Review: The Travel Book

Title: The Travel Book: A Journey Through Every Country In The World
Author: Roz Hopkins, Laetitia Clapton (Editor), Janet Austin (Editor)
Published: Lonely Planet, 2005
Where I Got It: Christmas present a few years ago
Why I Read It: I love travel books!
Rating: 5 stars

Review:

This is one of my favorite books to look through. Whenever the travel bug bites I either watch one of Samantha Brown's shows on the Travel Channel or I pick this book up and the travel bug (temporarily) goes away. As much as I love to travel and see new places my bank account does not always agree! Actually, it rarely agrees! But this book helps keep me sane!

This book is amazing. Seriously. Lonely Planet takes you on an adventure, an adventure that goes through 230 countries (in alphabetical order). Each country gets two pages in the book. One page is just pictures, and the other is facts about the country. This book is informative, but please don't read this if you want to learn every little thing about Peru or what hostels to stay in when you travel to France. The Travel Book just gives a general overview (with gorgeous pictures). This is a great resource to be able to get a sense of all of the countries in the world.

One each country's page it follows the same format: There is a small blurb about the country followed by: The best time to visit, Essential experiences (things you must do!), Getting under the skin (what to read, listen to, eat and drink to get a better feel of the country), In a word (a word of phrase that sums up the country/language), Trademarks, Surprises, and there is always a small map of the country at the end of the page. Plus the country's capital, population, and official language are also given.

This book may be a little outdated in some aspects, as it was published five years ago but it is still a fantastic read. You can travel the whole world just by lounging on the couch. I think it makes a great coffee table book.

Where to first? Your journey awaits...