Customer Reviews

National Geographic Guide to Scenic Highways and Byways: Second Edition (National Geographic's Guide to Scenic Highways & Byways)

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

 

 

This is a great book for planning beautiful driving vacations in the United States. In the front of the book are small regional maps showing the location of the depicted drives, and in the main body of the book are details about the drives with specific directions and sights to look for.

Many travel guides show interesting destinations, but few can compare to this book for showing beautiful routes, sometimes far more breathtaking than the destinations themselves. The directions are generally clear and the color photography is first rate throughout. I subtracted one star, though, for a conceptual issue that I think weakens the book to a degree. Most of the routes start in isolated areas far from a major city. For travelers from other regions, it is sometimes difficult to deduce the way to the starting point (many starting points are simply crossroads) and from the ending point of these routes. It would be a notable improvement (especially for unfamiliar travelers who fly to a major airport to start a driving vacation) if in the third edition the editors put brief directions to the starting points from major cities in the general area. I would like to give the book 4.5 stars, but Amazon doesn't allow that, so I settled for four.

This is an excellent vacation planning resource and I recommend it highly.

Our trips our usually centered around day hiking, but with the 18-month-old approaching 30 pounds I wanted to take a break from that and do more of a scenic road trip, with maybe just a few very short day hikes. This book looked very promising, and I was encouraged by all the high praise from readers.

We tried the Mount Adams Drive, page 288. It turned out to be the least interesting trip we've ever taken, and with one brief exception, it wasn't particularly scenic. Also, I'm convinced none of the authors or their direct sources ever took this trip themselves. Vacationers would do better to just ask for a list of recreation suggestions at a local gas station. At the end of the trip, I was ready to throw this book away, but we decided to give it another chance.

Here are the book's descriptions of the trip (pages 288 & 289), with my comments:

"This drive ... feels almost like a hike.".
No, it doesn't. Unless they mean a hike more monotonous and less scenic than any I have ever taken.

"You'll pass a bucolic blend of small ranches, farms, and orchards..."
I've driven past many bucolic rural areas here in Washington State over the years -- the kind that make you dream of living the rural life. This one was neither bucolic nor particularly interesting. This was my first hint that this trip was overrated.

"...massive Douglas-firs...evergreen skyscrapers..."
I've seen many impressive trees, but nothing out of the ordinary on this trip.

"...narrow, steep gravel logging road ... climbs almost 2 miles to Layser Cave. You can walk through the quarter-mile-long cave..."
Layser Cave was the low point of the trip. Contrary to the book's description, it is nothing like a quarter mile long. It's just long enough to step inside and shine your flashlight around the low, domed walls, and there is nothing, but nothing, to look at. Only the walk to and from the cave was anything like a quarter mile. If you've seen any other cave, you've seen a more interesting one. It would be interesting to young children, but ours was a little young to let loose in there. It wasn't worth the drive and walk. It was at this point that I became convinced that no one involved with the book had actually taken this trip. Also, it would have been nice if the book had mentioned that the trailhead is poorly marked -- most people drive right on by up the (abandoned?) logging road, eventually turning around and coming back.

"... the quarter-mile Camp Creek Falls Trail 7 or 8 miles from the Layser Cave turnoff..."
I saw a similarly-named trailhead about 2 or 3 miles from the Layser Cave turnoff, but figured it was a much longer hike. We never saw anything by that name anywhere near indicated.

"For the next 15 miles, you stay with the river..."
Never saw much of the river; mostly just occasional glimpses.

"Ridge after ridge of mountains, striped with avalanch chutes, rim the horizon."
No. Maybe they did decades ago, if the trees around the road had been logged.

"After about 10 miles, you'll see ... Mount Adams."
No. Again, maybe if the trees were smaller.

"...Takhlakh Lake ... exquisitely backdropped by Mount Adams."
Yes, it's a striking view, and very photogenic when the lake is still enough to reflect the mountain. I was lucky to get some shots during a nice pink sunset, with a full moon, all reflected in the lake. But, you can only get a good view from 3 places. The best view is from the boat launch. Viewing the mountain from the boat launch was the high point of this trip. Of course, boaters get a great view while out on the lake, too. Also, it would have been nice if the book had mentioned that Takhlakh is badly infested with mosquitos, even for a lake. It's the only place I can remember picking dead mosquitos from among my leg hairs (I assume the mosquito repellant killed them). Keeping them off of our 18-month-old was a constant challenge in spite of the repellant.

"Picnic tables and campsites take full advantage of the view..."
They most certainly do not. I did not find any campsite that does anything like "take full advantage of the view", though some have partial views of the lake through trees. In the day use area, only one picnic table had any view of the mountain, and that table was badly slanted.

"Mount Adams frequently puncuates the Southern sky..."
No. Occasional glimpses.

"Some 10 miles past Takhlakh lake, turn right on FR 56".
By my odometer, it was exactly 13 very slow, tedious, unscenic miles. I amost turned back at 12 miles.

"...the road tightropes along a mountainside..."
Here the book ends the drive with one of its most ridiculous statements. Yes, the road drops off steeply on one side, just like many, many other mountain roads. Nothing out of the ordinary; no "tightroping".

Also not mentioned in the book was that the last 15 or so miles were so badly potholed that unless you are in an SUV or other vehicle designed for off-road use (we were not), most of your attention will be on weaving around potholes (and gingerly stepping through many unavoidable ones).


On the way home, we drove highway 123 (between 12 and 410). It was much more scenic than anthing on the drive.


Sometime in the next month or two we'll try the "Mount Baker Scenic Byway", page 279. If our experience is similar, this book goes in the trash.


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* * * UPDATE * * *
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We recently tried the Mount Baker Scenic Byway, pages 279 - 280. It was much, much better than the Mount Adams Drive above. The description in the book was accurate enough -- somewhat exaggerated in places but not too bad. We'd love to do it again someday.

I think one key difference between our bad experience with the Mount Adams Drive and our good experience with the Mount Baker Scenic Byway is that the latter is officially a "Scenic Byway", while the former is simply a series of forest roads. With a Scenic Byway, the state government has made a commitment to keeping it scenic. With forest roads, they may be scenic when the trees around the roads have been recently logged, but once they grow back up to block the views, the government has no reason to do anything about it, because scenic views are not the purpose of those forest roads.

However, another key difference is that no one who had actually taken the Mount Adams Drive, even at some time in the distant past when the roads may have been scenic, could possibly have written that description. Case it point -- you can't "walk through the quarter-mile-long cave" because it's barely deep enough to step inside and look around. Whatever unscrupulous moron is responsible for writing the description of the Mount Adams Drive should never be allowed to be involved in any such book again.

Finally, a third key difference that I noticed is that when I looked on the internet for more information about the drives, I found almost nothing about the Mount Adams Drive, except for basic information about the Takhlakh Lake campground, and a brief mention of Layser Cave (which, as I recall, incorrectly stated that the cave is a quarter mile long, just as the book does). But when I looked for information about the Mount Baker Scenic Byway, I found a lot, including positive comments from people who tried it.

So, my final advice:

This is a worthwhile book, but (a) avoid drives that are just a series of forest roads and not officially recognized by government as a "Scenic Byway" or something similar, and (b) look for more information about the drive on the internet, and avoid drives for which you can't find much.

Apparently I'm not allowed to change the number of stars when editing a review. I was going to change it from 1 star to 3.

I've been using this book to help me find and appreciate scenic drives for about 4 years now, and while a few items are starting to get dated, it's still amazingly useful. The heavy paper and solid binding has kept it from falling apart in spite of 4 years of being tossed around and spilled on and bent back. Also, the small size (this isn't an atlas) makes it easy to use in the car.

I use the book to choose routes in advance, and when on the actual trip, always supplement it with local guides and maps. I've had good success with taking only parts of the drives, and even doing them in reverse! Highly recommended.

For what it was I was a little disappointed. This book would be perfect for anyone wanting additional suggestions for 1-2 day scenic trips within a larger vacation. We didn't really use it much since we were hoping for suggestions of scenic side roads to substitute for the major interstates on our cross country road trip. The pictures are beautiful though and the suggestions look like fun if you have not already planned out your trip and are looking for suggestions to fill out the rest of your time.

Book arrived in good condition.

Book arrived within dates promised.


Price was reasonable.

I'm planning a family camping/roadtrip to Virginia, West Virginia, and Maryland. This book has been a real asset in the trip planning. I also recommend "Off the Beaten Path, Virginia" and "Off the Beaten Path, Maryland & Delaware".

A very helpful resource book when traveling along scenic drives across the US. For each scenic drive it includes general information, a map, mileage, approximate time, recommended time to visit, road conditions, and points of interest. It often lists phone numbers and web sites.

This is a book not to be missed it has every thing you need to go riding through the U.S.. If you plan on touring the U.S. highways buy this book,its very informative you will being doing yourself and injustice if you don't.

It is a nice book, but it is not comprehensive at all. ex. for Georgia there is only one. Actually most of the South East is sparsely represented. The information that is there is good and reliable, so from that point of view it is useful.