Tips Books

Vagabonding: An Uncommon Guide to the Art of Long-Term World Travel

Rolf Potts

Amazon Price: $11.16 List Price: $13.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Villard Books Amazon Marketplace: 52 new & used starting at $7.90

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 57 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Travel Light 4 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

Great travel book that underscores the need to travel light, both in terms of physical and mental baggage, in order to truly explore the world. The author shares lots of anectdotes that illustrate the value in straying from the beaten path, while explaining how to do so safely. I can't wait to put the lessons learned from this book into practice!

Editorial Review:

Vagabonding is about taking time off from your normal life—from six weeks to four months to two years—to discover and experience the world on your own terms. Veteran shoestring traveler Rolf Potts shows how anyone armed with an independent spirit can achieve the dream of extended overseas travel. Potts gives the necessary information on:

• financing your travel time
• determining your destination
• adjusting to life on the road
• working and volunteering overseas
• handling travel adversity
• re-assimilating back into ordinary life

Not just a plan of action, vagabonding is an outlook on life that emphasizes creativity, discovery, and the growth of the spirit. Visit the vagabonding community’s hub at www.vagabonding.net.

The Smart Traveler's Passport: 399 Tips from Seasoned Travelers

Erik Torkells, the readers of Budget Travel

Amazon Price: $10.17 List Price: $14.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Quirk Books Amazon Marketplace: 48 new & used starting at $3.74

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 21 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Tips harder to find than ShangriLa 2 out of 5 stars.
5 of 5 people found this review helpful.

Hard to find specific tips, as no index nor organizational sequence by topics. Is very random, and while I have found good suggestions from the magazine issues, this is just too random to be of great assistances

Editorial Review:

Budget Travel magazine isn't just about the best travel experience at the lowest price it's also about traveling "the right way." Their philosophy, "Vacations for real people," has led them to their readership for guidance, and this collection of their readers' best 399 travel tips is an essential addition to any traveler's library. In The Smart Traveler's Passport, you'll learn:
13 different uses for Ziploc bags
How dental floss can double as a tape measure
Where to find the best street food in cities worldwide
How a digital camera can help you find your rental car
Why clearing your Web browser's cache will lead to lower prices on airfare and hotel reservations
How to avoid long lines at the world's most popular attractions

Designed to look and feel like an actual passport, these tips on planning, booking, packing, flying, safety, security, and getting around make the perfect bon voyage gift!

The Packing Book: Secrets of the Carry-on Traveler (Packing Book: Secrets of the Carry-On Traveler)

Judith Gilford

Amazon Price: $10.17 List Price: $14.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Ten Speed Press Amazon Marketplace: 48 new & used starting at $6.69

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 13 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

How to Carry On 5 out of 5 stars.
5 of 5 people found this review helpful.

First, decide you're ready to travel hassle-free (or as close to it as possible). Next, visualize your perfect carry-on travel wardrobe. Author and packing expert Judith Gilford makes it all a breeze in this readable, oddly interesting handbook. She includes specific lists to jumpstart your thinking about packing for business, vacation and special itineraries - adventure, business or cruise travel, for instance. She offers great tips, from how to pack a layered bundle to keep your clothes wrinkle-free to the best practices for stain removal. getAbstract recommends her guidelines if you want to be able to travel light and still have everything you need upon arrival.

Editorial Review:

This completely revised and updated edition of the best-selling PACKING BOOK offers carry-on packing strategies tailored for today’s travelers. Filled with checklists for every kind of trip, this indispensable guide presents organizational tips and information to help you effortlessly manage security issues, while ensuring you’ve packed for any situation.

Live Your Road Trip Dream: Travel for a Year for the Cost of Staying Home

Phil White, Carol White

Amazon Price: $12.21 List Price: $17.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: RLI Press Amazon Marketplace: 44 new & used starting at $4.99

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 39 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Where would your dream take you if you had a whole year to just travel? But perhaps you’re thinking, "if I only knew how to start planning my adventure!" This detailed "how-to" guide will get you moving from the dreaming to the doing in no time at all.

Included is step-by-step, real-life information on planning the trip you’ve always wanted to take -- along with generous doses of humor and advice on topics such as:

* How to pay for a year away from home * How to unravel all your current commitments – to family, work, and organizations * How to plan on the fly and enjoy every day * How to pack in 3 small drawers and 24" of closet space – for two! * How to handle the emergencies that crop up along the way * And the most asked question: How to enjoy your traveling companion on a 24/7 basis!

Once you’ve decided to "leave it all behind", Live Your Road Trip Dream takes you along on an action-packed, whirlwind tour of the authors’ trip – just to help you visualize what months on the road might really be like, and to offer a glimpse into how decisions and discoveries are made along the way.

This is the ultimate road trip planning guide.

Volunteer vacations: Short-term adventures that will benefit you and others (Volunteer Vacations)

Bill McMillon

List Price: $11.95 By: Distributed by Independent Publishers Group Amazon Marketplace: 11 new & used starting at $0.01

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 8 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Great Resource for Those Who Want A Different Type of Vacation 5 out of 5 stars.
9 of 9 people found this review helpful.

*****
I bought this book out of curiosity and was amazed at the variety of opportunities available to travel and contribute throughout the world. The book is a compendium of opportunities of every imaginable type, an incredible resource if you're even thinking about a taking a vacation in which you volunteer.

Each opportunity contains all contact information, include web site, the types of projects available, organization mission statements, the year founded, the number of volunteers last year (so that you can see the scope of the program), funding sources, what kind of work the organization does, project locations, time line (when and for how long commitments are made), cost (including arrangements that must be made like medical examinations), how to get started, needed skills, and the specific populations that could qualify.

The book is very friendly to those with limitations (for example, sight limitations, physical agility, etc.). There are also stories throughout the book from volunteers about their actual experiences while volunteering.

There is a section on long-term volunteering opportunities. There are four indexes: by project cost, project length, location, season, and type.

It is a wonderful book to use to explore what types of things you might like to do, as well as to use as a research base to search out specific opportunities. It is a great value, and an organized way to begin your volunteer journey!

Highly recommended.
*****

Editorial Review:

Fully updated and revised, the sixth edition of this classic adventure travel guide profiles more than 250 charitable organizations and 2,000 projects worldwide that need volunteers. 40 photos.

The RVer's Bible: Everything You Need to Know About Choosing, Using, & Enjoying Your RV

Kim Baker, Sunny Baker

Amazon Price: $16.32 List Price: $24.00 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Fireside Amazon Marketplace: 74 new & used starting at $2.81

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 26 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Buy Enron stock before you buy this book. 1 out of 5 stars.
18 of 18 people found this review helpful.

Boy, was this book a disappointment. I've been crisscrossing this beautiful country of ours now for over fifty years in pick-up trucks, travel trailers, and motorhomes. We'll be taking off in April in our Fleetwood Flair for six months and there was not one word in this book that will make the trip more enjoyable or safer. I'll admit that a person who has never camped or owned an RV might possibly find something of interest on one of the 380 pages of "The RVer's Bible".

Several weeks have now passed since I posted this review and I feel badly about giving this author one star. It's just that the book was so very, very disappointing. Another reviewer expressed exactly how I felt while reading it, "Almost like they had contracted to write a 20,000 word book - but when they were done, there were only 12,000 so they went back and added some 'fluff'".

Editorial Review:

For the 5 million owners of RVs, this reference shows how to live efficiently, safely, and comfortably on the road--offering invaluable information and terrific tips from two experienced RVer's. Photos and line drawings.

Worlds Most Dangerous Places (Robert Young Pelton the World's Most Dangerous Places)

Robert Young Pelton, Coskun Aral

List Price: $19.95 By: Fielding Worldwide@inc Amazon Marketplace: 32 new & used starting at $0.46

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 106 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Loved it 5 out of 5 stars.
3 of 5 people found this review helpful.

The expanse and effort they took to writing this book is awesome, especially if one is dumb enough to actually wanna go to these places.

Dangerous Places - Rated 4 out of 5 stars.
3 of 4 people found this review helpful.

You just do not know how lucky you have it until you read this book. I call it the places most likely not to be in my passport.

Great read. A must for the adventurer (armchair or real).

Really several (long) books in one 5 out of 5 stars.
3 of 3 people found this review helpful.

This really consists of three books. The first, and the most obvious part, t is an actual, honest-to-goodness travel guide to dangerous places. I can easily imagine reporters, security consultants, and others pulling this book off their shelf before going to an unfamiliar place.

Inevitably, there are places left out. Pelton includes the United States here, half-seriously and half tongue-in-cheek. This is all to the good, and gives readers a sense of perspective. Still, its inclusion raises all sorts of questions. What makes the US dangerous is gun crime in some areas, which rates it one star (consistently with other countries such as India). But . . . the rates of gun crime are higher in most of Latin America, and kidnaping is much more common. In other words, if you're going to include the US, then Brazil and especially Mexico should have been in the book, along with many of their neighbors. Clearly his rating of the US reflects a pose more than a serious rating.

The second "book" here is a quick-and-dirty summary of the politics and society of these dangerous places. These summaries have information but tend to have rather more attitude. Pelton tries to be cool, tries to assign blame for conflicts in a non-standard way, and likes to review who-did-what-to-whom facts more than underlying causes.

The third "book" is a summary of issues that make places dangerous, such as the drug trade. This is more informative than the country summaries, but also displays a lot of attitude.

Much of the attitude in this book makes it quite funny. The book looks like an almanac or encyclopedia, but you can actually read in through straight. Over a long period.

It's a great read despite its length. Bring it to a dangerous place and throw it at your enemies.

Disclaimer: the US aside, the only "dangerous place" I've been is the Balkans, and I wasn't in the dangerous parts, so I can't vouch for the accuracy of the information on the ground.

Editorial Review:

In the first travel guide to countries that really need one, professional adventurer Robert Young Pelton and international war correspondent Coskun Aral report on 23 war zones, 18 remote and unexplored regions, 16 forbidden regions, and over 100 areas and activities that make people fear for their lives. Photos; maps.

Expert Expatriate: Your Guide to Successful Relocation Abroad--Moving, Living, Thriving

Melissa Brayer Hess, Patricia Linderman

List Price: $19.95 By: Nicholas Brealey Publishing Amazon Marketplace: 36 new & used starting at $4.62

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 23 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Better than ever -- and it was great before! 5 out of 5 stars.
4 of 4 people found this review helpful.

Before you go, while you're headed there, and even after you've moved, you'll find "The Expert Expat" an indispensable guide to living outside your country of citizenship. If you have the time or money for only ONE book, this is the one to purchase. Frequent "asides" from experienced expats illuminate the suggestions and information given in the ten chapters. Companies and organizations sending employees abroad should make sure families are given a copy of this book along with country specific material as soon as an expat assignment is accepted.

the first one was good, this version is even better! 5 out of 5 stars.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful.

I think some of the people who reviewed this book must be talking about the first version, published several years ago. This version does a great job of covering modern means of communication, telecommuting careers for expat spouses, etc. It also addresses the increased security concerns of a post 9/11 world. It is no way outdated, as far as I can see.

The strongest part of this book is its accurate description of the challenges faced by "trailing" spouses. I so wish that I had had this book before our first move overseas. It would have helped a great deal to understand the stages that I was going through, and the advice on getting connected at post wouldn't have hurt, either. There is nothing like personal advice from those who have been in your shoes!

Secondly, the chapters on cross cultural adjustment and communication are very well done. Again, nothing like advice from those who have been there. The tips are presented in a very matter of fact, non-judgmental way, with plenty of illustrative anecdotes, and with acknowledgment that there are some things to which we may never adjust, no matter how hard we try! This book does not tell you to try to blend in, but rather to find your own place as an expat within the local culture. That is the most we can realistically achieve in most foreign countries, and not a bad place to be, as a matter of fact.

Other chapters on moving with kids, with pets, etc. are chock-full of useful information gleaned from the practical experience of both authors and their many experienced expatriate interviewees.

I've lived in six countries as an expat, and I would highly, HIGHLY recommend The Expert Expat to anyone preparing for an overseas move, especially spouses!

Editorial Review:

This book not only covers the practical aspects of relocating; it enters unchatered territory, laying emotional and cultural groundwork to help the expatriate thrive.

Traveling With Your Pet (Traveling with Your Pet: The AAA Petbook)

AAA

List Price: $12.00 By: AAA Amazon Marketplace: 27 new & used starting at $0.01

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 19 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Listing for more than 10,000 AAA rated® lodgings in the United States and Canada that accept pets

Traveling with your pet the AAA petbook® is an animal-lover's best friend! This useful guide provides the important information you need when taking a trip with your pet, from packing tips to traveling by car to selecting the right pet-friendly accommodation. With more than 10,000 listings across North America -- including properties in each of AAA's diamond rating categories -- the PetBook is certain to be an invaluable guide for travelers...and their pets.

Features Include:

Listings for AAA Rated® lodgings that accept pets, including fees and other pet-specific information

Handy lips for traveling with pets

National public lands that accept pets

Animal clinics throughout the United States

Hints for traveling by car or plane, including phone numbers of major airlines

Contact information for pet-friendly organizations

U.S./Canadian border crossing information

Asian Dining Rules: Essential Strategies for Eating Out at Japanese, Chinese, Southeast Asian, Korean, and Indian Restaurants

Steven A. Shaw

Amazon Price: $10.85 List Price: $15.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: William Morrow Cookbooks Amazon Marketplace: 37 new & used starting at $3.40

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 28 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Most Asian restaurants are really two restaurants: one where outsiders eat, and one where insiders dine. So how can you become an insider and take full advantage of Asian cuisines?

In this indispensable guide, dining expert Steven A. Shaw proves that you don't have to be Asian to enjoy a VIP experience—you just have to eat like you are. Through entertaining and richly told anecdotes and essays, Asian Dining Rules takes you on a tour of Asian restaurants in North America, explaining the cultural and historical background of each cuisine—Japanese, Chinese, Southeast Asian, Korean, and Indian—and offering an in-depth survey of these often daunting foodways. Here are suggestions for getting the most out of a restaurant visit, including where to eat, how to interact with the staff, be treated like a regular, learn to eat outside the box, and order special off-menu dishes no matter your level of comfort or knowledge.

Steven Shaw—intrepid reporter, impeccable tastemaker, and eater extraordinaire—is the perfect dining companion to accompany you on your journey to find the best Asian dining experience, every time.