Very well done, December 12, 2001

In addition to these things, the book has a sidebar of facts on each place, summarizing climate, local language, currency, best time to go, health concerns and other useful information. There is also a world climate map in the front of the book which labels each area covered in the book.

The photography is excellent and I think the coverage is fairly well-rounded. The book opens with information on Banff National Park in Canada, proceeds around the globe in a more or less eastward direction and finishes in the Pacific with Tahiti and Easter Island.

A large spectrum of travel is covered, but there are some notable places missing. The authors left out some great cities in Europe, although they do cover Venice, Prague, Vienna and Krakow. These are all beautiful cities and deserve their place in this book, but absent are Paris, Rome, Athens, and London. It's easy enough to find books on these places though and I suspect the authors overlooked them for this reason.

One place conspicously absent, which I cannot forgive them for overlooking is the Caribbean. I may be biased, but I do think the Caribbean is one of the most beautiful places on earth. Any well-traveled soul must see at least one of the islands of the Greater or Lesser Antilles.

In spite of this, I still give the book 4 stars and feel that it is a wonderful place to look for travel ideas or to do some world exploration from the comfort of an easy chair.

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