Customer Reviews

Top Secret Tourism: Your Travel Guide to Germ Warfare Laboratories, Clandestine Aircraft Bases and Other Places in the United States You're Not Supposed to Know About

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

This book is an outstanding guide to all the all-too-real top secret government-controlled spots in the United States, from underground bases, to nuclear testing sites, to creepy office buildings, to fortified areas built just to ensure "continuity of government" in case of an apocalypse.
It's well-written (with only the almost expected typos and tics of a first edition by a smaller publisher to mar it), funny, sarcastic, and interesting. It features maps, good driving directions, and lots and lots of very strange and interesting information.
It is NOT, as one of this book's more asinine reviewers has suggested, a handbook for terrorists full of privately obtained and otherwise unavailable information. Everything within its pages is from public files or from the author's own observations.
For New Mexico alone, my home state, I learned a ton that I had never known before---the Air Force Base in my hometown of Albuquerque has the world's largest wooden object in the world (?!) and more nuclear weapons than any other place in the country, a hippie was caught living in ca ve right on the property of Los Alamos National Labs, the residual radioactive materials at one of New Mexico's underground nuclear tests are considered to be a dangerous collection point for such materials by terrorists, and the UFO that Lonnie Zamora allegedly saw in Socorro, NM a couple of decades ago could have been a moon-landing device prototype....
(I would have liked to have seen something on WIPP though, and all that hidden nuclear waste....)
This was a great book. I'm glad I bought it, and I would recommend it to anyone---even to the guy who reviewed it here without actually reading it.

Normally I would never seek out books about such topics but having enjoyed the originality of many other titles from the same publisher, I figured Top Secret Tourism wouldn't be some stereotypical conspiracy theory of sorts (they're all out to get us!). Having actually read this book it is anything but that.

TST is highly informative and manages to do so in a manner that educates the total novice (like myself) while never talking over one's head; like assuming the reader is a nuclear physicist. I found Helms' style a joy to read, especially his sense of humor that manages to surface in each section: ("Since it would be illegal for the military to eavesdrop on civilian communications, this rumor is undoubtedly false").

The book is organized by states, with the "tourist spots" as subcategories. Each tourist spot is organized into sections ("What's There", "Key Facilities", "Secret Stuff", "Getting a Look Inside" ("No way in hell, forget it!"), "Unusual Facts", and "Getting There"- which has neat little road maps that are helpful enough to get you about as close as you desire. TST could even be used as a guide as to where NOT to go, or in choosing a home, to make sure you don't buy one next door to radioactive waste.

For those expecting a book that "takes their side" politically, that's not what TST is about. Obviously the top secret community exists no matter who's in the Oval Office. Some of it's reassuring to know (that maybe we have the technology not to LOSE a nuclear war), some is scary (worker and civilian cancer deaths from chemical exposure that got brushed off as coincidence), but most of all highly informative and interesting (did you know those parrot-like Furby toys are banned at the NSA?).

My only criticism would be the lack of pictures, but it becomes apparant why! Actually, after reading TST I realized maybe it's a good thing I paid cash at the bookstore, so "they" can't trace that I own it! Buy it before it gets banned by the nuts who think some pizza driver might actually use the info to sneak into a "continuity of government" facility 1000 feet underground or something.

I'd like to see a Volume 2 someday, even though it would probably contain locations of "lesser importance". I didn't see my state listed and I do know of an abandoned military testing ground nearby that may or may not be of "top secret" interest.

I expected a lot more from this book. It's not really a travel guide, although it does give crude maps and textual directions to each place. There are very few pictures, and most of those are for Area 51. The text is very entertaining though, but not very useful. Each site gets at least a couple pages, but there's nothing in-depth about any site. I'm not sure how much of the information comes from the author's experience visiting the sites and how much is just hearsay. He told only a few stories about his own experience, and I would have liked to read more of a travel diary about the author's experience going to each site, even if just to look from far away.

Although the book presents nothing that you can't legally get on your own, I would have liked to see an appendix listing the source material, contact information for public affairs officers, websites, and so on. There's no bibliography for further reading on any particular site. The book's best use is its table of contents. You're going to have to do more research on your own anyway.

At times the language is coarse and I think the book would have been better served without sarcasm, but I think the author was pandering to his audience. Some naïve politcal commentary creeps in as throw-away jokes, and might have been more appropriate if the author fleshed out the history a bit more.

Despite being disappointed in the marketing and categorization of the book, I did have a good time reading it, just like I occasionally need to watch a UFO show on TV.

No wonder the publisher or author doesn't offer a "Search Inside This Book" link. If you were able to read the table of contents of this book you would see everything you've probably already seen or heard of and lots of large military installations that aren't really secret or hard to find at all. Being an Air Force brat my entire childhood and then serving in the Army myself for six years, I've been to over a dozen of the installations listed in this book and not only are they widely visible and accessible to military members and their families, they also give tours to the public and have a large civilian workforce inside them. Been inside "Cheyenne Mountain", been underground at the former "SAC headquarters" and even to this very day I do work in and around various naval facilities including a nuclear submarine base, only having to show my drivers license, signing in, letting them search my vehicle and getting an I.D. tag. Next thing you know I'm 50 feet away from the flight line or looking inside an F/A-18 hanger. No "top secret" clearance or elusive James Bond tactics necessary.

There are tens of thousands of places across America that have restricted areas regardless of what they are or what activities they do. Our local utility company's headquarters building for instance has very tight security, many restricted areas and armed guards to protect from sabotage, terrorism and people pissed off about their electric bills but that doesn't and shouldn't automatically qualify it as a "top secret" destination. There's nothing new or exciting listed at all in this book unless you haven't watched the Military or History Channel or have been without internet access for the past fifteen years. There's absolutely nothing, not one thing like, "the dark brown building downtown by the post office and next to the river, the one with no windows or markings, it's actually a top secret munitions cache and surveillance center". No under your nose type stuff that the book's description implies. Instead you get stuff like what's in the "Florida" chapter of the book. There's only one entry for the entire state of Florida and it's the "Wackenhut Corporation", nothing else period. Most any Florida resident, military, civilian or even a rest stop janitor could and would point you to better places like Eglin AFB, CENTCOM or the military section of the Kennedy Space Center instead of a "rent-a-cop" headquarters.

Buy it used or even better, do a Google, Wikipedia or search any property appraiser's website for any US city for this kind of stuff and you'll get better results. Example, the current Rachel, Nevada (Area 51) official home page (Amazon doesn't allow posting links) tells you there's no gas sold anymore in Rachel and that some entrepreneur is about to build a private "for profit" prison there. Do your own homework and you'll come out ahead, trust me.

And since I totally expect the author to cry foul about this review, maybe even write himself another 5-star review (anyone else notice that?) I challenge him to post the table of contents online and let you, the would be consumer decide.

I really enjoyed this book. It's a nice summary of some of the strange activities our government has been involved in. I did not buy the book for travel but it's a fun read regardless. All the stuff in this book is public knowledge, so it doesn't break any security rules like one of the previous posts claimed.

When looking at the description before ordering the book I was expecting more of a "hands-on" travel guide. By this I mean more of a personal journal of visiting (or attempting to) the sites. The book is more like a series of 2-3 page encyclopedia entries with a few photographs and black, line art type maps. Most entries lack even a photo which was disappointing.

I actually was amused at the tongue-in-cheek style and was not put off by it. The lack of even a basic list of sources renders the information suspect without further investigation yourself. Despite this, I took the history and anecdotal stories at face value and just enjoyed the quick read.

I would say the book serves as a quick overview that may entice a reader to dig on the internet for more information about the sites. I had already heard about most sites listed so there was little "new" information contained inside. What was "new" is, as mentioned above, not backed by any sort of source so it takes some of the shine off the book in my opinion.

If you want a book that is easy to read in short sections and does contain some unusual tidbits of history about these places and are not put off by a bit of coarse language then you'll get what you pay for. If you are looking for actual accounts of a personal visit to each site with lots of pictures you are looking at the wrong book.

I got this book after a long road trip through the West, and wish I'd had it sooner. It turns out many of the towns and mysterious places we passed are described in detail, and what it will raise the hair on your head when you read about the things that are going on with our taxpayer money behind barbed wire.

The coverage of sites throughout the America seems pretty extensive: it describes locations both on and off the beaten track in 25 states and, of course, Washington DC. For anyone planning on visiting Area 51, the Nevada Test Site, or the Trinity Site in Alamogordo, NM (with proper permission), this book is the one to have. It's arranged state by state, with entries marked with practical categories (Getting There, What's There, Getting a Look Inside, etc.) and presents itself as a practical guidebook to getting close to these sites.

I hope, however, that a 2nd edition is on its way. The maps are far less than detailed (perhaps for good reason), so don't expect to navigate close to anything top secret using only this book. And some sites are conspicuously absent. There's nothing on the Pentagon itself, CIA headquarters, or even the Minuteman Missile Natl Historic Site in South Dakota (where you as a tourist can see a Minuteman missile left in it's silo, and enter the preserved launch facility). Perhaps these aren't here since there are conventional ways to visit these places, but they're certainly of interest to the nuclear tourist. Hawaii is also missing, as are various submarine bases.

To complement this, I'd suggest also looking at A Nuclear Family Vacation, by Weinberger and Hodge.

Quite a few places evaluated, but not a lot of indepth knowledge in each place.

I've read this book a few times through, and I can't help but come back to it often. If you want a no-fluff read, where you can quickly jump from location to location, this is the book you've been looking for.

Altough I was aware of most of these sites there were some new ones and interesting stories to go with them. I enjoyed the tips on how not to be arrested. The only one the author left out was the underground UFO base in Alaska.