Pacific Books - Page 2

No Worries Hawaii: A Vacation Planning Guide for Kauai, Oahu, Maui, and the Big Island

Jerry Sprout, Janine Sprout

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Subjects -> Travel -> United States -> Regions -> West -> Pacific
Subjects -> Travel -> United States -> States -> Hawaii -> Big Island
Subjects -> Travel -> United States -> States -> Hawaii -> General

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 18 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Get To The Heart of Your Destination
Half of Hawaii's 8 million yearly tourists are first-timers, often unsure of which island to visit, where to stay, and what to choose to do.
NO WORRIES HAWAII, a companion book to the Sprout's adventure guides for each of the islands, comes to the rescue. The book is also useful for repeat visitors or locals looking for new adventures.
Readers first take an armchair voyage, in which they nail down their vacation style (a scouting expedition, a romantic getaway, a solo or group adventure, invigorating, relaxing, healing). These likings are matched with what Hawaii has to offer. A clever but simple self-test allows readers to sort through Hawaii's assets: beaches, nightlife, trails, gardens, attractions, cultural sites, surfing, snorkeling, 36 categories in all, to determine which are important and which island is best.
In the second part of NO WORRIES HAWAII, readers take their decisions from part one and receive all the practical and money-saving advice needed to book a vacation that makes the armchair voyage become a real one. Included also is a complete list of what to pack.
The third part of the book is full of tips on what to do and what not to do after arriving in the islands. Readers will deplane as kama'aina (locals), having the benefit of the Sprout's 20 years of exploration.
Sections include how to plan days to maximize fun and avoid hassle, finding free entertainment, car rental and accommodation money-savers. Readers are advised on how to, and whether to, book tours (snorkeling, sailing, helicopter, horseback, etc.). The book's safety tips are a literal lifesaver, and the everyday advice on driving, hiking, and beach-going are essential forgetting the most fun out of every day.
The meat of NO WORRIES HAWAII is its Best Of section, a listing of Hawaii's top attractions: museums, rainforest dayhikes, snorkeling coves, walk-around beach towns, surfing spots, places to watch surfers, mountain bike trails, people-watching beaches, botanical gardens, short strolls to views, cultural sites, luxury resorts, volcano hikes, bird-watching forests, waterfalls, churches, remote beaches, family beach parks, golf courses, and more.
Taken together, the 50 categories neatly sum up the best of Hawaii. Readers can use these listings as a reference when they get to their chosen island.
NO WORRIES HAWAII is beautifully designed, complimented by more than 100 color photographs, and also contains a "wikiwiki phonebook" with all the contact numbers needed to put a vacation together.

Alaska by Cruise Ship: The Complete Guide to Cruising Alaska with Giant Pull-out Map (5th Edition)

Anne Vipond

Amazon Price: $13.57 List Price: $19.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Ocean Cruise Guides Amazon Marketplace: 36 new & used starting at $0.13

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Subjects -> Travel -> Canada -> Provinces -> Territories
Subjects -> Travel -> Reference & Tips -> Cruises
Subjects -> Travel -> United States -> Regions -> West -> Pacific

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 25 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Don't leave home without it 5 out of 5 stars.
5 of 5 people found this review helpful.

We checked out a few Alaska guidebooks before planning our September/07 Alaska cruise and found most lacked the cruising information we needed to help us pick a cruise. We found Ms. Vipond's writing entertaining and thoughtful and her specific information on the types of Alaska cruises that are available (round trip or straight line) very helpful. She also goes into the region's history, native peoples, wildlife, port attractions with lots of detail on shore excursions which helped us sort out our choices.

On the cruise, the guide's detailed port maps and the large Alaska pullout map at the back of the book were indispensable. And unlike many other guides, this one has hundreds of color photos which are useful to identify wildlife, spot attractions and gave us an idea of what we would see on various shore excursions. We never left the ship without it.

Editorial Review:

This international bestseller is the complete guide for anyone taking a cruise or cruisetour to Alaska. From Seattle and Vancouver to Fairbanks and beyond, Alaska By Cruise Ship provides readers with solid detail for this popular cruise destination. Interesting and historical background on the cruise routes complements practical detail on ports and shore excursions with numerous maps pinpointing attractions. All areas of interest on an Alaska cruise are included such as history, wildlife (with whale watching map), native culture, natural phenomena and much more. New edition includes best hiking trails in each port and updates on all shore excursions. Includes giant pull-out color map.

Zagat Los Angeles/So. California Restaurants 2009 (Zagatsurvey: Los Angeles/Southern California Restaurants)

Amazon Price: $10.85 List Price: $15.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Zagat Survey Amazon Marketplace: 32 new & used starting at $7.49

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Subjects -> Business & Investing -> Industries & Professions -> Hospitality, Travel & Tourism
Subjects -> Cooking, Food & Wine -> Professional Cooking -> Professional
Subjects -> Travel -> Reference & Tips -> Food & Lodging -> Dining

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 1 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Great Book - A must have for your local restaurant reviews 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

We use this all the time to figure out where to go to dinner. The ratings are very accurate and well written

Editorial Review:

The surveyors are 54% women and 46% men. 52% are in their 20s and 30s and 48% are 40 and over. No matter the economic climate, Los Angeles' appetite for lively dining destinations continues unabated, inspiring ever bolder ventures. For every notable closing, there's another restaurateur waiting in the wings, often joined by an expensive team of architects and designers, and ZAGAT is always there to note the changes.

Kauai Trailblazer: Where to Hike, Snorkel, Bike, Paddle, Surf (

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Subjects -> Outdoors & Nature -> Hiking & Camping -> Excursion Guides -> General
Subjects -> Outdoors & Nature -> Hiking & Camping -> Excursion Guides -> General AAS
Subjects -> Outdoors & Nature -> Hiking & Camping -> Instructional

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 68 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

The latest edition of the Sprout's top-selling guide is packed with new and updated activities, dozens of fresh photos, and a special Trailblazer Kids section for families headed to Hawaii's "adventure island." Popular among independent and active travelers, Trailblazer guides are known for their user-friendly format, readability, and sharp graphics. You'll find all the mountain ridges, tropical gardens, beaches, coves and lagoons, jungles, rivers, historic landmarks and cultural sites, coral reefs, ancient ruins, and coastal bluffs-all the places to get wet, muddy, and have fun on Kaua'i. Less energetic visitors will appreciate the book's driving tours, which hit the headliners along with the island's out-of-the-way charms. The authors have spent years exploring Kaua'i, and it shows. A Resource Links section gives visitor information and cultural contacts, recommended recreational outfitters, museums and attractions, Hawaiiana shops and hula shows, as well as a! hand-picked list of restaurants and places to stay. Safety precautions and traveling tips are not to be overlooked, and a Best Of section lets you select among activities to suit your mood.

119 hikes and strolls to mountain ridges, tropical gardens, beaches, jungles, coves, reefs, historic landmarks and ancient ruins, swamps, craters, forests, coastal bluffs and tide pools, towns, canyons, waterfalls and river valleys

- 68 beaches, including 22 reachable only by trail - 42 snorkeling pools, both the island favorites and hidden coves - 61 mountain bike rides along forest, coastal, and countryside trails - 27 kayaking waters: 13 rivers and streams, 14 bays and lagoons - 36 surfing spots - a special Trailblazer Kids section - 10 maps and 175 photographs - 4 driving tours, featuring heiaus, wildlife sanctuaries, cultural and historical sites,tourist attractions and natural wonders - Resource Links to recreational outfitters, stables, golf courses, camping, transportation, accommodations, local-style eats and shops - Appendices of Hawaiian words, place names, movie locations, hula performances, farmer's markets, weather, flora, history

Zagat San Francisco Bay Area Restaurants 2009 (Zagatsurvey: San Francisco/ Bay Area Restaurants)

Amazon Price: $10.17 List Price: $14.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Zagat Survey Amazon Marketplace: 35 new & used starting at $5.00

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Subjects -> Business & Investing -> Industries & Professions -> Hospitality, Travel & Tourism
Subjects -> Cooking, Food & Wine -> Professional Cooking -> Professional
Subjects -> Travel -> Reference & Tips -> Food & Lodging -> Dining

Editorial Review:

The surveyors are 54% women and 46% men. 52% are in their 20s and 30s and 48% are 40 and over. No matter the economic climate, San Francisco's appetite for lively dining destinations continues unabated, inspiring ever bolder ventures. For every notable closing, there's another restaurateur waiting in the wings, often joined by an expensive team of architects and designers, and ZAGAT is always there to note the changes.

The Packing Book: Secrets of the Carry-On Traveler

Judith Gilford

List Price: $7.95 By: Ten Speed Press Amazon Marketplace: 53 new & used starting at $0.01

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Subjects -> Business & Investing -> Small Business & Entrepreneurship -> Entrepreneurship
Subjects -> Home & Garden -> How-to & Home Improvements -> Household Hints
Subjects -> Science -> Earth Sciences -> Geography -> General

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.

The Encyclopedia of Packing! 5 out of 5 stars.
3 of 17 people found this review helpful.

All my life I have yearned for some unknown knowledge. Feeling incomplete, I began at an early age to selfishly take in as much information as possible. I read everything I could get my hands on, encyclopedias, dictionaries, textbooks, but nothing could quench this thirst. That is until I found this book. I still remember the day fate brought it to me. Opening its crisp pages I began to take in its glorious advice. Immediately captivated, I read the book uninterrupted from cover to cover, twice. Hours later, as I reluctantly closed the book, I breathed a sigh of relief. My soul at rest, I put down "The Packing Book: Secrets of the Carry-on Traveler".

Editorial Review:

On Good Morning America, The Today Show, and throughout the media, Judy Gilford is recognized as an expert on how to travel light without feeling deprived. Now, her classic on efficient carry-on travel returns, brimming with new luggage and other products, updated resource information, tips on packing larger bags, and more.

The Unofficial Guide to Las Vegas 2009 (Unofficial Guides)

Bob Sehlinger, Menasha Ridge Press, Deke Castleman, Muriel Stevens

Amazon Price: $13.59 List Price: $19.99 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Wiley Amazon Marketplace: 53 new & used starting at $10.65

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Subjects -> Entertainment -> General AAS
Subjects -> Travel -> Reference & Tips -> Food & Lodging -> Dining
Subjects -> Travel -> Reference & Tips -> General AAS

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 1 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

More than 4 million copies sold! This series is the only one that offers evaluations based on reader surveys and critiques, compiled by a team of unbiased inspectors.

• Hotels, attractions, and restaurants in all price categories

• Extensive information on shopping, nightlife, and sports

• Easy-to-use, two-color design

• Detailed, 2-color maps

From the publishers of The Unofficial Guide® to Walt Disney World®

"A Tourist's Best Friend!"
-Chicago Sun-Times

"Indispensable"
-The New York Times

Five Great Features and Benefits offered ONLY by The Unofficial Guide®:

* Over 100 hotels and casinos rated and ranked - the most offered by any guidebook - plus proven strategies for getting the best rate
* Complete detailed descriptions of each casino and casino hotel
* In-depth critical reviews of Las Vegas' 60 best shows and 30 top nightspots - the most offered by any guidebook
* Detailed reviews of more than 100 restaurants - a complete dining guide within the guide, plus the best buffets rated and ranked
* Fifty pages of gambling tips from how to play, recognize sucker games, and cut the house advantage to the bone

More Readings From One Man's Wilderness: The Journals of Richard L. Proenneke, 1974-1980

Richard L. Proenneke

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Subjects -> Biographies & Memoirs -> Memoirs
Subjects -> Travel -> Specialty Travel -> Adventure -> General
Subjects -> Travel -> Specialty Travel -> Adventure -> General AAS

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 12 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Richard Proenneke's Journals 5 out of 5 stars.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful.

Richard Proenneke's journals from 1974 - 1980 detail everyday life at Twin Lakes Alaska. From the daily adventures of hiking and filming wildlife to the more mundane chores of chopping firewood, and making sourdough pancakes, Dick reveals his everyday life in the wilderness. Dick's prose is surprisingly easy to read for a daily journal, and entertaining. He easily transports the reader to the wilderness, and all its beauty, danger, and tranquility. A more sanguine aspect as the journal unfolds is the eventual encroachment by Man, stayed somewhat by the National Park status of the region. Dick's writings are unassuming, and yet very powerful in their simplicity, and the pictures they paint. A rare man, that I wish I could have met. I highly recommend this book for those that love the outdoors, and seek a captivating story of rugged, yet humble individualism.

Editorial Review:

The journals of Richard "Dick" Proenneke are now available in an edited and annotated volume covering the years 1974 through 1980.  The nation first became aware of the remarkable life of Dick Proenneke with the publication of One Man's Wilderness in 1973. 

Master of woodcraft and camp craft, keen observer of the natural world, mechanical genius, tireless hiker and journalisx, for 30 years Proennek lived a storied existense in a small log cabin her built in the Alaska wilderness.  Proenneke was an active yet reluctant participant in the epic struggle to protect some of Alaska's wild lands for future generations of Americans.

Disneyland's Hidden Mickeys: A Field Guide to the Disneyland Resort's Best-Kept Secrets (Disneyland's Hidden Mickey's)

Steven M. Barrett

Amazon Price: $9.95 List Price: $9.95 Usually ships in 6 to 11 days By: The Intrepid Traveler Amazon Marketplace: 13 new & used starting at $5.00

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Subjects -> Travel -> Reference & Tips -> Essays & Travelogues
Subjects -> Travel -> United States -> Regions -> West -> Pacific
Subjects -> Travel -> United States -> States -> California -> General

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 8 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Fun to have 5 out of 5 stars.
7 of 7 people found this review helpful.

My family have passes to Disneyland and we're there often enough. I have heard about the Hidden Mickeys and have found some on my own. When they had the 50 Mickeys for their anniversary my young sons had a ton of fun looking for and finding them. It's a lot of fun for those of you with young children who love scavenger hunts! It's a way to pass the time while waiting for rides or walking around.
I highly recommend the web site that goes with the book as there are many more that are not listed in the book. But it's a great "beginner" book to the whole Hidden Mickey thing and is great if you're only there for the day.
It's definitely worth picking up!

Editorial Review:

Camouflaged images of Mickey Mouse are hidden around the Disney theme parks and resorts worldwide-just waiting to delight the visitors who spot them. Searching for them adds extra fun to any visit and has become something of a mission for many Disney fans. At their request, Barrett, whose Hidden Mickeys field guide has been helping Disney World visitors hunt these elusive characters since 2003, now offers equal sleuthing aid to Disneyland visitors.

San Francisco Then & Now (Then & Now)

Bill Yenne

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Subjects -> Arts & Photography -> Photography -> Photo Essays
Subjects -> Arts & Photography -> Photography -> Travel -> United States -> General
Subjects -> Arts & Photography -> Photography -> Travel -> United States -> West

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 14 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Welcome to America's Most Conservative City! 5 out of 5 stars.
6 of 11 people found this review helpful.

I'm not using "conservative" in the current political sense, obviously. Everybody knows that John McCain has less than a snowball's chance in Gomorrah of winning in SF. I using the term conservative in its root meaning, something like "saving what was valued in the past." Preservation and conservation have the same Latin root. San Francisco has conserved more of its past than any western American city, and I could make a case, I think, for its preservation of more old-fashioned city life even than Boston or Savannah.

Except for the tiny downtown financial district, San Francisco "looks" old. The vast majority of houses, churches, and schools were built in late Victorian styles and have been lovingly restored in the same styles. Even the relatively "new" streets of the Sunset are old-fashioned now, predominantly in modest Art Deco style of the 30s and 40s. And it should be no surprise that ATT baseball park is a booking success, since it's strikingly old-style brick in construction, with a street car stop at the front gate.

San Francisco is a bastion of old-fashioned independent mom 'n pop businesses. There are thriving corner groceries and open-air once-a-week markets: independent restaurants ranging from very cheap to ultra expensive, but hardly any chain restaurants in the neighborhoods. The big chain grocery stores like Albertson's struggle to stay open in competition with locally owned stores like Andronico's, which has six stores around the whole Bay Area. There are more independent fitness centers and gyms in the neighborhoods; 24-hour fat farms are not the norm in SF. There are no malls that would be recognizable to most Americans in downtown or neighborhood San Francisco. The only malls - and very small they are by US norms - are on the suburban fringes.

Even Boston is cut up by freeways today, though the traffic is no better managed than when I lived there in the early '60s. Seattle is sliced in half by its ineeffective central freeway. San Francisco is the place that blocked freeway construction in the late '60s. Several freeways have been demolished in SF in the last ten years! Streets in SF are narrow and parking is tough, but a measure to build more parking lots was recently defeated at the polls, and any attempt to chop wider streets through SF would meet with armed resistance.

Baseball is the number one sport in SF. The fans of the football team pour in from the 'burbs to the hideous modernistic but crumbling stadium just at the edge of the city. The basketball team plays in Oakland. Any town where baseball rules has got to be considered conservative!

People in SF are conservative dressers, especially by California standards. I know women who live in LA, who carry clothes they consider drab to SF when they visit, so that they will not stick out like the inflamed rear view of a peacock's tail. One never sees "his and hers" outfits on the streets, especially not pastels. Men wear less bling per capita in SF than in Omaha. A neck chain and an open shirt would get you sneered out of polite society in SF.

Sweet old-fashioned window boxes are everywhere in SF. Street tree plantings are lovingly maintained. Open space is all-important to San Franciscans, and it's by stubborn resistance to development than SF has preserved more open space (finangling the take-over of decommissioned army, coast guard, and navy bases) than any comparably populated region of the USA. Nature is inherently conservative.

The half-mile strip of upper Haight Street, which gets the attention of the "screaming heads" on TV and radio, is not populated by San Franciscans. It's the runaway and stumble-away refuge of the discontented - the "poor abused confused missused" - of all the dysfunctional "conservative" families and communities from Modesto to Miami. They come to SF to enjoy the true conservative values of privacy, tolerance, and neighborhood friendliness.

Editorial Review:

The natives call it simply "the City." This is the story of the changing face of San Francisco, and how it has become one of the most picturesque cities in the world. Seventy modern color photographs are compared side-by-side with seventy archival photographs from the 1850s to the 1950s. While focusing on famous vistas and familiar landmarks, it also explores well-known neighborhoods. The Then and Now series includes: New York, Washington, Boston, and San Francisco.