Quick Escapes Dallas/Ft. Worth (Paperback)

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Product Description

Pack your bags, grab this guide, and hit the road to an amazing variety of destinations for a few hours to a few days of traveling fun and adventure. Feel the true spirit of Texas that pervades the architecture, historical sites, entertainment venues, and scrumptious cuisine of the Austin Escape. Pamper yourself in thermal baths and spas, stroll through a national park, go horseback riding, or just relax on the shores of two gorgeous lakes in the Hot Springs National Park Escape. Explore a cavalry fort, browse through antiques, and marvel at a cavern's fragile crystals in the San Angelo and Paint Rock Escape. This guide also includes detailed route maps, travel directions, destination highlights, activities for morning, afternoon, and evening, choice restaurants, picnic sites, and lodgings, special events and festivals, shopping and local sources of information. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Paperback: 240 pages
• Publisher: Globe Pequot; 2nd edition (July 1, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 076270196X
• ISBN-13: 978-0762701964
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.5 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #4,600,091 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Not exactly a "quick" escape..., April 20, 2002

By	Lola (wanderer) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Quick Escapes Dallas/Ft. Worth (Paperback)

Ostensibly, a book entitled "Quick Escapes Dallas/Ft. Worth" would emphasize the "quick"--that is, follow a general theme of time, suggest short-but-satisfying trips, give an approximation of travel time upfront, list trips from closest to farthest away, not require you to read the entire book to figure out which trips are the closest to Dallas etc (after all, you're trying to save time). However, a more appropriate and truthful title for this book would have instead conveyed that one should have good knowledge of Texas geography and roads...because that's how this book is laid out--not exactly friendly for the Texan newcomer! Counter to what I expected, this book does not suggest or organize "quick escapes" based upon the destination's distance from Dallas, but categorizes the different trips based on direction--do you want to go East, West, South, or North? (hmm, I thought I just wanted a "quick escape," I don't really care which direction I go in!) You'd better have a detailed Texas map handy too because otherwise you won't have a clue how much mileage is involved for each trip! And I'm sorry but 7 hours in the car is not my idea of a "quick escape," which is how long some of the suggested trips would take you if you actually compute the mileage. Some other gripes I have is that approximate prices are not included for suggested lodging and that some of the "escapes" cover redundant territory and/or don't give you a sense of how little (or much) there is to do once you are there. I took the trip to Caddo Lake and realized that I could complete the suggested itinerary for TWO other "escapes" (Jefferson and Mineola/Tyler) all in the same weekend--and no, I wasn't racing through towns just to say I had been there either, it was all at a leisurely pace. Leads me to believe that one should be retired, well-off, adept at cross-referencing this with other guidebooks, and not exhibit any ADD tendencies if you are to find this book truly helpful. But if you can ignore these details, and don't mind the misleading title of the book, the content is quite good...and I like how the author has included "pit stops" (cafes, bakeries, local restaurants and dives) into the itinerary. I have actually found "Official Guide to Texas State Parks," a book that I bought at the same time as "Quick Escapes," the more inspiring of the the two. Though it has similar faults (although it neither claims to be about quick escapes nor Dallas, so that isn't even a valid fault) it has gorgeous, compelling photography that give you a real sense of what the place is like. When used in conjunction with the Texas State Parks website, planning a trip is a snap...which is what I had hoped "Quick Escapes" would be.