Caribbean for Dummies (Dummies Travel) 3rd Edition [Paperback]

Darwin Porter (Author), Danforth Prince (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 3, 2004

From Jamaica to Puerto Rico to Barbados, the Caribbean offers a whole world of beautiful destinations. Wherever you go, this is the only guide you need to plan the perfect island getaway with:

• Full coverage of all the islands, from Aruba to the U.S. Virgin Islands
• Ten delicious Caribbean dishes to try
• A run-down of the best beaches anywhere in the Caribbean
• The best diving, snorkeling, and other outdoor activities

Like every For Dummies travel guide, Caribbean For Dummies, Third Edition includes:

• Down-to-earth trip-planning advice
• What you shouldn’t miss—and what you can skip
• The best hotels and restaurants for every budget
• Handy Post-it Flags to mark your favorite pages

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

Plan your ideal island getaway

From Jamaica to Puerto Rico to Barbados, the Caribbean offers a whole world of beautiful destinations. Wherever you go, this is the only guide you need to plan the perfect tropical vacation.

About the Author

Darwin Porter and Danforth Prince: As a team of veteran travel writers, Darwin Porter and Danforth Prince have produced numerous titles for Frommer’s Travel Guides, including best-selling guides to Italy, France, the Caribbean, England, and Germany. Porter, a former bureau chief of the Miami Herald, is also a Hollywood biographer; his most recent releases titled The Secret Life of Humphrey Bogart and Katharine the Great, the latter a close-up of the private life of the late Katharine Hepburn. Prince was formerly employed by the Paris bureau of the New York Times and is today the president of Blood Moon Productions and other media-related firms.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 570 pages
• Publisher: For Dummies; 3 edition (December 3, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0764569406
• ISBN-13: 978-0764569401
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.5 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,413,712 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Echo Montgomery Garrett, born in Nashville, Tennessee, into a music business family, has written or contributed to 10 non-fiction books ranging in subject matter from self-help to business biography to travel guides. She co-authored three books that have come out in the last year: Why Don't They Just Get a Job?: One Couple's Mission to End Poverty in their Community; My Orange Duffel Bag: A Journey to Radical Change; and Career Mapping: Charting Your Course in the New World of Work. My Orange Duffel Bag, which was originally self-published, won seven national and international awards in 2011 for best nonfiction in the young adult and self-help categories and two were for best design. Crown Archetype/Random House purchased world-rights and will be re-launching the book in May 2012 with a first-printing of 50,000 along with the companion book My Road Map. My Orange Duffel Bag was the Book Selection for November 2010 for the Pulpwood Queens Book Club, the largest book club in the world with 518 chapters and 3,000 members. She is currently working on a groundbreaking book in the field of positive psychology with Chrismon Nofsinger and Stewart Donaldson. With Sam Bracken, co-author of My Orange Duffel Bag, Echo co-founded the Orange Duffel Bag Foundation, a 501c3 nonprofit that does coaching and training with kids aging out of foster care, older youth in care and at-risk youth ages 12-24, based on the principles in My Orange Duffel Bag. Echo's work has appeared in more than 75 magazines, newspapers and websites including Parade, Delta Sky, Money, Business Week and Success. In the course of pursuing stories, she has bungee jumped with Richard Branson, hiked the toughest mountain in Montana with her oldest son, and completed two half marathons. The first in her family to attend college, Echo started her career as a writer after she moved from Chicken Road in Lebanon, Tennessee, to New York City, where she and her husband international award-winning professional photographer/writer Kevin Garrett lived for a decade. She was a contributing writer to Money Magazine and one of the founding editors of biztravel.com. She served as Editor in Chief of Atlanta Woman, but is currently concentrating on her career as an author.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

23 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars What about the other 90% of the Caribbean?, April 15, 2004

By 

John D Ashley (Tortola, British Virgin Islands) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Caribbean for Dummies, Second Edition (Paperback)

Oh dear, oh dear. This is the Caribbean from a Dummy. There is far more to it than this horribly limited selection of islands.

Aruba is in, but not Bonaire or Curacao. Nor St Maarten to round off the Netherlands and Dutch Antilles, plus its French half St Martin.

Grand Cayman yes - Cayman Brac and Little Cayman? These beauties are a short hop away for the discerning traveler.

Jamaica is in, but not Cuba.

Puerto Rico is there but not the Dominican Republic or the Spanish Virgin Islands. In better times Haiti can be an attractive destination.

BVI and USVI are there. No sign of Anguilla.

Further down the great chain of the East Caribbean islands all we see is Barbados (which is stuck out in the Atlantic anyway and does not count itself as East Caribbean). These islands are almost all popular holiday destinations for land or cruise travelers. St Kitts and Nevis (laid back), Antigua and Barbuda (365 beaches), the French islands Guadeloupe and Martinique (incomparable cooking and rum), Dominica (the only true rain forest in the Caribbean), St Lucia (spectacular), St Vincent and the Grenadines (sailing as good as BVI), Grenada (an under-appreciated gem with beaches every bit as good as Grand Cayman), Trinidad and Tobago (restful Tobago). No to mention a few islands like St Eustatius and Saba in the north, plus volcanic Montserrat for at least for a day trip from Antigua.

Anyone who relied on this book for a true view of the Caribbean really would be a Dummy. There is not one country in here that uses the East Caribbean dollar.

PS I live and work in the Caribbean. I have lived on four islands, visited thirty-six at the last count, and I am still delighted and amazed to find wonders round every corner.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Lots of fun in (or out of) the sun, April 12, 2001

By 

Marcia W. Scaggs "phillyhopeful" (Villanova, PA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Caribbean for Dummies (Paperback)

The Garretts give readers a big dose of their "dummy" wit and wisdom about the Caribbean. Having traveled many times to the Caribbean, I found their candid commentary makes this book not only accurate and informative, but a fun read. I have shared the book with several friends and we all agree on this one. However, a word of warning - If you never desired to explore the Caribbean before, you will now.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars incomplete, July 31, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Caribbean for Dummies, Second Edition (Paperback)

The review says that the book includes information on St. Lucia and St. Maarten/St. Martin. It does not. It totally ignores most of the smaller islands of the Caribbean. I realize that they could not fit an in-depth analysis of all the Caribbean islands into one book, but to totally ignore the vast majority of islands makes this book incomplete and disappointing.