Gulliver’s Travels describes the four fantastic voyages of Lemuel Gulliver, a kindly ship’s surgeon. Swift portrays him as an observer, a reporter, and a victim of circumstance. His travels take him to Lilliput where he is a giant observing tiny people. In Brobdingnag, the tables are reversed and he is the tiny person in a land of giants where he is exhibited as a curiosity at markets and fairs.

The flying island of Laputa is the scene of his next voyage. The people plan and plot as their country lies in ruins. It is a world of illusion and distorted values. The fourth and final voyage takes him to the home of the Houyhnhnms, gentle horses who rule the land. He also encounters Yahoos, filthy bestial creatures who resemble humans. The story is read by British actor Martin Shaw with impeccable diction and clarity and great inflection. If broken into short listening segments, the tapes are an excellent tool for presenting an abridged version of Gulliver’s Travels. Read the rest of this entry »

An experienced traveler and the author of five books, including How Proust Can Change Your Life, De Botton here offers nine essays concerning the art of travel. Divided into five sections “Departure”, “Motives”, “Landscape”, “Art”, and “Return” the essays start with one of the author’s travel experiences, meander through artists or writers related to it, and then intertwine the two.

De Botton’s style is very thoughtful and dense; he considers events of the moment and relates them to his internal dialog, showing how experiences from the past affect the present. In “On Curiosity”, for example, which describes a weekend in Madrid, De Botton compares his reliance on a very detailed guidebook to the numerous systematic measurements Alexander von Humboldt made during his 1799 travels in South America. De Botton compares Humboldt’s insatiable desire for detail with his own ennui and wish that he were home. There are also details about a fight over dessert, the van Gogh trail in Provence, and Wordsworth’s vision of nature. Although well written and interesting, this volume will have limited popular appeal. Read the rest of this entry »

An essential guide for today’s traveler: time saving tips to navigate, book, and troubleshoot your travel planning, on and off the Web. If you’ve ever tried to find a sale fare you saw advertised for a flight, only to turn up much higher prices, or discovered that the hotel you booked wasn’t exactly “steps away from the ocean”, you know that the do-it-yourself era of travel can mean something else entirely: you’re on your own.

Now Susan Stellin, a regular contributor to the New York Times, offers the ultimate guide to the sometimes overwhelming logistics of travel, from researching trip plans to avoiding pitfalls on the road. This comprehensive guidebook presents practical advice on the most useful Web sites, strategies for finding the best deals, and resources to help you decide where and when to go. Read the rest of this entry »

The Smart Traveler’s Passport is a collection of 399 of the best travel tips you’ll ever read, compiled from the pages of Budget Travel magazine.

You’ll learn:

• 13 different uses for Ziploc bags
• How dental floss can double as a tape measure
• Where to find the best street food in cities worldwide
• How a digital camera can help you find your rental car
• Why clearing your Web browser’s cache will lead to lower prices on airfare and hotel reservations
• How to avoid long lines at the world’s most popular attractions

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Off the Tourist Trail is a guide to the world’s unspoiled sights and experiences. It takes a hundred cliched tourist destinations – everything from over-visited national parks to overrated museums – and reveal 1,000 fresh and fascinating alternative options.

Written by a team of travel experts, and with a foreword by Bill Bryson, this book brings vibrant cities, enchanting sights, breathtaking natural wonders and unforgettable experiences to life with informative narrative and stunning photography. Read the rest of this entry »

No one knows the world like National Geographic—and in this lavish volume, reveal picks for the world’s most fabulous journeys, along with helpful information for readers who want to try them out.

Compiled from the favorite trips of National Geographic’s travel writers, Journeys of a Lifetime spans the globe to highlight the best of the world’s most famous and lesser known sojourns. It presents an incredible diversity of possibilities, from ocean cruises around Antarctica to horse treks in the Andes. Every continent and every possible form of transport is covered.

A timely resource for the burgeoning ranks of active travelers who crave adventurous and far-flung trips, Journeys of a Lifetime provides scores of creative ideas: trekking the heights of Mt. Kilimanjaro in Tanzania… mountain biking in Transylvania… driving through the scenic highlands of Scotland… or rolling through the outback on Australia’s famous Ghan train… and dozens of other intriguing options all over the world. Read the rest of this entry »

Initial reaction to Bill Bryson’s reading of A Walk in the Woods may well be “Egads! What a bore!” But by sentence three or four, his clearly articulated, slightly adenoidal, British/American-accented speech pattern begins to grow on you and becomes quite engaging. You immediately get a hint of the humor that lies ahead, such as one of the innumerable reasons he longed to walk as many of the 2,100 miles of the Appalachian Trail as he could.

“It would get me fit after years of waddlesome sloth” is delivered with glorious deadpan flair. By the time storyteller recounts his trip to the Dartmouth Co-op, suffering serious sticker shock over equipment prices, you’ll be hooked.

When Bryson speaks for the many Americans he encounters along the way–in various shops, restaurants, airports, and along the trail–he launches into his American accent, which is whiny and full of hard r’s. And his southern intonations are a hoot. Read the rest of this entry »

Europe by Eurail has been the train traveler’s one-stop resource for visiting the Continent by rail for more than thirty years. This time-tested and reader-friendly guide, newly revised and updated, is packed with all the information you need on more than ninety rail trips starting from your choice of twenty-four base cities located in seventeen countries.

With your rail pass in hand, you can explore each country’s special attractions and learn about European life and culture. Including step-by-step directions and advice on where to go and what to see and do, this book helps take the puzzle out of rail travel on the Continent.

For the neophyte European train traveler, this is a good book. For an experienced and adventurous traveler, it comes up short. For example the coverage of Prague and Budapest is negligible. The guide could have given names, prices and ratings of sleeping accommodations close to the train stations. Read the rest of this entry »

Did you know that in the nursing field cna training you can serve in various health care service settings? Many people have confined themselves to the nursing career prospects that exist in the common mainstream health care domains in public and private hospitals and clinics. The nursing career field has a lot to offer especially to those who are prepared to take up the out of the box nursing job models and serve in various nursing environs. But to be able to think out of the box you must have the box in the first place. Before you can target the top Plan travel nursing jobs you will need to evaluate your self and establish if you really have what it takes.

Some Plan travel nursing jobs require that you be in possession of recognizable education and considerable number of years in working experience. You will need to look at the kind of Plan travel nursing jobs that may suit your penchant and skills. Read the rest of this entry »

Imagine a world without late planes, missed connections, lost luggage, bumped passengers, cramped seating, high fees and higher fares, surly employees, and security lines. . . .
Ordinary travel is an extraordinary ordeal. Yet despite the high prices and huge hassles, travel is essential—along with the need for tips, tricks, and techniques to improve the journey. The Wall Street Journal Guide to Power Travel is an entertaining road trip and a helpful guide, drawn from Scott McCartney’s popular Middle Seat column, which explains why bad things happen to good travelers and what you can do to improve your lot. Expert advice and tips include:

* How to get cheap fares, first-class upgrades, and better seats.
* How to minimize chances of lost luggage and what to do when baggage doesn’t show up.
* How to avoid delays, get around TSA bottlenecks, and minimize the chances you’ll get stuck at some distant airport—and what to do if you do get stuck.
* How to complain to an airline and get some attention, right down to what to ask for in compensation and how to get the government’s attention. Read the rest of this entry »