Moon Handbooks Texas [Paperback]

Joe Cummings (Author)

Book Description

Series: Moon Handbooks | Publication Date: April 8, 2004

Whether you want to explore the Alamo or the nightclubs on Austin's bustling 6th Street, the fifth edition of Moon Handbooks Texas makes traveling in this larger-than-life state possible with up-to-date maps, photographs, accurate descriptions, and detailed directions. Savor the flavors of Terlingua's World Championship Chili Cook-off, tour the historic missions of San Antonio, or venture into the primitive depths of Big Thicket National Preserve. This guidebook provides the tools to create an unforgettable trip. Author Joe Cummings, a fifth generation Texan and world traveler, pours the flavor of his native state into informative, easy-to-read tips on everything from cowboy hat shopping in Austin to surfing and scuba diving off Galveston Island. Accessible and eminently useful, Moon Handbooks Texas is for travelers who want a completely unique and completely Texan experience.

Product Details

• Paperback: 690 pages
• Publisher: Avalon Travel Publishing; 5th edition (April 8, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1566913934
• ISBN-13: 978-1566913935
• Product Dimensions: 7.5 x 5.5 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,134,484 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Joe Cummings was born in New Orleans, and raised in California, France and Washington DC. In high school he developed a taste for rock guitar and subversive politics, playing in a succession of garage bands while publishing an underground newspaper. After he graduated from college, the Peace Corps granted his request to be posted to Thailand, where he served as an English lecturer at King Mongkut's Institute of Technology in Bang Mot, Thonburi. He later earned a master's degree in South Asian Civilization from the University of California at Berkeley, and was a scholar in residence at the East-West Center in Hawaii. His Thailand guide for Lonely Planet was the first guidebook to that country written in English since 1928. An instant success, it remains one of the bestselling guidebook ever published. He has authored over 35 other books, including coffeetable books, phrasebooks and travelogues. Joe has twice been honoured with the Lowell Thomas Travel Journalism Gold Award and is also a recipient of Mexico's Pluma de Plata (Silver Quill) for outstanding foreign journalism on Mexico. He never gave up the guitar, and continues to jam regularly at clubs in Thailand, where he makes his home.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent guidebook, May 14, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Moon Handbooks: Texas (4th Ed.) (Paperback)

I used this book extensively during the three years I lived in Texas. I liked its mix of history and practical where, when, and how information.
Organized regionally around the major cities, the Texas Handbook also includes numerous towns and sights of interest in the surrounding vicinity and places between. It does a remarkably good job of covering such a large state.
Hopefully a new addition is in the works. Because it was published in 1998, most prices will be out-of-date, but it's so easy to now get hours & admission via web sites, that it's not that big of a problem once you've used the handbook to identify all the interesting places you want to visit.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars extremely outdadted, never-updated info, October 10, 2008

By 

S. Wolfe "spackola" (New York, NY) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Moon Handbooks Texas (Paperback)

I live in Houston and bought this for info on the Hill Country. I can live with most of the entries being uselessly brief. I can life with his hotel recommendations in the Hill Country that consist of standard chain motels that I probably am intelligent enough to find without buying a guidebook But even though this is a 2004 edition, I found lots of info for both Houston and the Hill Country that is ten and sometimes 15 years out of date. Much of the Houston restaurant section is unchanged from the earlier edition, and includes restaurants that have not existed for at least 10-15 years. This also applies to some of the hotel and 'sights' listings. In the San Marcos section the book talks about the amusement park/show/hotel on Spring Lake; this was taken over by the university in the late 1990s (ten years ago!) at which time all of that info (retained here in the 2004 edition) became useless. The restaurants listed for San Marcos mostly have been out of business for years, and even his listing of cheap chain motels -- the only lodgings included -- are out of date by a decade.

The information on Big Bend is excellent. It's useless, waste of money, for everything else.

5.0 out of 5 stars Moon Guides Rock!, July 31, 2011

By 

J Christopher "J Christopher" (Massachusetts) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Moon Handbooks Texas (Paperback)

If you have never tried Moon Guides, you should. They provide a somewhat funky view of the traveling adventure. If generally stay at the finest hotels in the best resorts, then Moon Guides are probably not for you. If you want to get off the beaten path and have adventures, then these guides are for you.

We travel by RV and are looking for some of the more out of the way places. This is particularly important in a BIG state like Texas. The Moon Guide provides great stuff. They have little tours for if you have a few days, a week, a couple of weeks.

Overall, this book is well worth it!