Customer Reviews

Adventures in Nature Honduras

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For those venturing to discover the hidden secret of Honduras, this is the best guidebook you can have. It's not your ordinary where-to-eat-shop-stay book; rather, it caters to the ecotourist who comes to appreciate the sublime beauty of this lesser-traveled country. Honduras is a land of many treasures, few of which I've had the fortune to explore; but this book has inspired me to go back for more. From the helpful tips and sidebars to the excellent details about the wonder of Honduras, this book will lead you off the beaten path to discover this fabulous country on your own. Don't go to Honduras without it!

KUDOS to Ron Mader and James Gollin for taking the time and effort to organize thier many years of travel savy experiences and research to put together the most outstanding Honduran travel guide that has ever been published. The book "Honduras: Adventures in Nature" is a MUST for anyone that has an interest in experiencing the unique and widely variable environments as well as its peoples and customs in this beautiful country. Ron & James cover EVERYTHING from the first people in this area to where the best place to get a refreshing chilled glass of tropical juice, all with a good sense of humor to lighten all of the informatively descriptive and educational material.

"Honduras: Adventures in Nature" does not just list areas of the country and the Bay Islands that holds special interests to the traveler but gives precise details of how to get to the many different sites, what is available at each point of interest (as well as the surrounding a! rea), park fees but also information that only well seasoned explores would know, such as suggestions on particular qualified guides, lodging and meals. An extensive list of government and non-governmental organizations also adorne this well rounded book with contact information. The information is so personalised and current that this book will have to be kept updated and from what I understand, this is excactly what is being done. If you are wanting to make an enjoyable venture into this diverse country but want all the homework done for you in advance, then "Honduras: Adventures in Nature" is the publication that has done the homework for you.

I am the author of two other guidebooks in the "Adventures in Nature" series (on Belize and Guatemala) of which this is a part. I was originally asked to write the Honduras guide, but declined on the grounds that I didn't know enough about the country to do a good job. I'm happy to report that Ron Mader and Jim Gollin have done a BETTER than "good" job...in fact the results of their combined efforts are excellent in all respects. Their intelligence and insight come through on every page, along with a genuine affection for the people and places of Honduras. I have been to the country twice in recent years, and my experiences are congruent with those reported in this book. I particularly appreciate the straightforward and honest appraisal of hotels, restaurants, and outfitters, as well as the indepth material about the natural wonders of this underrated and underappreciated Central American destination. Put simply, this is the best guide to the country I have ever seen. Buy it!

I spend alot of time in Honduras and own just about every guidebook for that country. Adventures in Nature is by far the most worn. It is a well researched book and provides countless ideas of places to go for the adventure traveler/tourist. I recently started running mountain bike tours in Honduras near La Ceiba and while setting them up last year and mapping out routes this book was always with me. If you're looking for a hotel, food, transportation, logistics, etc. book you may want to have another guidebook with you as well, but don't substitute it.

So-called Tour Guides, despite fancy price tags, frequently turn out to be worth the dime of that cliche ending in the word "dozen." James D. Gollin's and Ron Mader's recently-published HONDURAS is a brilliant exception. This, I know because I'm an accidental expert on the guidebook genre. In 1998 I logged 120,000 air-travel miles, commuting to various foreign outposts on business-related tasks. My library includes hundreds of travel books containing pretty pictures and little else of substance.

Early in '99 I received an unexpected assignment to Honduras, unfamiliar territory for me. With a mere few days' notice, there was little doubt that I'd arrive unprepared. Gollin's and Mader's extraordinary work interceded.

Obtaining HONDURAS only hours pre-flight, on the plane I scribbled pages of notes which were to prove invaluable. Two weeks later, the paperback published by John Muir Publications (in itself an endorsement) was tattered and torn. Not because it's poorly bound but, rather, as further testimony to the superb quality of this Gollin-Mader joint endeavor. Having agreed to volunteer services for a Hurricane Mitch Relief organization, I met up with others on the same mission. In turn, each tended to leaf through my book during long road trips and cargo flights carrying medication and food to stricken areas. Inevitably I saw impressions similar to mine, attention riveted, pens drawn from pockets containing tiny spiral notepads. Many among the various groups were professional journalists and long-time Honduran expatriates, hungry for reliable data and background.

What's so different about this work?

Care. Detail. Depth. Knowledge. Reliability.

Sudden unexpected paragraphs offer that rarity called Real Insight, the type which inspires well-earned "Ah, so!" reactions. Like, "NOW I've got it."

HONDURAS keeps working for those of us who, since our return, have ordered additional copies. Example:

In February, N. American media skimmed over an amazing story: Honduras' El Cajon power plant caught fire. The inferno took out electricity over most of the country for five days, finally soliciting US assistance in the form of Alabama super-firefighters, who joined Mexican counterparts. Despite my recent return, I had no idea of El Cajon's location, much less what might have led to additional devastation for a population already done in by this century's worst disaster. On page 88, I found a complete summary entitled "Solving the El Cajon Problem." It includes this quote from a Honduran project spokesman: "It's insane... They spent the better part of a billion dollars on the dam, but not $5,000 on protecting the watershed."

Ron Mader is a well-known and -respected journalist. Fortunately, I knew to ask my local retailer whether he had tackled a book on the country of Honduras; that's because I possess Mader's also-excellent book MEXICO. Mr. Mader's commitment to C. American, and his deep knowledge base is further evident via his website Planeta, a nonprofit resource of more than 8000 pages.

James D. Gollin is a renowned philanthropist, writer and award-winning photographer whose far above-average work has appeared in publications ranging from the New York Times to [Rodale's] Scuba Diving.

Together, Gollin and Mader have fashioned a work which we who volunteered nicknamed The Honduras Bible. We wanted to make a meaningful contribution, and HONDURAS made a big difference in accomplishment of that goal. Understanding the country of Honduras, as well as its neighbors, is important for more than humanitarian reasons. Many N. Americans have yet to grasp the following critical political-environmental point:

As the welfare of C. America goes, so too does ours.

So just before I went to Honduras I bought Adventures in Nature, and you know what? I found myself borrowing the Honduras Handbook and the Lonely Planet guide left and right. While Adventures in Nature provides an interesting read, it is almost useless as a travel guide. For one, it has extremely limited coverage. For example, I was going to Comayagua and found *nothing* on this wonderful, fairly major colonial mountain town. It instead refers you to another publication put out in Honduras- which I certainly didn't have when I was planning my trip. Further, even for the cities and towns it does cover it provides you with only the very high end or the very cheapest hotels and eating establishments, and not a lot of them. Nor does it contain a listing of essential services, such as where to go in the event of a medical emergency for decent 24 hour care(pretty essential information which most Hondurans on the street cannot provide you with as I found out one Sunday evening), or the number to call if you need to get in touch with the local police, or other such services. It contains NO maps for the towns that it does include--including such biggies as San Pedro and Tegucigalpa. It also fails to provide you with decent information on how to get to one place or another without renting a car--that is where the various busses leave from and go to.

In short, Adventures in Nature may be just great for those looking wanting to read about Honduras, or who are looking to spend $100-300 a night in Honduras while staying in accommodations that make it just like the U.S., but for those who actually want to go to Honduras and have a real Central American experience (or who simply travel/live on real budgets) it is a very poor choice. You can get more or less the same background material and a great deal better practical information in the Honduras Handbook or the Lonely Planet guide. Even being a few years out of date they were FAR more useful. I am only grateful that my travelling companions chose better guidebooks than I did.

Thoroughly researched pulling no punches on the issues affecting Honduras' fastest growing economic sector: eco/ethnoconscious tourism. This book ties together the myriad disparate ecological, private, non-governmental, and governmental groups involved in establishing green havens of fast-disappearing biological treasures, including their successes, failures and hopes for the future. "Ecotourism", a relatively new concept and term often used in an almost generic way now by the tourism industry, is thoroughly explored and is interlaced as a theme throughout this exemplary work. We may only hope that other guide-book publishers are paying attention to this model as travelers are now demanding much more than just the mundane where to eat, sleep and catch a bus.

I was a Peace Corps volunteer at Celaque National Park, Honduras from 1994-1996. I traveled extensively throughout Honduras and hit most of the spots mentioned in the book. Your information is surprisingly very accurate. I've seen some guidebooks completely butcher the facts. I like the environmental tourism aspect you two have incorporated in your guidebook. That is a trend that should be followed.

Didn't anyone think of this before? This Adventures in Nature book is one of my favorites because it successfully links practical eco tour hints with the names and associations of people in Honduras who are making a difference. Conservation books are usually long on theory, and short on practical field observations. This guidebook provides an excellent background as well as great contact info - for eco traveler and plain tourist alike. Honduras has good friends in these authors!

It wasn't that long ago that Honduras didn't merit its own guidebook. Not that there wasn't anything to see or do - far from it. The curiosity of these authors proved to be infectious. This guidebook is one of the best! I used it for a month-long trip, and I can't wait to go back.