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The Travel Book: A Journey Through Every Country in the World
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List Price: $30.00
Special Price: $19.80
Your Savings: $ 10.20 ( 34% )
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Manufacturer: Lonely Planet
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 910.202
EAN: 9781741046298
ISBN: 1741046297
Label: Lonely Planet
Manufacturer: Lonely Planet
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 448
Publication Date: 2005-09-01
Publisher: Lonely Planet
Studio: Lonely Planet
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Editorial Reviews:
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The world is a breathtakingly big place, and in this big book we have undertaken the big task of detailing as much of it as we can - every single country, many of the larger dependencies and other, smaller destinations. With the traveler's experience at its heart, this book shows a slice of life in every corner of the globe, and all points in between, engaging the reader's senses in an adventure which conjures up the sights, smells, tastes, sounds and feel of our amazing world.
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating: 
Summary: Great book! Lots of great pictures and helpful information
Comment: This is a great book with lots of helpful, yet basic, information about each place. It is a lot of fun to open up to a random page and read about a country that you may have never heard of. It is a wonderful gift for people who love to travel. The pictures are beautiful. My only qualm is that I wish more of the pictures were of the actual place (i.e. monuments, landscapes, etc.), rather than people from the place.
Customer Rating:
Summary: One of the best books I own!
Comment: I keep this book on my coffee table and find myself getting lost in it at least once a week. Not only was it a huge endeavor for them to make a compilation of every country in the world but the information they include on each page gives you a perfect taste of each country. They include music and books to listen to a read before you head over, sayings, cultural facts and pictures. I have thoroughly enjoyed owning this book and I have received nothing but compliments on it each time a friend stops by. If you are a travel buff or just love learning about new cultures and places this is the book for you.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Don't purchase from this seller
Comment: I never got the book. Contacted seller twice and was ignored. Amazon.com customer service also ignored me. Dealing with mastercard and disputing the charge - they are helpful at least. Signed - Not a happy customer.
Customer Rating:
Summary: 25,000 miles wide and an inch deep
Comment: Who knew Lonely Planet, publisher of the quintessential guides for backpack-hostel-rail pass travelers, aspired to become the next National Geographic?
The Travel Book is a radical departure from Lonely Planet's usual practice of producing in-depth, densely written guidebooks for young travelers. The purpose of this book, rather, is to act as a visual introduction to every country in the world. Yes, you read that correctly. The Travel Book covers 231 countries, including all 193 countries recognized by the United Nations (the "extra" 38 come from giving selected regions and foreign dependencies popular with travelers, such as French Polynesia, Scotland, and Antarctica, their own sections).
Each country receives its own brief section, with most of the space devoted to rich and evocative photographs of people and places. The written text in each section is very minimal and does not go much beyond brief discussions of the best time of year to visit, essential experiences, and related books, music, and films. As a result, The Travel Book isn't very useful for learning facts about a place or for planning a trip. It's really meant to act as a catalyst, as a way to think about travel emotionally, not rationally.
Bottom line: The Travel Book is an art book. It contains gorgeous, beautifully composed photographs of virtually every region in the world. Don't expect to use The Travel Book for planning a vacation, though. Despite being published by Lonely Planet, it contains very little practical information (by design). Personally, I would have liked a little more writing about each country, but overall the book accomplishes what it sets out to do: "to represent every country in the world with amazing images and inspirational text."
3.5 stars.
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And now, two other great travel books:
Bad Trips-a entertaining compilation about what can go WRONG when traveling
The Lost Continent: Travels in Small-Town America-Bill Bryson at his best...incredibly funny, cynical, and biting, on a road trip across the USA
Customer Rating:
Summary: It inspires me.
Comment: I was surprised so many people critiqued this book as if it could even begin to be a comprehensible travel book for the ENTIRE WORLD. When I bought it (in a bookstore, so I knew the format beforehand), I never intended for it to guide me to certain things in certain countries. I reviewed many of the pages of countries I had already been to, and according to Lonely Planet, I'd missed some stuff, but whatever. That happens with any book -- I wouldn't give up my nights relaxing at the Okey Dokey off of the Vltava subway stop in Prague just because Lonely Planet said I needed to walk across the Charles Bridge at the break of dawn. (I did that at 2 a.m., and it was just as peaceful.) Rather, I looked on it as a representation of my greatest pipe dream ... to experience, not just see, every country in the world. My husband and I live on a tight budget; he was surprised I'd spent $30 on a book. But when he started to flip through it, he was likewise enchanted. (I knew there was a reason I married him.) It's just so inspiring ... it reminds you that there is so much out there to see and explore. During the 2008 Olympics, I kept the book by my side, and every time some teensy-weensy country would stroll out with an athlete, I'd look it up in the book, thinking, surely this isn't in there. They all were.
My husband is in the process of applying for jobs abroad, finally having heeded my pleading (I teach school and ESL). When he told me that he was not applying for positions in Singapore, I pulled the book out again and had him look at the size of Singapore and its closeness to other amazing countries. Now he's applying there, too.
Look, if you need a travel guide, this isn't it. But it you love this planet and the myriad of people who inhabit it, well, this is a good place to start.
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