Customer Reviews

Backroads of Northern California

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Famous for it's glitzy tourist meccas such as Hollywood, San Francisco and Venice Beach, many visitors - and not a few residents - are unaware that California offers breathtaking vistas and surprising varieties of experience only miles from the more popular tourist destinations.

Wyman's excellent guidebook sections out chunks of Northern California (as far south as Fresno, near Yosemite, and as far north as Eureka, near the Oregon border.) and guides you through these areas to genuine delights.

Some travel books are narratives of the author's adventures in some locale and are interesting reads mostly for the story they have to tell. This is not such a book. This book's value is in it's informative and clear descriptions of (and directions to) the treats in store for the traveller with a taste for the beautiful but unheraled, a sense of adventure and an independent mode of transportation.

Wyman starts his descriptions of each area with a brief and surprisingly interesting recounting of the geological and historical background to the current condition of the environ, then describes routes to particularly memorable attractions therein - goldminer ghost towns, forrested valleys, mountaintop overlooks and the like.

Mention must be made of the many photographs in the book. They are of museum quality and bring an element of visual delight to the read one associates more with a travel magazine than with a book. In fact, they are so numerous as to comprise as much of the volume of the book as does the text and the maps.

So if a California vacation is in your future, and the crowded and expensive tourist spots are not your scene, get a copy of this fine book and be inspired to travel off the beaten path and onto some glorious experiences. And don't forget to take your camera!

I am surprised by the author's omission of Tioga pass in his description of Yosemite National Park. Seems like a no brainer to have included it in a book about the backroads of Northern California.

The section on Bodie Ca. (the ghost town is worth the price). Clear easy to follow driving suggestions, even for a directionally challenged ex- New Yorker. The book works as either a photo or road guide.

This book was a disapointment for me. I am going to vacation on the northern California coast this Fall and was hoping to learn something from this book, but it is mostly just the well worn mainstream information that doesn't need retelling. It completely omits the area I'll be and the areas it does cover are handled more effectivly in other books. The pictures are great, though.