5 comments about Explore the Virgin Islands.

1. I have visited the Virgin Islands many times, and always with great delight. This book has shown me many things I didn't know, and will definitely be in my suitcase next time.
   
   The discussions of flora and fauna in the beginning are exceptional, but this book has far more to offer. The discussion of places to eat and to stay is much more thorough than that in most other guides, and includes places I wouldn't want to miss. The discussion of activities and sites includes things I haven't seen in any other guide, and approaches I haven't found discussed elsewhere.
   
   The dramatic cover and the charming photographs inside also help to convey the mood and beauty of the islands. Add this to the author's willingness to reveal his opinions and preferences, and you have the kind of unique and charming guide that is a rare find.



2. I think this is an excellent guidebook. It has the flavor of a Lonely Planet book, without such a complete "backpacker" emphasis. I find it enjoyable to just read. It's very well written, without trying so hard to be cute or flashy. (I recently bought a pile of guidebooks for Florida and they were all a waste of money except the Michelin Green Guide! Leave it to Michelin.)
   
   I find that this book has a wealth of practical and interesting information. Every question I have come up with regarding planning our trip, I have quickly and easily been able to come up with an answer to. It's full of good maps and photos. He tells you when a spot has been overrun by tourists or if the surf is dangerous there. He tells you when to be especially careful about being ripped off as a tourist. There are lots of interesting bits about the local flora and fauna and historical sidebars. It has an extensive index, a bibliography organized by subject, and a glossary of creole words and other island-specific expressions. It was updated last year, so I expect the information to be very accurate. He gives lots of specific restaurants, hotels, etc., with phone numbers and addresses and recommends some. He doesn't give reviews of the businesses generally; but often gives the flavor of the clientele or some other indication of what to expect (prices, etc.) I imagine it would be pretty hard to slam some business in a place this small and still be able to do this kind of work.
   
   This is not a backpacker's guide -- aimed exclusively at the cheapest way to do things. It's a general guide, with all kinds of information. He does tell you how to do it cheap (and tells you where that will be a pain in the rear.) Here's a quote that explains it:
   
   "It's not practical to take a bus [from the airport] because the schedule has been cut way back and the bus does not come to the terminal. If you have strong legs and little luggage [backpackers ...] you may go out to the main road and wait for the VITRAN (around $1, exact change) ... Be sure to ask if it is a, 'dollar bus.' Otherwise, they may try to charge you more."
   
   To me, this delivers exactly what I want to know about the bus system: cut back schedule, doesn't stop at the terminal (!!), long walk to pick it up, precise cost, exact change, how not to get ripped off. Bullseye in my estimation.
   
   I find this guide to be nicely complete, easy to use, and enjoyable to read. Very hard to find this combination of qualities in a guidebook. I haven't yet visited the VI; but I feel well equipped now. I have traveled extensively (years) in Asia, Africa, and Europe, mostly by bicycle. I have seen umpteen guide books (including many "Let's Go" books: virtually useless except for listing cheap transport and cheap accomodations. I remember what "Let's Go Europe" said about the magnificent city of Orleans, "Good place to do your laundry." [!!!! Did they visit the place??].)
   
   This is a good guidebook.



3. 
   Travel through St. Thomas, St. John, St. Croix and the British Virgin Islands without waiting to board the plane! If you've already visited this region of earthly paradise you are sure to find an abundance of ideas for shopping, local attractions, beaches, historical sites and fascinating fun facts to add to your next island experience. There's even a getting married section for readers who may be dreaming of a beach wedding. This guide not only explains sea life, animal life, plant life and coral reefs it also warns of underwater hazards and cures, offers tips for environmental, undersea and boating conduct and provides island do's and don'ts. Explore the Virgin Islands takes readers beyond the standard travel guide information and encourages them to become adventurous island explorers. I only wish I had read about the "herbivorous" iguana on St. Thomas before seeing the approximately four foot long creature scaling down a tree in front of me at Coki Beach! Review by JoAnna Carey, Author of Rat Race Relaxer: Your Potential & The Maze of Life



4. I do quite a bit of traveling and often buy a Lonely Planet guide as a basic reference. Lately, however, I've become somewhat jaded by its formulaic coverage and superficial approach. I'm also skeptical about how they go about choosing which accomodations and restaurants to include in their books.
   
   Pariser's book at first glance looks remarkably like a Lonely Planet guide--the same format and much the same information. However, Pariser puts more of himself into it and the book clearly is a labor of love. Pariser's guide compares to Lonely Planet like a family restaurant to McDonalds.



5. Explore the Virgin Islands is a guide and travel overview for the Virgin Islands, especially the islands of St. Thomas, St. John, and St. Croix. This book includes a wide range of information, everything from background knowledge on the island's natural and cultural environment through places to stay while on the various islands to interesting things to do at every stop along the way.
   
   There are seven sections in Explore the Virgin Islands: Introduction; USVI Practicalities; St. Thomas; St. John; St. Croix; The British Virgin Islands; and Traveling Around the BVI. The introduction section contains an overview about the United States Virgin Islands. This detailed information includes land, climate, flora, fauna, history, government, and economy of these islands. A similar section, The British Virgin Islands, describes this same information as pertains to the British Virgin Islands.
   
   The next chapter, USVI Practicalities, contains contacts and general information on transportation, food, accommodations, and potential activities while traveling the United States Virgin Islands. This chapter also includes important information on customs, safety, and environmental conduct. There's even text describing how to get married while in the Virgin Islands.
   
   The rest of the sections in Explore the Virgin Islands focus on particular Virgin Islands. The United States islands of St. Thomas, St. John, and St. Croix are each given separate sections while the British Virgin Islands are combined into one section. The first portion of each section describes a little about the particular island including the topography and history. After this overview, specific examples of transportation, accommodation, restaurants, shopping, tourist information, services, and sights are depicted in detail. Each entry contains a short paragraph about the establishment including contacts and potential costs. Also provided in each of these sections is ample information, complete with contacts, on what activities are available on each island. Several black and white and colour maps and photographs accompany each section.
   
   Explore the Virgin Islands is a valuable guide for anyone planning on traveling to any of the United States or British Virgin Islands, specifically the islands of St. Thomas, St. John, and St. Croix. This key information is provided for easy reference while planning or while traveling. However, this book will also be just as interesting for the armchair traveler as this book contains ample information about the natural environment, history, and culture on these beautiful islands as well as some extremely stunning colour photographs.

No comments about Adventure Guide to St. Martin & St. Barts (Adventure Guides Series) (Adventure Guides Series).

No comments about Adventure Guide Grenada, St Vincent & Grenadines (Adventure Guide. Grenada, St. Vincent & the Grenadines) (Adventure Guide. Grenada, St. Vincent & the ... Grenada, St. Vincent & the Grenadines).

5 comments about Diving and Snorkeling Guide to Bonaire (Lonely Planet Diving & Snorkeling Great Barrier Reef).

1. I found this book to be very helpful. It contains excellent coverage of Bonaires' dive sites. I dive in Bonaire about once or twice a year and have been using this book to plan my shore dives and read about sites before I visit them. I've just returned from a 5 day trip to Bonaire. Guess what I brought along



2. This is a very good introductory book for diving on Bonaire. It lists and describes several of the best dive sites on Bonaire and Klein Bonaire. It also provides some general tourist information for Bonaire, which many first-time Bonaire divers may find very interesting. The book is also compact and is great for traveling.



3. The book gives a good overview of some of the more popular dive sites listing type of entry, depth & current information. It also rates the dives as Novice, Intermediate, or Advanced. The photography is good as are the dive descriptions. However, the book is dated and the map of the dive sites is not numbered correctly and doesn't list the names of many of the sites on the southwest beaches. Also, two of the most popular dive sites, the Town Pier & Salt Pier now have some restrictions on them that are not listed in this book. Overall, I think it's a good general overview of the sites and attractions of Bonaire.



4. I was going to buy this book, but a new updated edition is supposed to be in the works. Per my Dive Shop, this is one of the Pisces dive guides, this one published in 1991. Apparently Lonley Planet bought the series and is updating and reissuing each book. The Bonaire book I'm told is due out in July of 2001.

   Otherwise I have found this series to be excellent.




5. This guide is quite dated, whereby most information is no longer current. I'd recommend saving your money and purchasing the Dive Guide by Jack Jackson, unless you enjoy periodicals that are a decade+ old. In its day, I'm sure it was adequate...

2 comments about Puerto Rico Island in the Sun.

1. This is an excellent book from Puerto Rico. It will help you if would like to share with others how beautiful is our island or if you live far away from PR and like to remeber and see beautiful images of PR. It offers a great variety of images from Old San Juan to Cabo Rojo's lighthouse.
   The only complaint I have with the book is that some of the images are not recent other than that is a great book.



2. Great book with descriptions and history of the island. Great color photographs.

No comments about Landmark Visitors Guide Antigua & Barbuda (Landmark Visitors Guide Antigua and Barbuda) (Landmark Visitors Guide Antigua and Barbuda).

5 comments about Walk Good: Travels to Negril, Jamaica.

1. Negril is a special place, and Reimer's book takes you there. It brings back lots of sweet memories. If you want a great novel set in this magical place, take a look at "JAMAICA GIRL." Jon Michael Miller's novel shows you the real Jamaica, far behind the walls of the famous all-inclusive resorts. You will see the struggles and the joys of a wonderful people, as well as meet Rosalind Juliet Mitchell, a fabulously brave and resourceful protagonist, on her search for love and freedom. It is by far the best book about Jamaica I have ever read. A wonderful story, suspenseful, sexy, funny, disturbing, and quite moving. Wonderful characters. And a great message about the power of love to transform one's existence. A great read for a vacation, or, even, a vacation in itself.



2. I read Walk Good, written by fellow Negril-aholic Roland Thomas Reimer, on two successive trips to Negril. On the first trip I read it cover to cover, and on the second I went straight for the dog-eared highlights trying to decipher the code of names changed to protect the not-so-innocent.
   
   Walk Good is a two-hundred and sixty-two page vacation. You go to the airport, you take a trip on "The Road to Negril," and you meet myriad unique characters all along the beach in Negril. Roland uses the literary device of an extended Negril vacation with many vivid flashbacks, and a few interludes into Jamaican history to tell his story.
   
   I loved how the book spoke my language; the language of a guy who loves Negril. The book's dedication lists my friend Rob Graves, and all the boardies of Negril.com. Hey, I'm one of them! And Roland was one of us, although I was yet to discover the Negril.com Message Board when the book came out.
   
   The Jamaicans are described realistically, but if you haven't been to Negril you may think some things are over stated. I assure you he's spot on. Roland treats the Jamaicans with respect, an important commodity for people who "get it," and something Jamaicans can smell as soon as they meet you.
   
   When I talk to my Negril-nut friends, the subject is often a question our friends and families constantly ask: "Why do you keep going back there?" Walk Good, in giving the reader an "in your bones" feel for that little strip of land on the tip of Jamaica, answers that question.
   
   So I recommend buying the book, taking a flight to Negril Jamaica, and reading Walk Good on the beach.



3. Great book for anyone who is interested in visiting Negril or has been



4. This is a good adjunct travel book for folks traveling to Jamaica. The author shares anecdotal stories of his experiences on the island, many of which uncover the many mysteries of this fascinating culture. Book focuses primarily on the Negril area, on the west side of the island. Interesting and revealing travel reading, yeah, mon!



5. If you have ever been to Negril, you will find a lot familiar stories in this book. The ride from Montego Bay to Negril was identical to several I have taken. I enjoyed most the parts of the book that talked about the history of Jamaica and Negril. The stories of encounters with locals and vendors were also amusing and very familiar to my own experiences. Beyond that, this was a very tedious book to read. There were portions that were a blow by blow, (no pun intended regarding Hedo II) account of some very boring events. Some of it read like a "dear diary" entry. "Today I saw so and so, we talked, we said goodbye" Okay, not that bad but close in spots. If you can get past those spots, I found myself skipping portions, there is a lot of good information about Jamaica and Negril.

5 comments about Cuba: Island at a Crossroad.

1. A colorful well laid out book with good use of photographs in the National Geo style taken by a optimistic photographer with a quirky eye that obviously has a lot of passion for this country. looking forward to the next one.



2. Cuba is a visual delight and, with more than 100 color photographs, David Alan Harvey shows you why. Combine Harvey's images of life in Cuba with Elizabeth Newhouse's terse yet thorough style and you have a perfect match for this book.

   I have recently visited Cuba and found that Harvey's photography captures the essence of Cuba's greatest resource - the Cuban people. Strong and proud, though materialistically impoverished, the people of Cuba are rich in relationships, music, dance and defiance. Harvey, a photographer for National Geographic, has spent the last 20 years photographing Latin America and is skilled at capturing people in their everyday environment.

   Newhouse's chapter on the turbulent history of Cuba is excellent. Without pulling any punches about the glaring deficiencies of Castro's totalitarian Communist government, she writes with objectivity about life in Cuba and she is able to show, with sensitivity to the culture, the strength found in the people of Cuba. "But above all Cuba is music," Newhouse writes, "expressing Cubans' intense joy in life, sensuality and machismo. Garcia Marquez calls Cuba 'the most dance oriented society on earth. And that Fidel Castro is the only Cuban who can't dance, should have warned the people about him from the start.'"

   The downside of this book is the publisher/printer's very poor reproduction of Harvey's photos. Almost all of the photos are too dark and thus rob the effect that David Harvey intended. Considering that National Geographic is distinguished for its stunning photography, I called the publisher and asked about this blunder and was told that the printer, not the photographer, was culpable.

   This book celebrates the passion, color and sensuality of the Cuban people, and, even with the gray backdrop of Communism framing their existence, and the deficiency in the photo reproduction, the Cubans are still able to shine through the gloom and darkness. Recommended.




3. David Alan Harvey, long one of the most outstanding photographers at an outstanding publication, National Geographic, has produced that captures well the beauty, spirit, and reality of life in Cuba. Harvey's masterful compositions with his trademark use of strong, vibrant color remind one of Alex Webb's photographs of Haiti and the tropics.

   I suspect that those who complain about "dark pictures" have missed the point; the photographer seems to deliberately have exposed for the highlights, leaving his shadow areas to fall to blackness and lending the subjects in his photos a timeless anonymity.

   And the harsh reviews that Harvey has "misunderstood" Cuba seem to be misguided on the part of some reviewers. I guess they'd rather deny that the poverty reflected in some of his photographs actually exists, and bash him for merely bringing a non-Cuban perspective to the land they love with rose-tinted vision, rather than address the actual points his work raises.




4. I have traveled to Cuba and I have followed the photographic work of David Harvey for more than 20 years. While neither makes me an expert I do know that the Cuba Harvey captured is the Cuba I saw and felt when I visited several years ago while on a teaching visa. Harvey caresses his subjects with intensity and love. He blends in - he becomes a part of the scene - while not changing the scene. He is both a photographer's photographer and a man of the people. We hang with the saxophone player in Trinidad on page 45, we roam the late night streets of Havana on pages 92-93, we are unseen as we observe the barbershop/front bedroom on page 166. I highly recommend this book to those who love photography, those who love people and want to learn something about another place, to those who desire to sit awhile in a culture other than their own, and to those who simply love images and the gift a fine photograph can bring to your life. It is a true gift. This captures the vibrant yet gentle Cuba of today, of now, not of tightly clutched notions that died 50 years ago.



5. First the book gives a nice resume of cuba's history, then a summary of current living conditions for Cubans. This puts you in the right mindset to fully appreciate Harvey's work. But the story told by David Alan Harvey is simply spectacular. Harvey gets off the beaten track and takes you to the heart of Cuban's daily lives, but with an incredible sense of beauty and a touch of sensuality. Buy this book, take it slow, and you won't regret it.
   If you have a minute go check out this link where Harvey explains his experience and lets you get a glimpse of the content of this great book.
   http://dirckhalstead.org/issue9910/cubaintro.htm

4 comments about The Rough Guide to Antigua & Barbuda.

1. We went to Antigua to stop the world and jump off for a week. But we didn't want to completely ignore our surroundings. This great little guide provided us with the perfect amount of history and suggestions.



2. My fiancee and I are going to Antigua for our honeymoon. We are staying at an all-inclusive resort, but want to take a day to tour the island. This book was very informative on popular attractions, places to visit, transportation and prices. I was only dissapointed with the fact that there weren't that many photos of the island...but the few that were in there were very pretty! Definitly worth buying if you want a quick, informative overview of the island!



3. 10/10/02 Flew inverness-gatwick-antigua by BA and spent 10 days following the Rough Guide. As this isle has few road signs to speak of the Guide kept us on track and to places we would never have found or been aware of.The gorgeous secluded bay 400m back from Devil"s Bridge was indeed perfect and empty! Eating and drnking could also be relided upon ,Turner"s on Jonson"s point haveing a great view of Montserrat volcano(take bonocs),as well as ex food and svc. Having the guide made this holiday one i will remember, simple as that! Bon voyage.



4. I examined numerous Antigua / Barbuda books in various stores and found this to be the best. It's physical size is tiny at 4" x 5.5" but it contained better information than any of the other books I saw. If you are looking for a book exclusively about Antigua and barbuda I would recommend buying this book. It will prove most useful if you review it before you start planning your vacation.

No comments about Adventure Guide Barbados (Adventure Guide to Barbados) (Adventure Guide to Barbados) (Adventure Guide to Barbados).