No Passport , New Books on Domestic Travel

In the distant, storied past of publishing, travel books were the stuff of elitist circles. Established writers, weary from the strains of major projects and hoping to pacify a demanding publisher, would treat the genre as a literary passport, an excuse to flit off somewhere exotic for a few months of touring and repose. Hemingway, Maugham, Stevenson, Clemens—the list is long and prestigious; many of the works stellar, yet high-minded and about as useful to most readers as an offshore trust account.
Today, the opposite is true. Aside from a few standouts such as Paul Theroux and Richard Bernstein, travel writers now fancy themselves neighborhood bartenders casually passing out the most banal, albeit useful, information about virtually every locale in the world.
Prompted by a post-11 September trend towards all things not requiring the use of an airplane, herein we will venture a peek at two dozen or so travel books restricted to our United States. Preponderant among these are nature- and wilderness-oriented works, ideal for spring break or summer vacation outings with kids along.
52 Great Weekend Escapes In Arizona is a wonderfully conceived, four-colored compendium from Northland Publishing. Organized by level of difficulty, season, and cost, activities range from sedate driving tours, meteorite hunting, and houseboating, to high-octane adventures like paragliding, rock climbing, and testing your limits at a survival school. Also by Northland is an inviting travel journal titled Arizona Reflections. Perfect bound with four-color photographs, it also contains contact information to the National Parks and Monuments of Arizona, as well as tourism offices and chambers of commerce.
In the Getaway Guide series by RDR Books, The American Southwest, “a self guided travel itinerary . . . will take you to the most fascinating places in New Mexico, Arizona, and the southern parts of Colorado, Utah, and Nevada.” Author Richard Harris (not surprisingly an Edward Abbey fan) writes skillfully, in fleshy, round sentences, a nice respite from the bullet-strewn staccato typically seen in guides of this sort. With ample historical references, this book will keep anyone’s thirst diverted while crawling in search of a Mohave waterhole.
Another pleasant read is Yellowstone Treasures: The Traveler’s Companion to the National Park, published by Granite Peaks Publications: 384 pages, 150 color photos, 37 maps, and rich descriptions of the Parks’ geology, history, flora, and fauna.
Visitors to our National Parks may be surprised to hear that more than 20,000 historic structures are entrusted to the stewardship of the National Park Service, including the 14 Grand Lodges and three massive Chalets featured in an April 2002 offering from W.W. West. A bold 11” x 10” full-color hardcover, Great Lodges of the National Parks manages to convey a sense of western epic in detailing the construction of architectural landmarks that were built to approach the scale of the rugged terrain they stood on.
Trekkers in the southeast will appreciate a new guide to twenty-five wilderness trails in North Carolina, northern Georgia, and South Carolina by accomplished author Tim Homan and Peachtree Publishers. Homan writes densely and convincingly, as only a man who walked every foot of his subject matter could, in this cumbersomely titled Hiking Trails of the Southern Nantahala Wilderness, Ellicott Rock Wilderness, Chattooga National Wild and Scenic River. He refers to copperheads, yellow jackets, bear, and boar, allowing this reviewer to mention Don’t Get Sick: The Hidden Dangers of Camping and Hiking, soon to be released by The Mountaineers Books, a pocket-happy 4” x 6” softcover. This second edition offers tips on avoiding common wilderness diseases (from contaminated water, ticks, animals, etc.) and what to do if infected. Don’t expect advice on fending off a wolverine, but do look for little eyebrow-raisers like the fact that rabies can be acquired by inhaling the virus in bat-ridden caves.
Another soon-to-be-released book of caution is Secrets of the Snow: Visual Clues to Avalanche and Ski Conditions by the University of Washington Press.
For those in the northeast, an outdoor excursion usually involves water in one of its many forms, none of which is more dramatic than a waterfall. In 200 Waterfalls In Central and Western New York, authors Sue and Rich Freeman provide directions and specs to the easily accessible riverborne noisemakers of the Finger Lakes region.
Globe Pequot deserves a blue ribbon for Main Streets & Back Roads of New England, a marvelous compilation of interviews and essays from fifty northeastern towns. Based on a popular television program that first aired in 1982, this book retains the visual acuity of TV as well as the pacing and informality of a good interview. One comes away with the impression that only New England has the character to make this format work.
Two recently updated books from Berkshire House Publishers will tempt us back to the West Coast for epicurean reasons. As part of their Great Destinations guidebook series, The Napa & Sonoma Book and The Monterey Bay, Big Sur & Gold Coast Wine Country Book are ideally suited for the hiker who can’t keep his mind on the trail for thinking about the abalone and pinot noir reserved for dinner that night. In its sixth edition, The Napa & Sonoma Book offers much more depth as evidenced by the nine chapters covering History, Transportation, Lodging, Culture, Restaurants & Food Purveyors, Wineries & Specialty Brewers, Recreation, Shopping, and, in case they missed anything, Information. These books are of the new breed, providing an immense amount of time-sensitive contact information, directions, suggestions, historical notes; virtually everything except a corkscrew and cash; maybe in the next edition.
And the award for the most descriptive title goes to The Ultimate Hollywood Tour Book: The Incomparable Guide to Movie Stars’ Homes, Movie and TV Locations, Scandals, Murders, Suicides, and All the Famous Tourist Sites, from North Ridge Books. 272 pages, thirty-three maps, forty-nine photographs, and clean, entertaining writing from William Gordon, all for $15.95, the book is impressively organized and certain to find a starry-eyed audience.
Over the past seven years, Lake Claremont Press has garnered attention for Chicago-themed books, aiming “to preserve local history and foster a sense of place,” says publisher Sharon Woodhouse. Their most recent release is Literary Chicago: A Book Lover’s Tour of the Windy City by Greg Holden, who writes in the intro, “Chicago doesn’t like to think of itself as a snobbish, book-lover’s town. Yet by my purely unscientific count, it has more bookstores than London and a comparable amount to New York.” In true guidebook style, he pinpoints and accounts for an assortment of places of interest to writers and book lovers, including the Chicago haunts of Hemingway, Sandburg, Terkel, Royko, and many others.
While on an urban landscape, let’s look at Michael Brein’s Travel Guides to Sightseeing by Public Transportation. These map-like guides list the top fifty visitor attractions in major cities worldwide (mostly European) and how those tourist sites can best be reached via public transportation. By the end of 2002, the series will include nearly twenty titles.
The award-winning PassPorter Disney series has recently updated its Walt Disney World guidebook, this time covering the security changes that occurred after 11 September. Spiral bound, $21.95, it is easy to see why this book is a sought-after companion to the ten parks and twenty resorts of Orlando’s Disney complex.
Stackpole Books plans a May release for a guidebook titled Amusement Parks in Pennsylvania encompassing that state’s thirteen parks. Author Jim Futrell is the director of the National Amusement Park Historical Association, and this book promises to include plenty of vintage postcards and photos.
Both Hunter Publishing and Manatee Press are releasing guides to Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. Hunter’s Adventure Guide series now has over thirty titles, including The Inside Passage & Coastal Alaska to be released in March 2002. Author- publisher Harry Pariser’s series is called Explore and also includes guidebooks to Belize, the Dominican Republic, Costa Rica, and Barbados.
And finally, make a point to check out Eccentric America, described in back cover copy as “The Bradt Guide To All That’s Weird and Wacky In the USA.”