5 comments about Tennessee Atlas & Gazetteer.

1. This is more than a book of maps. It lists state parks, campgrounds, places to canoe, etc. I think it works best when using another book in conjuction with it.



2. This Atlas, like all in the DeLorme series of Atlas & Gazetteer references, are wonderful map resources. A wealth of information is included. If anything, the level of detail, coupled with the topographic information, may seem a bit too much at first glace (if you are new to these guides). But if you're willing to spend a bit of time with the maps, you will find these guides to be very useful.
   
   In addition to the maps and the useful indexes and cross-references, these guides include listings or location sources for hiking, camping, fishing, recreation areas, unique natural features (waterfalls, bridges, caverns, natural areas, etc.), bicycle routes, horse trails, etc. And of course, GPS (Lat/Lon) coordinates are printed on each map.
   
   Although the scale of these maps demand it, it would be nice if the guide book dimensions were a bit smaller. At 11" x 15.5", it's a good size book, so it's not quite as easy to stow in the backpack or the motorcycle storage area, etc.
   
   Overall, these are excellent guides for any traveler or outdoor enthusiast.



3. This is not in as much detail as I expected and is just another map-I wish to return it-how do I do that ?



4. I am well satisfied with the service, however, the Gazetteer was dated 2004. Perhaps it hasn't been reissued since 2004.



5. GOOD SERVICE, GOOD PRODUCT, GOOD PRICE.
   
   GOOD = 5

2 comments about Rio de Janeiro (City Guide).

1. I found a lot of good information on places to go within Rio. I recommend using a combination of this book and taxis to do your sightseeing instead of hopping a tour bus.



2. They've written so many of these guides that they are becoming a tad generic on their advice. I bought this and found a lot of information outdated to inaccurate when I arrived. However, if you're not planning on going to Rio right away, and find yourself very curious about this great city, I would definitely recommend it. It is very interesting, and completely different to western culture. If you're young and into the singles scene, or on business like I was and want more of a sure thing with brazilian women, I would recommend adding with this title The Hedonist: World Sex Guide - Single Male Erotic Vacations in Rio, Costa Rica, Thailand, Carribean and much more
   
   Side note. There are very specific visas, with very specific requirements that you have to have to go there.

5 comments about 100 Classic Hikes in Washington: North Cascades, Olympics, Mount Rainer & South Cascades, Alpine Lakes, Glacier Peak (100 Best Hikes).

1. My criticism of this guide applies to all of the so-called "classic" hikes series. It is difficult for me to write, because Harvey Manning was once one of the best guidebook writers on the planet, and Ira Spring's photos are awesome.
   But that was then, and this is now. The books are poorly edited, inaccurately updated, sloppy attempts to sell a few more great color pictures and once-good-but-now-preachy Manning writing.
   Anyone who has been on any one of the trails of this guide should be able to find at least one significant innacuracy in the description, largely because I'll bet the authors haven't hiked on some ot the trails since they wrote the first edition, almost a half-century ago.
   Sadly, some of the photos in this book are in error, too - such as the photo of the "marsh marigold" on page 234, which is actually a Western anemone; or the photo of the "avalanche lily" on page 198, actually a glacier lily. Worse still is the picture on page 35, which shows campers tending a fire in an area where fires have been banned for the past 20 years.
   In sum, the classic series does little to enhance the fine reputations of these two guidebook authors.



2. I have read countless hiking books but never have I encountered a preface like this book. Authors Spring and Manning spend many pages going into a diatribe about how the Forest Service has ruined many Washington trails and how ATV's and encroachment has destroyed much of the pristine beauty of the state. I agree with their comments wholeheartedly, but wonder if such "strident" opinions (to some people) are really suitable in a hiking guide. For me, the political opinions were not a distraction, but I want to mention them in case you are expecting simply a typical guidebook with no ancillary commentary.

   Now, to the book itself. Washington is a magnificent and beautiful state to hike. Even without the magnificent hikes in and around the Seattle, there are plenty of other trails to explore and enjoy. This book does it all! It is an exceptionally well-designed book for hikers across the spectrum. Whether you're a neophyte or have climbed Denali, this book contains all the essential information you need to tackle the hikes listed. The photos are all in color and are breathtaking! You really get a sense of what each hike will look like before you undertake it. Every hike also has a brief map to accompany the text description. The maps are easy to follow and instructive. There are also black and white photos of each trail, with two color sections.

   Equally pleasing is that the authors take the time to describe each hike in extensive detail, though they are never wordy. They list the elevation gains, give succinct but necessary directions to each trailhead and provide ample analysis of the strengths/weaknesses of each trek. The book is small and light enough to carry in your backpack, if you feel the need to consult it while on the trail.

   I have over 50 hiking books in my library and it would be hard to imagine a more complete, more photographically stunning or better written guide. From desert to mountains, Washington has it all. I enthusiastically recommend this gem with the small warning about the authors injecting personal opinions about the Forest Service.




3. ...and recommend in its stead : Hiking Washington's Geology, ISBN: 0898865484.

   I live in WA state, and have owned "100 Classic Hikes in WA" for 5 years; I repeatedly "try" to reference for new hiking ideas, but every time end up closing the book in disgust. Here is why:
   1. The prose is terrible (excessively 'flowery' and overblown);
   2. Non-stop negative "preaching" against the forest service, motorized vehicles, horses & dogs on the trail.
   3. Hike descriptions, when not oriented on preaching, are not very descriptive of the specific features as seen on the hike.

   Because of this, the valuable information, such as difficulty of hike, accesibility of trailhead, & attraction of hike (view, flowers, etc) is very hard to extract from the hike descriptions.

   I consider myself an experienced outdoors-person, and hit the trails almost every weekend during good weather. Sometimes I hike with friends, sometimes I take my dog, sometimes I bring the trailer & ride with my horse, and sometimes I take a mountain bike. My point is: these men found innumerable ways to slam almost every activity I do in the mountains: according to their never-ending negativity, the only good trail is one in which only a walking human is allowed.

   My recommendation to the authors is to spend less time 'educating' the public with your incredibly biased opinions and more time on the purpose of the book: educating people on the best places to go in WA for a great hike.

   "Hiking WA's Geology" is a much better book, even if you are not interested in geology for the following reasons:
   1. Hike descriptions are written by authors experienced in technical writing, i.e. you recieve the most amount of pertinent information in as few words as possible.
   2. Many of the trails are 'off the regularly beaten path'
   3. Descriptions give detailed information along each section of the hike, so the hiker knows not only the 'what & why' of what he is seeing, but also any technical challenges that might arise (paraphrased e.g.: 3 miles down the trail, the trail becomes difficult to follow, watch for campsite #22, walk to the left, find the trailhead again).




4. "Ira and Harvey," as my hiking partner and I fondly refer to the authors, are probably the best hiking writers / photographers I've ever encountered. Yes, the book is opinionated; there is no doubt about that. However, that is what makes it special. If you want a book with 1000 hikes and a short listing of facts, this book isn't for you. However, the authors have pulled together their favorite 100 hikes and feel free to tell you exactly why they think they're great. Ira (Spring) was a famous photographer in his day, and I enjoy drooling over his photos of the sites I'll see on the way to hike. We usually preface our hikes from this book by reading the hike description aloud and laughing over Manning's excesses.
   
   My edition is one older than this listing, and in it, as another reviewer remarks, the authors do rail against motorized vehicles. Anyone who's been asphyxiated by a 4-wheeler and coughed for minutes after its departure can appreciate and agree with their rants.
   
   In the edition I have, there is no negative mention of dogs or horses. In fact, Harvey references hikes with his dog fondly. I have noticed in later editions of Mountaineers books anti-dog writing which bothers me - a lot. However, I have never seen that in this book.
   
   If you can only own one hiking book for Washington, this is the one. It's entertaining, informative, recommends fantastic hikes, and has great photos.



5. This is a beautifully illustrated book - I'll certainly give it that. I didn't get into the prose, though, because as I thumbed through the summary description of each hike, I was disappointed to find how few of them are accessible to the casual hiker.
   
   I'm going to Seattle in mid-May and I wanted to take a few hikes while I was there. Of the 100 hikes listed in this book, less than 5 of them are accessible in May, and all of those are either on the coast or east of the Cascades. The weather isn't the authors' fault, but one would hope there would be a few "classic" hikes that would be accessible at other times than mid-summer.
   
   The other disappointment was that a very large percentage of the hikes involve trips of multiple days. I'm sure they're gorgeous, but this borders more on camping trips than hikes.
   
   I found Foghorn Outdoors Washington Hiking: The Complete Guide to More Than 400 Hikes (Foghorn Outdoors) to be a much more useful guide.

No comments about Colombia (Bradt Travel Guide).

4 comments about Culture Shock! Ecuador: A Survival Guide to Customs and Etiquette (Culture Shock! Guides).

1. My son is in Ecuador as an exchange student for a year, and I found the book interesting. It gives you a sense of the culture and what to expect if you go to live there.



2. If you're planning on going to Ecuador this is the book for you. The author writes in a very lively way to keep you interested all the way to the end. Having lived there for over 20 years he has authoritatve views and accurate histories to really get you prepared to interact with the people of Ecuador. The author also has a helpful list of do's and don'ts to help keep you out of trouble. Check it out.



3. As all Culture Shock books, this too is a very good one in unerstanding the soul of a country.



4. This book is a very comrehensive look at the culture & people of Ecuador. It is written like a travel guide giving an inside look into different locations & the people living there. This book would an enjoyable read even for people who are not planning on traveling to Ecuador.

5 comments about The Old Patagonian Express: By Train Through the Americas.

1. A remark that one reads often about Paul Theroux is that he is grouchy, critical of the people he meets, and generally unpleasant. Some readers seem to suggest that this makes him a worse traveller, not being pure-of-heart or sufficiently open-minded. On the other hand, some others suggest he is worth reading as a travel writer precisely because he's not afraid to tell-it-like-it-is. I think it is likely that both of these ideas are wrong.
   
   When Paul Theroux writes a travel book, he is not a journalist writing simply to produce a faithful depicition of the places he visits. He is not a social crusader writing in order educate the reader about the lives of the poor or to stimulate the reader to see the richness of life outside of North American. He certainly not an egotist like Thomas Friedman who writes in order to put himself in a positive light. He is simply an intelligent man who has enough humility to try to write down what he has experienced without drawing too many clumsy conclusions or false symmetries. When he writes that he didn't like a certain person sleeping in his train compartment, he doesn't expect the reader to sympathize with either him or the unpleasant companion. I don't think he means to argue that his dislike has any special significance beyond the fact that it was part of the travel story that he is telling. I like the fact that when Theroux narrates an encounter with someone in his travels he doesn't smooth out the details to make the encounter unambiguously positive or negative. For example, when he describes meeting Jorge Borges, the Argentine writer, he clearly admires Borges' memory and sensitivity and yet he doesn't avoid commenting on Borges' stuttering and his clowning smile. And yet again I don't think Theroux's remarks are meant to be cynical or knowing. When he tells-it-like-it-is he is not trying to steer an intellectual or moral high road and he is not valiantly trying to see past illusions. I believe that when he writes down a conversation or encounter he intends only to include his side as one of the characters in his story.
   
   Theroux has the patience to travel by train across a hemisphere and, thankfully for this reader, he has the patience to delay the moment when the mind can no longer calmly observe and rashly commits itself to streamlined answers and silly pet theories about what one sees and what it 'really' means. His books are, to me, humble because in them he shows us moments when he feels superior and they are wise because he doesn't try to step outside of his story to engage in falsely-wise pronoucements.
   
   It doesn't matter whether Paul Therous is a 'good' traveller or not. Few travellers have the writing ability to produce any sort of record of their travels anyway, whatever their nature. The reason one ought to read Paul Theroux is be reminded of what the world and oneself can look like through the eyes of an ardent traveller who just happens to love books a bit more than he loves people.



2. In 1979, Paul Theroux departed from his childhood home in Medford, Massachusetts, and began his train journey from the East Coast of the United States to Patagonia, on the southern tip of Argentina. A seasoned traveler, fluent in Spanish, Theroux brings to life his trip through the northern and southern hemispheres, traveling without a schedule and observing his fellow passengers on the train and people at stops along the way.
   
   In Texas he is astonished at the contrasts between Laredo on the Texas side of the Rio Grande and Nuevo Laredo across the border in Mexico, commenting on society and governments. Traveling through Mexico and Guatemala, he observes the poverty of the Indians and their lack of opportunities. In El Salvador he attends a soccer game and gets caught up in the melee and riots which follow it. In Costa Rica, the cleanest country he has visited, he finds himself stuck on the train with Mr. Thornberry, a New Hampshire tourist so boring that Theroux cannot wait to escape him--only to have Mr. Thornberry "save his life" by offering him a place to stay upon his arrival in Limon. In Panama he meets the "Zonians," from the Canal Zone, and in Cali, Colombia, he meets a married "priest" who cannot tell his devout mother in Belfast that he has "left" the church to marry and have children.
   
   Throughout his trip, Theroux reads classics, particularly enjoying Boswell's Life of Dr. Johnson and Edgar Allen Poe's The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym, both of which provide ironic reference points for his own journey. For literature lovers, the most fascinating section occurs in Buenos Aires, where Theroux spends many days visiting blind writer Jorge Luis Borges, who persuades Theroux to read to him. Ironically, one of Borges's favorite novels is The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym. As Theroux takes notes on his meetings with Borges, he becomes Borges's Boswell.
   
   More an observer than a participant, Theroux has an unfortunate air of superiority about what he sees and hears. Sparing little sympathy for American and German tourists, he rarely gets excited about his surroundings, expressing genuine emotion only when he talks with three boys, ages ten to twelve, who live in a doorway and scavenge for food because their rural families have abandoned them. Theroux's self-congratulatory attitude gets a bit wearisome, but the picture of Central and South America, thirty years ago, and the section with Borges are unparalleled. With beautiful, carefully observed prose and a great ear for dialogue, Theroux's Patagonia Express is a landmark travel memoir. n Mary Whipple



3. One of Theroux's best train trips. You can really feel the shifting landscapes as he moves through the latitudes...



4. Terrific in every way, as all of Theroux's travel books are! Not a word too many, and not an insight overlooked in this adventure through the Americas. Wonderful, beautiful, and a treasured book in my library.



5. Note: I made some immature Mormon angry because of my negative reviews of books that attempted to prove the Book of Mormon, and that person has been slamming my reviews almost as fast as they are posted.
   
   So, your "helpful" votes are appreciated. Thanks, and note that a short review is not necessarily a bad review if it leads you to a great book.
   
   From Boston to Patagonia by train. What an adventure. As I wrote in my review of the "Great Railway Bazaar," treat yourself to traveling the easy way and read one of Paul Theroux's books.
   
   Peter Mathiessen described the "Old Patagonian Express" perfectly: "Sharp-eyed, honest, and exceptionally well-written...an implacable landscape, conveyed through a series of marvelous encounters."

2 comments about South Dakota Atlas & Gazetteer.

1. I've used Delorme atlases without any problem on my excursions through other states, so I bought the South Dakota atlas last summer before my trip last September. As usual, everything in the atlas is clear and easy to read. My trip took me all across the state of South Dakota, including travel on many back roads. Not once did I wonder where I was or feel I was lost. These atlases are remarkable for their accuracy, and they have another winner with this one. Whether you've visiting the Black Hills, heading to Pierre, or want to get to Watertown, you can use any road confidently with this atlas. Highly recommended if you want to see any part of the state off I-90 or I-29!



2. DeLorme has done it again! Stellar mapping and attention to detail make this a grand publication. Two thumbs up!

5 comments about Tristes Tropiques.

1. One way to gauge who's in among fashionable academics is to read the catalog for the "Writers and Readers' Documentary Comic Book" series. Sartre has an entry, and so does Derrida, and Lacan. Thirty years ago, you would have expected to find an entry in this index for Claude Levi-Strauss. No more. Translations of his principal works appear to persist in print, but the sales numbers are look low, and he seems almost to have disappeared from the trendy book reviews and such. This is perhaps a matter for at least idle curiosity: Levi-Strauss is surely no more abstruse than his magisterial contemporaries - but no less so; one is perfectly willing to be relieved the obligation of ever picking him up again.

   With one exception. In style and temperament, Tristes Tropiques is so different from almost everything else Levi-Strauss wrote that it is hard to believe it is written by the same man. Oh, the primitive tribes are there, and a brief personal intellectual history, that offers a bow to Freud, and Bergeson, and Saussure. In my own copy, which I first read about 1980, I even have a pencilled notation "structuralism" - this at page 375 (Pocket Books edition, 1977). But there is almost none of the portentous vacuity that you had to cope with in the so-called "serious" works.

   What you get instead is Levi Strauss the raconteur, full of travelers' tales. He dines on roasted parrot, flamed with whisky. The termites make the earth rumble. Virgins are made to spit in pots of corn, to provoke fermentation - but "as the delicious drink, at once nutritious and refreshing, was consumed that very evening, the process of fermentation was not very advanced." You almost expect the anthropophagi and the men whose heads grow beneath their shoulders, that you meet in the Voyages of Sir John Mandeville, Knight.

   Laced through it all, you get a kind of austere sadness which is either (a) a tragic view of life; or (b) a kind of self-indulgent posturing, depending on your temperament for skepticism. "Every effort to understand," he says, "destroys the object studied in favor of another object of a different nature." Or: "Anthropology could with advantage be changed into 'entropology', as the name of the discipline concerned with the study of the highest manifestations of [a] process of disintegration."

   Well, call me anything the like, they say, as long as you call me for dinner. It might even be an elaborate con. But so, for that matter, might the stories of Herodotus were you get the same mix of the eclectic and the tolerant, the surreal and the sly. Herodotus, we may note, is one of the first great works of Western literature. Let's hope that Levi-Strauss is not one of the last.




2. This is Levi-Strauss most readable book, and it is a fantastic introduction to the "why" behind his interest in structuralism. There are hints of the various methods and approaches that he uses in later works, but this book shows why he was to develop structuralism in later works. The writing is clever and eloquent, and various conclusions he made about cultural diversity address contemporary concerns in a highly articulate and responsible manner. Read this book before delving into the other writings of one of the 20th Century's most important anthropologists.



3. Tristes Tropiques, surely one of the great books of the twentieth century, is Levi-Strauss at his intoxicating, idea-overloaded best and an elegy for a world that colonialism and then globalisation have doen their rational best to annihilate.
   
   Levi-Strauss, like most thinkers who come up with new ways of describing the world-- those who Richard Rorty calls "inventors of philosophical vocabularies"-- has of course been mis-read and his ideas mis-applied, as we see with the much-hyped "creation" and then "demise" of "structural anthropology." The real pleasure of this book, which mixes fascinating accounts of Levi-Strauss' travels in Brazil in the '30s with autobiography, and adds chapters on the Maya and ancient Hindu (Indian) civilisations, is in its sheer mass of artfully arranged detail and its endless, provocative play of ideas.
   
   Levi-Strauss stays conversational, descriptive and straightforward, avoiding academic jargon and obscure references. He assumes you know the basics about people like Freud, Marx, Darwin and the Buddha, and then shows you a trip through largely non-industrial societies which unfolds from anthropological description into deep philosophical speculation on the meaning of society and life.
   
   In Brazil, Levi-Strauss watches an illiterate but canny chieftain use his anthropological fieldnotes to intimidate his illiterate tribesmen subordinates, and speculates on the parallel origins of writing and slavery. In Matto Grosso, he meets a butcher fascinated with elephants, since "he could not imagine so much meat in one place." On the banks of the Amazon, a non-industrial tribe is dying, hypnotically lost in the symbolic intricacies of an ancient social system that makes its citizens inbreed. In India, Levi-Strauss watches Islam and Hinduism-- the "locker room" and "mother" religions-- wage symbolic and then real war post-Independence.
   
   The book starts as anthropology, turns into philosophy, and ultimately becomes a critique of the West, driven by "reason" and technology to shake off what Levi-Strauss calls the "thick blanket of dreams" with which non-industrial civilisation arranges the Universe into Meaning, which remains for the industrialised world the greatest and unanswered question.
   
   But Levi-Strauss does not idealise the primitive. His point is that through the study of those and that which are different, a kind of "ideal model" of society-- one which will never exist-- can be built in the imagination, and people can evaluate their world by reference to this community of mind.
   
   This is a remarkable book-- easy to read, engrossing, and endlessly thought-provoking.



4. I often review works which I have read long ago. Upon beginning to write about them I invariably discover how much time I gave to something which seemed so worthwhile at the time, and which I have almost completely forgotten. I then ordinarily do some catch- up learning about the book. And my review becomes an amalgalm of distant past and most recent present impression. And meanwhile the heart of the book is forever unknown to me and lost. And my review is only a minor tracing an impression both of the book itself and what of my mind knew when reading through it.
   This certainly applies to my reading of this particular work, ,the one work of Levi- Strauss which I remember reading with any degree of real understanding and pleasure. His making of a life and career as an anthropologist which are a good part of the first part of the work interested me then.
   The long travelogue and explorations into Amerindian society and mind, interested me less.
   I understand though that the real voyage is into and along with the mind of Levi- Strauss itself, a mind much more complicated than I was ordinarily used to meeting and ingesting .
   I do remember however the somewhat majestic tone, the tone of restrained sadness of quiet mourning which seemed to go through the work as Levi- Strauss met with worlds being lost and deterorating , in part through their meetings with the very kind of Western mind he himself exemplified. It is the mind destroying the object in the process of knowing it , as the Western explorers of these tribal societies transformed them out of their own natural state by meeting with them.
   For Levi- Strauss and this I remember, the ' primitive mind' is not ' primitive at all' and may be in its linguistic complexity and social structure far more intricate than the ' civilized ' as it were sophisticated worlds we believe we live in.
   I read this work as a way of being acquainted with a great mind, a mind which to my mind proved to be quite elusive and even distant.
   But clearly the exploration made by Levi- Strauss of his own inner and external worlds is one which calls to the curious human mind and heart in its quest for understanding ' of the other'
   Montaigne took a trip in the Brazilian jungle in the twentieth
   century, looked in the mirror and saw the face of Levi- Strauss.



5. I like to travel and to observe the cities, landscapes, the plants and animals and the human inhabitants of the countries I go to. So does Levy-Strauss, and he is a fantastic observer, much more sharp-eyed than I could ever hope to be, and a highly entertaining writer. In this classic he talks about a wide range of observations from a number of corners of the world, but mainly about South America.
   The book deals with Levi-Strauss' time as a teacher in Brazil and his trips into the South American hinterland; his escape from Nazi-occupied France; His later expeditions to visit remote tribes in the Amazon; and an assortment of observations about such diverse topics as the frustration of the traveler to never encounter the true, pristine state of a culture, the Indian caste system and the division of public and private space in different parts of the world. The book is full of fascinating anecdotes: My favorite one is how a native chief from observing Levy-Strauss grasped the social importance of writing, but not its role in information storage and transmission. He bluffed to impress his underlings and drew freshly invented line configurations on a paper. This leads Levy-Strauss to observe that from the invention of writing to its universal knowledge a few millennia passed, during which it did not serve to liberate the masses, but to control them. Such wide-ranging philosophical associations are frequent and were very enjoyable to me. The book is, however, definitely not only a collection of anecdotes, but in parts a very detailed description of the life of some of the native tribes he visited in the Amazon. Drawings of artifacts, patterns used in body-painting and photographs supplement the text. We are given both anthropological descriptions of the lifes of these peoples, their social organization, attitudes and material culture, as well as Levy-Strauss' personal experiences when living among them, sometimes his friendships with members of these tribes. Of course these people were strongly affected by the contact with European civilization, often to the worse. We also learn about these developments. There isn't really much direct explanation about his theoretical approaches to anthropology. This is the kind of book which made me wish that I could have been an expedition member of Levy-Strauss' team. Highly recommended.

5 comments about Georgia Atlas & Gazetteer.

1. Very useful and about as accurate as you can get in a print edition, but a recent printing is missing some pages and has doubles of others. Check your copy, especially around pages 16-24.



2. I have bought 8 DeLorme Atlas and Gazetteer atlases and think they are all superb, the best on the market. I use the co-ordinates to locate pin-point spots on the maps!



3. The Gazeteers are unique and very informative if you understand and can read Topographic maps. This is not the best choice for a road map but might just be the best compromise for any outdoor enthusiast looking for very good details in an easy to read and transport atlas. Great for planning backwoods adventures or finding old road alignments in many instances.



4. This State Map is the best I can find. I have several of these, and use them frequently to choose routes that I want to travel. The Best!



5. ALL DeLORME Atlases & Gazetteers are:
   ULTIMATE (printed) EARTH GUIDES
   
   The DeLORME is a superb visual representation of terrain and every feature of the landscape with a listing of Trails, Fresh Water & Salt Water Fishing Sites; Hunting Areas; Recreation Areas; Historic Sites; Unique Natural Features; Campground and Primitive Sites; Attractions, State Parks, Federal Lands, State & County Lines (borders), power lines (great for traversing areas or following out of wilderness if temporarily lost), private airports as well as large airports, and much more.
   
   This is not a `city map' with every street named and is more for the vacationer or outdoor enthusiast. Every street is shown, with main streets named. This is more for planning a vacation, canoe or kayak trip, hiking, off-roading on Jeep trails (shown), finding boat ramps, trail heads and so on.
   
   GPS (WGS84 datum) tick marks and grid lines are on each page. The terrain is masterfully represented by detailed color-coded shading with elevation lines clearly showing flat areas as well as rises in terrain allowing one to picture the terrain before seeing it.
   
   The pages show boat ramps, lakes, ponds, creeks, streams, water falls, springs, swamps, forests mountains, trails, old abandoned railroad grades (great for hiking), military bases, Indian Reservations, bridges, fire towers, and back country details galore.
   
   SIZE MATTERS: Pages are 11" x 15"; representing approx. 30 miles. X 40 mi. The back outer-cover shows the whole state. Great for quickly estimating mileage & travel time by looking at the page-grids. Forty minutes North-South, 30 minutes E-W in rural areas and more for populated areas or steep mountainous roads.
   
   In summary: A lot of bang for your buck!

5 comments about Drive I-95: Exit by Exit Info, Maps, History and Trivia.

1. This book is great! Not only does it give the standard I95 exit information (restaurants, hotels, etc.) but it also gives many points of interest for families...rest areas where you can play ball or places not far from exits where you can have fun.
   I can't believe how extensive this book is and how accurate since it's a few years old now and things they are a changin' along I95 North to South.
   We really enjoyed this book along our trip - reading ahead of time is recommended so that you can be aware of places to stop before you get there.



2. Drive I-95 by Stan Posner and Sandra Phillips-Posner has been released in updated 4th Edition. It is a very comprehensive guidebook for any drive along the North-South route of the United States most Eastward coastal highway. This edition now includes Florida. With maps, radar traps, radio stations, 24 hour gas info, good eats and sleeps, where pets are welcomed, unususal shopping opportunities, fun places to visit, and fascinating historical facts along the route, you cannot leave home for that highway without this book! You'll miss so much! The excellent book, with exit by exit itemized information, has won the Book of the Year Seal, Best Books Award, and Benjamin Franklin Award. It is compact and sturdy enough to tuck into your car door pocket. EXCELLENT!!!



3. As someone who travels I-95 often, I was delighted to discover "Drive I-95." What a valuable tool for the vacationer or the everyday traveler!
   
   This slick, spiral book is an ideal guide to everything you need to help make your trip more pleasant. Exits for every segment of I-95 from Massachusetts to the tip of Florida, where I-95 ends, are documented with important landmarks, motels, restaurants/fast food places, service stations, and drug and grocery stores. A book flap gives the dial location and program types for the strongest radio stations along the way. Following the map section, the traveler will find more than 100 pages of interesting tidbits concerning history and places found near I-95. These include segments, with exit numbers, about the Torpedo Factory Art Center, located in Alexandria, VA; Gadsby's Tavern (an historic restaurant at the same exit); St. John's Church in Richmond, VA where Patrick Henry gave his famous speech about liberty or death; the Best Western Space Shuttle Inn; Outlets at Vero Beach, FL; Worth Ave. in Palm Beach, FL and much more. The back inside cover has a list of motel chain 800 numbers.
   
   Drive I-95 is a treasure you will want to keep in your car as you travel from Boston to Miami and lots of places in between. What a great idea!
   
   --Mary Montague Sikes, author of Hotels to Remember



4. Now in a fully updated fourth edition, "Drive I-95" continues to be the premier guidebook for the more than 42,500,000 people who drive to Florida every year down Interstate 95. It accurately charts all 552 exits on I-95 from Boston to Miami. It is also a wealth of information about food options, motels, radar traps, radio stations, 24-hour mechanics (a unique feature not found in other travel guides) ATM machines, shopping recommendations, and even some of the best golf courses to be found along the route. With anecdotal stories such as the Ava Gardner Museum in Smithfield, North Carolina having been started with a kiss, to a listing of motel chain 800 numbers, to so much more, "Drive I-95" continues to be the premier and confidently recommended travel guide for anyone driving up or down I-95!



5. Haven't had time to actually use this book so far but my sisters. one of whom has used an older version of this book in the past, used theirs recently while traveling north. They found it very helpful in locating places to eat and stay overnight. We did notice however that one or two of the eating places in our own area of Santee are no longer in business.
   
   I hope to get my chance to use it shortly.