Customer Reviews

An Amateur's Guide to the Planet: Twelve Adventure Journeys and Lessons for the Contemporary United States

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In an era of travel books describing epic journeys and heroic and heroic adventures, it isn't easy to write something different. Belliveau's stories are very well documented and still quite readable. "We roam the globe yet lack insight into what we see," she writes, and reminds us to look with our hearts.

... is taken beyond pure experience and intophilosophy. Location details are told withextraordinary flair, but it is the stories about the people that are the most memorable parts of this book. Jeannette Belliveau has taken obvious care to visit some of the world's most exotic places and to bring them to a readership who adventures mostly from the armchair. She has done a great service in providing this book. Amy Cooper, of Small Press magazine

I was delighted the other day to buy a book that I recommendwithout reservation: An Amateur's Guide to the PLanet.Jeannette Belliveau, the author, is a former Washington Post national-desk editor. She used her vacation time over a decade to visit a dozen of the world's most remote places. The traveler in her provides narratives for her journeys from Madagascar to China; the journalist in her provides incredibly insightful background on the cultural, economic and social issues of Greece, the Yucatan & elsewhere. ... Makes for new levels in travel journalism. Madison Capital

Former Washington Post staffer Jeannette Belliveau takes uson 12 sojourns to distant lands in a lively, graphics-juicedvolume that goes where few travel writers dare to tread: down a path to thoughtful interpretation and analysis instead of rote description. Belliveau finds the cultural crossovers and the ironies. Her mixture of up-to-the-minute issues and on-the-fly adventure adds up to an expert departure. Lisa Rebuck, ESCAPE magazine, April 1997

Although this book is for serious travelers who want tounderstand cultures and concepts, it's written in anentertaining, conversational style, sprikled with funny quotes from Belliveau's plentify and witty traveling companions. Addressing "the Age of Adventure Travel," Belliveau is trying to help travelers understand what they are seeing in the exotic destinations that have recently become so accessible. Reed Glenn, Boulder Daily Camera

An Amateur's Guide to the Planet, so filled withdaring but insightful conclusions, is much moreand much better than a travel book. Part memoir, part travelogue, part statistical survey, Belliveau's new work is something one doesn't find very often on travel book shelves: a book in which the author confronts the riddles of the world she sees and the paths she knows and offers the lessons she learns. Michael R. Enright, Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University

Combines refreshingly direct personal traveldiaries with a journalist's dedication tobackground research. A sense of romance and adventure informs the book. Everywhere she goes, Belliveau gets to know ordinary people. Jon Lehman, Quincy (Mass.) Patriot Ledger

This unusual book is part travelogue and partsocial commentary. The descriptions of Belliveau'sjourneys are personal, detailed and engaging. Throughout, there are interesting sidebar discussions on topics ranging from the possibility of Asian influence on pre-Columbian Mayan culture to the impact of tourism on Balinese culture. Belliveau is a traveler who is interested in what lies under the surface appearances of a place. Guy Wulfing, Worldview magazine

Former Washington Post staffer Jeannette Belliveau takes uson 12 sojourns to distant lands in a lively, graphics-juicedvolume that goes where few travel writers dare to tread: down a path to thoughtful interpretation and analysis instead of rote description. Belliveau finds the cultural crossovers and the ironies. Her mixture of up-to-the-minute issues and on-the-fly adventure adds up to an expert departure. Lisa Rebuck, ESCAPE magazine, April 1997

Well worth picking up for random browsing, perhaps onyour next vacation, or before. If it doesn't give youpause to think, even for a moment, then at least it will furnish a store of party conversation tidbits to last at least through the next millenium. ... Belliveau so obviously loves the people and places she portrays that is a pleasure to read her simultaneous analysis of causes and effects in the geopolitical world. Lee Anne Phillips, Women's Books Online