Customer Reviews

Lonely Planet The Travel Book Mini

5 star:		(30)
4 star:		(19)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Who knew Lonely Planet, publisher of the quintessential guides for backpack-hostel-rail pass travelers, aspired to become the next National Geographic?

The Travel Book is a radical departure from Lonely Planet's usual practice of producing in-depth, densely written guidebooks for young travelers. The purpose of this book, rather, is to act as a visual introduction to every country in the world. Yes, you read that correctly. The Travel Book covers 231 countries, including all 193 countries recognized by the United Nations (the "extra" 38 come from giving selected regions and foreign dependencies popular with travelers, such as French Polynesia, Scotland, and Antarctica, their own sections).

Each country receives its own four-page spread, with the bulk of the space devoted to rich and evocative photographs of people and places. The written text in each section is very minimal and does not go much beyond brief discussions of the best time of year to visit, essential experiences, and related books, music, and films. As a result, The Travel Book isn't very useful for learning facts about a place or for planning a trip. It's really meant to act as a catalyst, as a way to think about travel emotionally, not rationally.

Bottom line: The Travel Book is an art book. It contains gorgeous, beautifully composed photographs of virtually every region in the world. Don't expect to use The Travel Book for planning a vacation, though. Despite being published by Lonely Planet, it contains very little practical information (by design). Personally, I would have liked a little more writing about each country, but overall the book accomplishes what it sets out to do: "to represent every country in the world with amazing images and inspirational text."

3.5 stars.

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And now, two other great travel books:
Bad Trips-a entertaining compilation about what can go WRONG when traveling
The Lost Continent: Travels in Small-Town America-Bill Bryson at his best...incredibly funny, cynical, and biting, on a road trip across the USA

Ok, one thing this book is not, it is NOT for the person who travels alot. This is one thick book. Very nice photography with little blurbs about what is in the photos. Each country gets two pages to highlight it. That's it. Like I said, this is a nice book to have hanging around an office, on a table or just to flip through when you're boored.
Here is an example, Brunei. It get one big photo filling the left hand page, two smaller photos on the right and info on the best time to visit, a list of essential experiences (five items), tells you the capital city, total population, area in square miles and language. Nothing in depth,just a nice overview.

This book is beautiful. The cover is quite eye catching and the photos inside are crisp and clear, and give you hope that some day you'll get there. For being small, it's a very heavy, sturdy book...the kind of object you'd find at a crime scene as a possible suspect.... It's packed full of dreams, maps and stories of countries around the world; 231 of them to be exact. What a fabulous idea and what a beautiful presentation.

Every time I sit down with it, I'm down for hours. It's difficult to give up. The faces of the people in the photos reveal such calm and such open-ness. The essence of the children alone, is breathtaking. Sometimes the beauty of innocence shines through and grasps the reality of lack and poverty.

Of course picking a favorite picture is absurd, but I found one on page 276. It depicts the country of Finland, (Lapland). In my whole life I have never seen feet like this.. I wish I had pairs and pairs of feet like this in my backyard. Ahh......to dream. Maybe someday.

I love traveling, and enjoy photography books that feature the amazing range panoramas, people, art, and culture which our species has created, or in which they survive. The photography in this book is wonderful, but something gets lost in the small format. Cute idea to make a miniature coffee-table type book, but the photography isn't done justice in miniature.

On the other hand, the book provides a quick glimpse of literally every country (or almost all, as new ones seem to sprout up so frequently that map-makers and travel books can't keep up). It also summarizes -- albeit very briefly -- basic travel information concerning the countries such as "when to visit," the highlights of what to do, a very simple country map, etc. Of course if actual travel piques your interest, you are going to need a real travel guide. Since Lonely Planet puts out so many, these summaries effectively are teasers for the more complete books. Also, as a result of its format, it doesn't include some pretty elemental guidance: for example, do they really suggest that there is any good time to visit Afghanistan as a tourist? Sudan? The North Korean suggestion is a bit droll: "May, for May Day and the Arirang Mass Games, or any time free of famine." Hmm. Well, that, and if you can even get a visa.

In summary, while this is a lovely small book, particularly if you are lacking in space, it would benefit from a larger-style format.

I received this book as a gift for my birthday and absolutely love it. It is on the smallish side (about the size of a hallmark card and a half), but in a good way - it sits comfortably on a coffee table without taking up much space at all. It's thick and heavy, with glossy pages and beautiful pictures.

This is a great book for someone like me, who loves to travel but is pretty clueless about travel and geography and maybe even the world or whatnot. It gives you very brief snippets of countries, with a few pictures, facts and a saying in the native language for each entry. It is not a book for somebody who wants to extensively learn about different cultures or places; its entries are much too brief for that. But it does give you a vague 'feel' for different places, which is nice for travel and geography rookies like me who just want a general sense of awareness for different countries.

It's also a very fun book to simply page through. It's a popular one with visitors that come over. A lot of times we end up paging through it and talking about different places we might like to visit one day, or places we'd never heard of before or weren't too familiar with. A very nice, general, brief overview of the world, you could say. I'd definitely recommend it for anyone who loves to travel and see different places.

Bought this for my mom as a Christmas gift a year ago. It's a great little book that details almost all the countries of the world with a few pictures of the country and some facts and tidbits about each country. There's not much else to it. It's just a nice little book to whet your appetite a bit if you want to travel or if you already have the travel bug. I recommend this completely!

Very happy with this book. Gave it as a Valentine's Day gift and it was warmly received.

Before opening this book, know that it does not give detailed descriptions of the countries of the world, but rather quick, essential facts about the country/culture, with photographs to boot. That being said, it is very good for this purpose.

It is, essentially, a coffee table book, as other reviewers have noted. It will tell you the best time to visit; the essential things to experience while in the country; characteristic cultural items to familiarize oneself with (books, music, films, food/drink); a typical welcoming phrase for travelers; trivia; the aforementioned photographs of the nation and its people; and a map of the country, not to mention its quick political information (capital, population, area, official language). There is not a whole lot else to say about it, besides the fact that it will give you some basic knowledge of all the nations of our world and will probably help you appreciate them a bit more. Some of the photographs in the book will certainly make you want to visit these places!

So check out the book and take a quick armchair tour of the world before you schedule your next vacation. You just may decide to do something more exotic after looking through this!

This is not a typical Lonely Planet book, which are always more text than images for travelers needing info 'in situ'. Instead, The Travel Book Mini is for those looking for a quick armchair traveler fix: pick a country or open the book at random and see four pages of (often stunning, generally fine) photos and a marginal bit of text. No fuss, no muss. A quick trip to any country in the world in less time than it takes to finish an espresso.

This is far and away one of the best coffee table books i have ever had the fortune to own. Every page is full of beautiful photographs as well as facts about the country in question. Some of these facts are comedic, "when is the best time to visit Country x?" 1912 before the civil war. Etc. These types of gimmicks are repeated a bit much and do get a little old but then again I'm not sure how many people will read every single country.

It is also an excellent source of information and ideas if you are trying to figure out where to go for a vacation, or no nothing about a country. It would be nice if it had a little more in the way of maps or census information but other than that its a great book.