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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Is this the RIGHT book for YOU?, December 15, 2010
This review is from: Fodor's 535 Best Beaches, 1st Edition: in the U.S., Caribbean, and Mexico (Full-color Travel Guide) (Paperback)
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535 Beaches. That's a lot of beaches! Or so it would seem. But don't be surprised if your local favorites didn't make the list.
The book starts with some planning tips. Some budget tips, histories of locations, traveling tips include when to visit.
Then the book is divided into sections:
The best beaches in the...
West Coast
Hawai'i
East coast
Gulf coast
Bahamas
North Caribbean
Eastern Caribbean
Southern Caribbean
Mexico
So you can see that in 20 pages per section, it's hardly comprehensive for awesome beaches, say, along the western US coast. But the Caribbean is well covered.
I was able to look up a few beaches for day trips from our WA state location, but wondered if there weren't more or better beaches available in our area.
On the other hand, if I decide to plan a vacation with my husband, and just want a fabulous place to go and enjoy the beach, this book will shine in its ability to help me plan and choose a great location.
The book is chock full of photos. Some are simply artistic, candid shots of people and beach themes (like rows of shells). But there are also a lot of interesting views of the featured beaches including views from above.
Maps.
Comparison charts of features.
Places to visit near the beach including historic sites.
Really easy to thumb through and enjoy as a reference...or just breeze through reading bits and pieces to fantasize of leaving your desk job and getting away from it all.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
"Survey" book shines in its special sections, February 11, 2011
This review is from: Fodor's 535 Best Beaches, 1st Edition: in the U.S., Caribbean, and Mexico (Full-color Travel Guide) (Paperback)
Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Program (What's this?)
Like any book doing a "survey course" style of review, this Fodor's travel guide has lots of hits and misses. Since we've been lucky enough to visit a number of the beaches included in the book, I was able to gauge fairly well the comprehensiveness and accuracy of the listings. The Hawai'i compilation is probably the best and most complete, though, like all the other beach descriptions, each Hawaiian listing is brief, at times to the point of uselessness. The author leaves out a major beach park on the Kona side of The Big Island that is famous to both visitors and locals alike for its memorable restoration of an ancient religious site. We live in a beach-surrounded community on the Massachusetts North Shore, and frequently visit other North Shore beaches. Not a single beach in Massachusetts that is not on Cape Cod, Nantucket, or Martha's Vineyard is included, and the Cape Cod beach listings are woefully slim. I got the book in large part because we are visiting the Caribbean soon, and was disappointed in that section as well. Few listings and minimal descriptions. We know Puerto Rico pretty well, and those listings, again, are slim and slimmer. For Bahamas beaches, the description of the beaches on Great Guana Cay, where we've visited, primarily mentions the Sunday pig roast at a local bar, and describes the sand as "courser" than other places. What a coarse mistake!
However, the book does shine in one important area: Its many special sections on such topics as how to snorkel and scuba dive, how to rent a boat, and so forth. In the Eastern section of the book, there is a long, colorful description of the history of whaling, with excellent history and picture, including places to visit to learn more, including the Nantucket Whaling Museum. The section on "under the sea" in the Florida Keys was exceptional and full of great information.The long piece on the reggae tradition in Jamaica was fascinating. And the equally long piece on chartering boats was invaluable.
So, I will keep the book as a quick reference for beaches and locations to more fully explore, but more importantly as a source of solid additional travel information.
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4 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A nice book to plan that dream vacation- or perhaps dream a vacation?, December 7, 2010
This review is from: Fodor's 535 Best Beaches, 1st Edition: in the U.S., Caribbean, and Mexico (Full-color Travel Guide) (Paperback)
Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Program (What's this?)
Fodor's 535 Best Beaches, 1st Edition: in the U.S., Caribbean, and Mexico is a large pocket sized book, (8x5 inches) that (just as the title says!) covers beach vacation areas in the U.S.A. (mostly Hawaii, Florida, Gulf coast), Caribbean, and Mexico.
The book starts out with a beach overview/planner, then a regional section. It has scads of beautiful color photographs, making one want to ditch the dreary winter grey skies by tossing a swim-suit and a bottle of tanning oil into a suitcase and jumping on the next plane out. Mind you, with 325 pages and 300 photos, not many of them are the full page gorgeous beach photos we like to dream over.
The info on each area/beach is a little skimpy, you do not want to use this book as your actual vacation guide. Rather, use this when you know you want a beach vacation to pick the beach/area, then pick up a more in depth guidebook for that area.
You might consider this more of a dream book than a travel guide. But, it's nice for that purpose, and I enjoy leaving through the pages and day-dreaming about the sun, sand and surf.
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