I get a little nervous sometimes when driving around Utah or Arizona - it's just so empty compared to what I'm used to. These Delorme atlases are my security blanket. They're so detailed that no matter where I am, I can look at the map and find a road or a landmark that will reassure me that I'm in the right place.

Outdated and long out of print, this is still one of the best budget travel books ever written. Keruoac got me off my butt and out onto the great American highways and byways. Ed Buryn got me off my butt and into the wonders of Europe and North Africa. I sometimes forget how much I owe this book. Written at the height of hippie adventurism of the late sixties and early seventies, I read it as a young and rudderless kid of those times and, smitten with wanderlust, found myself just a few years later hiking through the back alleys of Lisbon, Paris, Marrakesh, and Athens. Buryn fired my spirit and imagination and today, as my adventure on the road continues, his book is a continuous inspiration. And by "outdated" I only mean that most of the references mentioned in the book are no longer valid. In spirit, the book is a timeless evocation of the human spirit to discover and rejoice in exotic new worlds. Where are you Ed Buryn? Time to get off your butt and revise your budget travel masterpiece!

The title of this review is the eponymous opening quotation by Ed, who clearly found that combining roots and rootlessness were the central reason for joie de vivre. The sections on Ed meeting his relatives in Poland are priceless. Ed Buryn inspired, cajoled, wheedled and pushed, I would imagine, hundreds -- perhaps thousands -- of couch-bound and comfortable middle class youth into the wilds of Western and Eastern Europe. I was one of them -- and did it as an active duty Naval officer. Buryn had been a hero of one of my itinerant college roommates at University of Florida -- you know, the guy who sleeps on the couch and who has no visible means of support...except for the couch -- and, as my roommate (livingroommate, that is) extolled his virtues, I grew more and more enchanted with Buryn, and more and more disenchanted with my roommate, who never actually went anywhere. I bought a copy of Buryn's book, read it, and vicariously lived it for SIX YEARS...until I finally went twice to Europe (once on Uncle Sam's dime to fight the cold war, once on my own), living Buryn-tilt-boogie and still retaining my civility (a Buryn hallmark, by the way, for those parents who find their children reading Ed: they'll be much better kids, later on). Go to Europe. Go with Ed.

I read this (at least some of it) in 1973 before traveling with a friend to Europe, Middle East, Far East. It gave me great comfort then that I (we) could do so cheaply and quickly.

Now Ed's book is more of a history of 60s vagabonding than a practical guide for today's traveller, but fun reading and don't let that stop you from buying it and getting the Vagabonding Bug... Travel On!

A wonderful read if you're going to Europe or New Jersey!

I was a kid living at home, read the book at Los Alamitos library in 1973, and got the vision to do Europe in this way. Went alone in June 74 for 3 1/2 months. The book is a philosophy and attitude that the people of Europe are the key--if you can open yourself up to them. I was adopted, in a way, by different people throughout Europe as I traveled (part of it was probably that they sorry for me--dumb kid who really didn't know what he was doing). But what I remember well 27 years later is those people. I would not have been inspired to do the trip if it wasn't for the book. I passed the book on to someone at work after my trip--and remember the gratitude of the guy I gave it to. The philosophy that is this book IS a gift!

This wonderful book reveals the secret of how to be a good traveler. "Vagabonding" is the right word. And you don't have to be a low-budget traveler to vagabond. It's a way of thinking, a way of looking and hearing, and a way of being.

I read the book in 1972. Ed Buryn put my head in the right place to make my 9 month trip in Europe and North Africa, (of all places), an extremely enjoyable experience. I went alone but constantly met up with others who I traveled with for a day or months.

Today I do a lot of business travel. But even though its nice restaurants and first class hotels there are still the hassles - long days on the road, not sleeping well, changes in schedule. It's times like those that I use the wisdom brought out in this book. It should be required reading for "Life 101".

Good books with fast service!
Thanks, Sent right away~

Thanks,
Gloria

Well written and hightly entertaining.
This small book captures the remarkable
charm and southern sleekness of this
city. AND the recipes are wonderful.

I've been going to Charleston since I was a small child, and I learned a few things from this fun little book. I bought it for the illustrations- I love maps and "Did you know" kinds of books-and thought this was the perfect marriage of the two. Charleston is so interesting that I think there is more to tell, so I wish it were a little longer.

My daughter had this book with her when we visited Charleston for the 2nd time. After reading it (couldn't put it down), we found more reasons to return to this wonderful area; learned more interesting facts about already viewed streets, homes and history. It is a light read with beautiful watercolor pictures throughout the book. Don't pass it up!

The wonderful watercolor drawings and short descriptions make this book a must have for those people who have been (or will soon go) to Charleston, South Carolina. The spirit and color of Charleston is captured in this small volume. I traveled to Charleston with three other women and we all bought this book! One lady even used it as her trip journal, making comments in the book about places we had been. I bought one for another friend going to Charleston and she, too, loved this little book.