5 comments about Photographer's Guide to Yellowstone and the Tetons.

1. A caveat: I am a total amateur who takes pictures only during the one or two annual vacations using very simple equipment!
   
   I just came back after 5 days at YS and GT parks. I was very impressed by how accurate Joseph's suggestions were -- in terms of the preferred times, angles and such to take pictures from. For example, Joseph had suggested taking pictures of the Old Faithful NOT from the benches in front of the Inn, but from the lodge side or from another angle which would include some colorful runoffs in the picture. I managed to pick up a rainbow with the waterfall from Uncle Tom's trail in my video (my still camera did nt pick it up). Other suggetsions also turned out to be as accurate and useful. More importantly, it is absolutely free of fluff and hence you can read it in a 2 hours flight to YS!
   
   When I first looked at Joseph's pictures, I felt like there was probably a tad excessive use of filters to exaggerate the contrasts (the blues appeared to me to be a bit more blue than what would have been real). I never got to verify this as the sky was grey in YS and GT when I was there! Anyways, it is just a matter of taste. If you like Joseph's results (they are stunning), you can use the detailed input he provides on the use of the polarizer and the filters. Even otherwise, his suggestions on just the spots and times to take pictures from make the book very valuable.
   
   The book is organized based on features -- waterfalls, geysers, animals and so on. That is probably useful for many. However, for family vacationers, coverage by location (Norris, West Thumb,...) would probably have been easier to use. I had to correlate the suggested times for photography from Joseph with the info I got on how to cover each location from another excellent book (YS Treasures by J Chappel).
   
   Overall, I strongly recommend the book.



2. I bought this book to take along on a vacation trip to Yellowstone and the Tetons in mid-June 2007. I found it to be a great source to take photos of often photographed natural icons at different views and angles as well as some shots that the average traveler would not know about without this book. For instance I would not have known about the great shots that can be taken of the Mormon Row Barns with the Tetons in the background without this book. Perhaps more seasoned photographers may know about these different places but I for one would not have had a clue. I would have ended my vacation with the same shots of Yellowstone and the Tetons that everyone else has. The book took me off the beaten path where I got some great shots and expierenced the pleasures of getting away from the main road.
   
   Other valuable information was the instructions on what time of day is best to shoot a certain shot, tips about exposure, and valuable tips about using filters that made my pictures stand out.
   
   The book was concise, accurate, and very easy to follow and understand for an novice like me.



3. I would have given the Photographers Guide to Yellowstone & the Titons a 5 Star Rating if there was an index in the back of the book for easy reference while out in the field. It is difficult trying to remember what page the subject that your looking at is on. That being said, it is still a good reference book on the area and I do not regret buying it.



4. Good pointers for each geographic location.
   
   Could be updated to add digital photography tips, but my long experience enabled me to accommodate for that.



5. This is a very helpful book when photographing Teton and Yellowstone. I was able to decide exactly what equipment to pack prior to the trip and it was exactly what I needed.

5 comments about Restaurant Financial Basics.

1. I used this book to teach financial management of restaurantes to pupils in a culinary school. It was very usefull and I highly recommend it, especially the chapter where you find the different forms of calculating the price of a dish.



2. This is an excellent book that must be a part of your business library. As essential as any cookbook



3. I am an accountant and this books gives me great ideas to share with my restaurant clients



4. 
   It provided me with the guidelines I was searching for. I needed a model for structure.



5. The book hasn't been used yet for our group discussion at work, but I've looked through it and I'm excited about the book. Its easy to read and understand.

5 comments about Vietnam (Country Guide).

1. We hiked to the top of Nui Ba Den (or Black Lady Mountain). LP page 376 says it's a 6 hour trek to the top and back, but we took longer.
   
   We didn't ride the cable cars part way up; we walked up from the very bottom.
   
   Started 8:40 am, got back down about 6:30 PM, and we rode those lovely cable cars down the last part. If I ever do it again, I'm riding those cable cars up to the trail head.
   
   Have you hiked to the bottom of the Grand Canyon? I have. 5,000 vertical feet down, 5,000 vertical feet back up.
   
   Black Lady Mountain is 3,000 vertical feet up, 3,000 back down. And I can tell you it's a much tougher trail than the Grand Canyon. Grand Canyon trails (both of them) are hands-free trails. That is, unless you want to occupy a hand with a walking stick, your hands are free to juggle hacky sacks, etc.
   
   The Black Lady Mountain trail requires some hour-long boulder scrambles, and in some parts you had really better keep three on the rock and only move just one hand or foot at a time. Keep three on the rock. Really.
   
   If you're no climber (I'm not) your upper body will be about half as sore as your legs the next day, because you are going to use both hands a lot. The next 2 or 3 days, getting up and down stairs was actually tough to do, real sore, so factor a recovery slow-down into your travel plans. I was way, way more wiped out than by hiking the Grand Canyon.
   
   Don't try the trail to the top in flip-flops; we saw several sad dead flip-flops. Some nice Teva sandals were great.
   
   Be careful, a bad fall is possible, a twisted ankle could happen even easier.
   
   Take plenty of water. We screwed up on that, and were very hot and thirsty when we got down to the cable car station. Victory drinks never tasted so cool and sweet!
   
   Take plenty of water. It's not hard to do, many vendors at the top of the cable car run.



2. I was already very disappointed by Nick Ray's "Cambodia", but "Vietnam" tops it all...
   
   Useless information: For example: "Post office - get rid of your stamps here." Do I really need a lecture what a post office is used for? What about opening times? Or if that changes too often - just don't say anything at all. But don't tell me what a post office is good for!
   
   For the package tourist the book might be okay. But for the independent traveler it is a horror! Example: "To get to the Perfume Pagoda by public transport is too complicated. Take a tour!" What?!?! I thought it's a Lonely Planet guidebook and not one of these colorful DK travel guides...
   
   Oh well, the only reason to use LP Vietnam is b/c it's the only guidebook you can get in SE Asia. It is a good idea to buy a Rough Guide (I hope that one is better!) in Bangkok/Hong Kong/Overseas and carry it all the way to Vietnam.
   
   On the other hand: Vietnam is probably not a good place for independent travelers anymore anyway (well, of course "off the beaten path" still exists... Thanks for that! But it's hard to find in Vietnam...)



3. For the first-time visitor to Vietnam, Lonely Planet's Vietnam 9 overall is a fine production -- and is easily Lonely Planet's best swing at Vietnam -- even if the style police are trying to ruin the show.
   
   Vietnam 9 covers all the big-ticket destinations comprehensively, with detailed sleeping, eating, drinking and sights information. There's a detailed orientation section, loads of maps, crystal clear photos and lots of general information. Good coverage on most of the border crossings is included and the transportation information is pretty easy to digest -- if a little confusing at times. A series of suggested itineraries, while not overly imaginative, remain useful for first time travellers.
   
   Authors Nick Ray, Peter Dragicevich and Regis St Louis have done the hard yards and crammed much of what Vietnam has to offer into Lonely Planet's famously tight word-limits. They've done a great job putting together what is a probably the most comprehensive text available and something much improved on Vietnam 8.
   
   Listings
   Guesthouse and hotel listings are concise and all budgets are well covered. There were some omissions which struck me as odd -- Mai House on Phu Quoc, Tay Ho Hotel in Can Tho, Jungle Beach north of Nha Trang, Hoa Hong in Da Nang and the Tung Trang in Hanoi -- all outstanding places, yet none made the cut. That said, there are stacks of excellent places they do mention -- more than enough for most readers. For the rest you'll just need to read www.travelfish.org.
   
   Sights-wise, the information is excellent. Lots of historical background and interesting snippets are woven into the text, acting as leads for the reader to learn more. For example Ong Pagoda in Tra Vinh includes a reference to the Chinese classic The Romance of the Three Kingdoms for more information on the pagoda's god Quan Cong.
   
   Transport
   Transportation comes in two parts -- a summary and the destination specific sections throughout.
   
   The summary section is good though a little unbalanced. There are almost three pages about getting a flight to Vietnam (surely something fairly simple), yet almost no information about the niche topic of buying a motorbike -- certainly an area where advice and suggestions would be useful. The train section has the briefest of fare charts, but thankfully steers people to the Man in Seat Sixty-One website (www.seat61.com) which is a far better resource.
   
   The destination specific sections vary. In particular better information regarding frequency of bus services would have been good. There are also some discrepancies -- the Qui Nhon to Pakse bus service is listed as taking 12 hours and costing 250,000 VND, yet in Pleiku it reads "There is also an international service linking Pleiku and Attapeu (US$10, 12 hours)". This error (Qui Nhon to Pakse is at least twice the distance of Pleiku to Attapeu) is repeated in the transport introduction. Perhaps if one of the writers had actually done the trip they'd know that Attapeu to Kon Tum takes about five hours and another two hours to Pleiku, while the Qui Nhon to Pakse trip can take up to 20 hours. Of course these errors can happen to anyone -- I'm sure there are some in Travelfish -- but hey, LP has a bigger editing team than us.
   
   Text and design
   Talking about editing, the text is dense and the writing dry, verging on encyclopaedic. I've met a number of the LP writers over the years and without fail they've been a much more interesting, amusing and verbose lot than this text would have you believe. Perhaps the editors could spin the dial back a little on their "textual-de-emotionaliser device" to let the occasional witty or cheeky line slip through.
   
   And while I'm on the topic of the back-end -- there's a new layout, and this one isn't great. A step forward is the removal of "Author's choice" aka the Lonely Planet Touch of Death -- replaced by a small "our pick" icon. A step backwards is the ordering of accommodation by price rather than quality. In this nod to the serial penny-pinchers, the rest of us are left scratching our head thinking "So which one do they recommend?".
   
   Fact boxes though are the real blight. Vietnam 9 saw its length increased from 524 to 540 pages, yet rather than bulking out destinations, there are now more than 100 shaded fact boxes. Of course, some are useful; "Tracking the American War", tying together various sections covering war interests, is great. But half a page dedicated to Regis St Louis's motorbike breaking down is excessive -- especially when there's but a lone paragraph dedicated to trekking out of Kon Tum. Minor point perhaps, but the designers should have their cookie-jar benefits suspended for the incorrectly typeset, mistakenly padded fact box on page 163 -- sloppy.
   
   Call me old school, but a move back to the basics -- accurate and easy to use information -- would be welcome. As an example, if you're looking for a list of internet resources for Vietnam, you'll be needing to refer to pages 21, 42, 58, 63, 69, 74, 79, 84, 89-90, 171, 465, 476, 494 and 495-6 -- whose bright idea was that?!
   
   Now I'm getting petty and trivial -- lets move on.
   
   Maps
   The 105 maps cover all the major destinations and look terrific, but in anything short of ideal conditions, are difficult to read. Vietnam 8's maps, while uglier, were far easier to use. The new maps replace clunky shades and chunky outlines with gentle hues and delicate lines. This may look great in Lonely Planet's mapping HQ, but when you're crammed in a minibus trying to decipher the Hanoi map by torch, you'll be thinking different.
   
   Photos
   The photos are terrific. From the wraparound train cover-photo to the bored tourists gawking at the carpet in Reunification Palace, they do a great job of catching -- and explaining -- Vietnam. In another layout change, the photos are clustered in the first few pages, closely followed by a food overview and then eight more pages of colour in the centre.
   
   Conclusion
   It's worth noting that some of my criticisms are general and not specific to Vietnam 9 -- overall it's an excellent guide and I've rated the book at 8.5 stars (out of 10). If you're going to Vietnam and planning on hitting all the key destinations -- you'll be set with this title -- no questions asked.
   
   *A pet peeve -- I purchased Vietnam 9 at a bookstore in Jakarta on July 20, and had seen it at the airport weeks earlier. Yet on the half-cover it reads "9th edition published August 2007". Unless Lonely Planet have a special in-house definition for the work "published" this is misleading to potential buyers who are looking for what they consider to be the most "up-to-date" text available -- it should read July 2007.



4. This was a very good guide. I got the Rough Guide, National Geographic and Let's Go and was most satisfied with Lonely Planet. This had the most up-to-date info and mentioned a few things that were not in the other guides. Let's Go might be best for people in their early 20's. All of the guides avoid giving opinions and pretty much list all the tourist destinations. I found the web site [...] to be the best source for recommends on what to see and do and used the guides for hotel information.



5. I am reviewing the L.P.2007 guide. Note: most of the other reviews are for older editions, ie. Pre-2007. I was in Vietnam January-February 2007 and used this guide.
   
   The guide has maps that are superb and easy to use. Both the accommodations and restaurants I chose from the guide's recommendations were good to very good. The cost for accommodations are listed in dollars, instead of the insipid icons that other guides use. Kudos!!! The restaurants cost quotes are in Dong. Caveat! Because the dollar is in a free fall against world currencies, you will need to add at least 20% to the quoted price for hotels, maybe more.
   
   Vietnam is a country of paradoxes: Communistic-Free Market. Traditional-Progressive. Etc. To capture a caricature of Vietnam is as demanding as it would be enigmatic. Yet, Dragicevich, Ray & St. Louis (authors) have written an outstanding brief profile of this country. "The Culture" is a section not to miss. No other guide is as complete if you are going to go "off the tourist track." I found towns and places in L.P. that other guides don't even list. The information was accurate and trustworthy.
   
   Unlike Rough Guide's Vietnam (8 pages) this guide has only a smattering of book/film recommendations. Sadly, in this guide, unlike other L.P. guides, there are few sidebars or text boxes that give you interesting tidbits about the country and its people. Though most all accommodations have an email address, there are NO webpages. NOT GOOD. This guide needs serious improvement in this area.
   
   The 2007 is a significantly revised guide and one of the best guides in print for Vietnam. This is a highly recommended guide - happy tramping. 4.5 Stars.

5 comments about Florida's Living Beaches: A Guide for the Curious Beachcomber.

1. This is a great little reference book for anyone who will be visiting the beach or even wants to. It is very high quality w/tons and tons of pictures, so I was glad to pay such a small price for it, especially since I didn't know it would be this good when I bought it. It tells about all sorts of things that may grow or wash up on Florida beaches. Most people think of the obvious, but this book has so many things and animals that I've never seen or even heard of before. It also tells you whether or not things can be touched, as in whether they are poison, sting, etc or not and what parts of Florida the things can be found in. It even tells the different types of shells, which is always nice. I wished it could've provided some more detail on some things, but for the amount of things included in this book it would've been hard to provide extensive detail. It provides all that you would need to know about most things. I would recommend this to any marine lover or anyone that visits the beach often. It is really helpful to know about some of this stuff before you go out and encounter it.



2. I recently moved to Florida and was interested in learning what nature had to offer here. So, I went to the library and borrowed this book. Well I loved it so much, I came home and purchased it. Now we can take it to the beach with us and identify everything we see. It's in a very organized format and contains all the information any family can use. The grandkids learned a lot from it too. Very nice. I highly recommend it.



3. 
   I recently spent lots of time beachcoming on Florida's gulf coast and found this to be an invaluable resource for identifying a lot of the shells, corals, fossils and other fun stuff that washes up on the beach there. I checked it out of the local library, and then decided that I definitely needed a copy of my own. Great book for a serious beachcomer!



4. A great one-for-all book. The photography and information are outstanding. No need to haul around multiple books.



5. If you've picked-up shells off of Florida's beaches and wanted to be able to identify them, then this book is for you! It offers great descriptions and photographs to assist you in being able to easily identify the shells and other things you find on the beach. I highly recommend this book! It's got a wealth of information "...for the curious beachcomber:)"

5 comments about The Complete Travel Detective Bible: The Consummate Insider Tells You What You Need to Know in an Increasingly Complex World!.

1. Chock full of information but for the frequent traveler, nothing ground breaking in it. A lot of the back chapters are geared towards niche demographic groups (seniors, gay/lesbian, etc.) and so you'll just flip through a lot of it. He lists a ton of different links for useful websites throughout the book but it would be helpful if they were compiled as an appendix in the back of the book.
   
   If you're an inexperienced traveler who is going to be doing a lot more travel in the future, this is a good book for you. For the rest, may be overkill/underkill.



2. There is so much travel information available these days that it's hard to recommend any source of travel information. Nonetheless, Peter Greenberg has been in the game for a long time. His writing is clear and his tips are a great starting point for further researches. His website at petergreenberg.com is an excellent source of additional, up-to-date information. He'll even respond to questions and comments.
   
   This is a very good overview of travel information for people who love to travel. And, he'll make you smile -- perhaps the best travel tip of all. :)



3. This isn't really so much a book that you would want to read in its entirety as a collection of data and opinions to scan through. Sections 1-2 are devoted to topics such as airports, frequent filer miles and baggage policies. A novice traveller might find something helpful here. But most travellers will find very little that they don't already know.
   
   Sections 3-5 are focused on various forms of "speciality travel" such as pet travel, biking and culinary travel. If you a have a particular interest in one of the forms of "speciality travel" covered than this might be of interest. But once again the info presented here seemed pretty basic and the sort of the stuff that could be easily found on the internet.
   
   In fact, a few web sites mentioned was the only aspect of the book that I found useful at all. Perhaps most of the credit here should go to Sarika Chawla who Greenberg says is his information researcher. On the other hand Greenberg has a rather grumpy style of writing and a tendency to go off on rants which I found unpleasant. I didn't enjoy reading it and there just wasn't enough useful information to make this worthy of of a recommendation.



4. I've been traveling for business and pleasure for 37 years, up to two weeks and half a dozen different cities per month. Most importantly, my travels have been on my dime, because I'm self-employed, and I've sought every time- and money-saving ploy I could come up with. But I learned a frightening amount of new information from this book.
   
   There is a good mixture of tips for buying tickets, getting the most from your hotel stays, and other procedural topics, as well as good information oriented towards specific destinations. This book is excellent for browsing, or for reading from cover-to-cover.
   
   If you think you know everything there is to know about travel: you don't. Peter Greenberg does, however, and you should take advantage of his expertise.



5. The Complete Travel Detective Bible: The Consummate Insider Tells You What You Need to Know in an Increasingly Complex World!

5 comments about Streetwise Venice Map - Laminated Center City Street Map of Venice, Italy - Folding pocket size travel map (Streetwise).

1. This is a Venice street map, laminated, folding into standard envelope size item. You can get essentially the same thing, only without lamination, from a tourist bureau while in Venice for free. A good product, but not an essential one to buy ahead of your trip to Venice - get it there.



2. This is a somewhat pricey item considering it's only a map, but a laminated map is a valuable resource when your lost in that splendid maze of Venice. It's a good size and very easy to use.



3. On a recent visit to Venice I used the Streetwise Venice map. Though I found the plastic coating beneficial during a rain shower, the map was of limited value. Because of its size, street names were often illegible. The northern part of the city was cut off from the map and therefore gave me no help in exploring that part of the city where so many of the locals live. Far better to pick up one of the free maps given out by the tourist office, or available in almost all of the hotels.



4. My husband and I found this map to be extremely helpful, in large part because of the clear identification of the monuments. It's worth the money to have it for the first day or two until you get your bearings.



5. It's a pathetic small map of Venice.
   Only room for main island, even that much to small.
   No information at all.
   If you want good map of Venice, buy the Borch.

1 comments about National Geographic Atlas of the Middle East, Second Edition (National Geographic Atlas of the Middle East).

1. There is a two page spread for each country with a map and basic stats for the country. Additional regional maps show info about climate, land use, population, religions, languages, oil, water, food, historical sites and various conflicts. There is a multi-page history timeline. The maps are similar to those in their big world atlas 8th edition but they are a little more colorful. This is a handy size to keep near your TV news watching chair. As with most Nat Geo atlas they print right up into the binding but with the larger atlas it lays open flat and this is a feature but with this smaller book you loose some data in the crease. There is a place map inside the front cover to easily locate each country's map.

5 comments about John Muir Trail Map-Pack: Shaded Relief Topo Maps.

1. I purchased this Tom Harrison map set to thru-hike the JMT. At the same time I ordered the maps from the national park service. The T.H. maps are thin, tearproof, waterproof, lightweight and they pack down into a small size. The NPS maps are paper, they tear easily, they'd be damaged easily by water, and because they cover the 3 parks/national forests, rather than just the trail, they are about 10 times as large and heavier. When I go hiking later this year, the T.H. maps are coming with me. The NPS maps are staying at home.



2. I've used the same set of Harrison's JMT maps a couple of times now, the first hike took 30 days and second took 18. They're durable, for sure. The scale (1:63,360) is appropriate for the set of 13 8.5"x11" maps - if you really, really hustle you can hike a map per day. The size means you don't have to unfold a huge sheet of paper each time you want to check where you are. The mileage between waypoints on the trail is clearly marked. The maps don't have the detail of 7.5-minute USGS maps but you wouldn't want that kind of detail for this hike. Harrison also has some larger maps, e.g., "Sequoia & King's Canyon Nat'l Parks" with a 1:125,000 scale but the size is inconvenient for the JMT hike. Conceivably you could scissor his larger maps to make a map of the trail but since he's already done the job about perfectly, why bother? (Incidentally the JMT runs between Mt. Whitney and Yosemite's Happy Isles, so being disappointed at not getting a Mexico-to-Canada map doesn't make very much sense.)



3. If you are planning on hiking the JMT, buy this! It is EXACTLY what you need and no more.



4. Tom creates the best maps around. I don't know he does it all by himself. I love having the UTM grid on each page. Each of the 13 pages has just the right amount of detail for my through hike. I think you would be foolish to do the JMT without these.



5. In comparison to the National Geographic Trail illustrated maps Tom Harrison Maps have more user features such as more trail mileage markers and they are slightly more detailed scale. I like the colors of the Natl Geo maps better though. I really like how he's broken his JMT maps into one day's worth of hiking so that you only need one sheet out at a time.
   Note this map pack is centered on the JMT if you are looking for other hikes near the JMT or the connector trails to the various trailheads there is very little additional coverage. If you are actually hiking the JMT only they are excellent.

2 comments about Miles of Smiles: 101 Great Car Games and Activities.

1. I've seen those ads for minivans with little monitors for passengers in the back seats to watch movies. Frankly, the idea of appals me! Don't our children also need a vacation from TV & movies? How much real life are they missing? How dull will our children's brains become, being force-fed with endless artificial stories?

   "Are we there yet?" is a question rarely asked when you bring MILES OF SMILES along on your journeys. It is a good book for travellers, chock-a-block with things to do with eyes & brains. Thinking on the move, exercising the brain cells, learning to wrap the tongue around strange words, thinking inside the head, rather than passively, staring into space as someone else's ideas reel into the mind.

   In my childhood, the only way we went on vacations was by family car. My mother was the driver, with my father navigating. To retain his sanity, he invented all sorts of brain teasing games. So, I was thrilled when I came upon Carole Terwilliger Meyers' handy little book MILES OF SMILES. It's perfect for a glove compartment or a seat pocket. I have, however, played many of these games with my kids on busses, trains, even 'planes.

   MILES OF SMILES is a book that will let you think, use your brain, get to know your family. It has a whole slew of new games to play, which can be adapted to any age passengers. In the Introduction, Carole Terwilliger Meyers even gives parents a clue as to how to entice teenagers into the games.

   Pick up a couple of copies of MILES OF SMILES - just in case you lose the first!




2. This was a great book, we have used it on 2 long trips so far and love it. There are tongue twisters, jokes, and lots of activities for everyone to participate in. A great buy!!

2 comments about Australia (Country Guide).

1. This book is a wealth of information all contained in one volume. The travel tips, itineraries and even restaurant information are well researched. My only complaint is I'd like to see more detailed maps of some of the more off the beaten path areas - such as Kirra Beach, were I am going. Other than that, this book is a great product and I'd highly recommend it for anyone going to Australia for their first time.



2. good book that will be great assistance in planning trip to Oz, as well as during my journey