Reviews (11)

YOU MUST READ THIS BEFORE YOU THINK OF READING THIS BOOK !
I was very disappointed in this book. Although well written, its focus is not just on PNG. The author begins her first chapter writing about a life threatening experience she had while traveling in rather unsafe places in Africa. It is hard to believe that her story is true, as it makes her seem very stupid because of the truly foolish risks she takes and "always" manages to survive these horrendous situations with flying colors. Don't get me wrong as I am no wimpy traveller myself but I travel with respect for the people I visit. I am a "guest" in "their" country. I have visited many off the beaten path countries and lived with the local people traveling with only a backpack on my back. I have no problems riding in dusty local transportation vehicles with a chicken or two in the seat next to me.I have even hiked in places Borneo (Kalimantan), where you did not see one person all day. I have been to PNG many, many times and am the lucky recipient of a large Papuan family in Port Morsby that were so kind as to "adopt" me. I love and am addicted to what you could call "adventure travel", but I am a "Traveller and not a Tourist". There is a vast difference between the two. Although I really don't consider the author a tourist in her travels in the book, but she does make, what I would call, inappropriate demands on the indigenous people. Some of her behaviour makes me think of her a bit like "the ugly American" traveller of the 1950's. At times her behaviour seems rude to the indigenous people she has contact with and I got the impression that she made the trip, and possible others, focusing only on finding her self and not on any negative impact she might be making on the peoples in the rural villages she encountered. What REALLY upset and angered me reading the book, is the many foolish and dangerous risks she puts herself in. I feel she may give the impression to male readers that many women travelers are like this.
engaging, though very personal
Kira Salak's engaging and highly readable account of her cross-country trip across one of the remotest and most exotic corners of the world as a 24-year-old shouldn't be read for its stylistic excellence (though keen on maintaining a reader's suspense, Salak's prose is a little average) or its abundance of descriptive detail (there are some good sections, such as her account of meeting a rebel leader and her descriptions of costumes and dancers) but for its fascinating and intense coming-of-age arc.
Harangue in disguise
Being keen on New Guinea biota, I have been working to collect all the literature I can on the area. Most resources one finds are by missionaries, anthropologists, or military stories of World War II. Fairly useless for learning of the flora and fauna. Thus, seeing a book of a peregrination along hundreds of miles of lowland territory was intriguing.
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Subjects:  1. Australia & Oceania - General    2. Essays & Travelogues    3. Special Interest - Adventure    4. Travel    5. Travel - Foreign    6. Travel - General    7. Literary studies: general    8. Travel & holiday guides    9. Travel / Adventure    10. Travel writing   

Reviews (1)

The Original Guide to Micronesia
As the author of the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd editions of this handbook, I'm very familiar with the subject matter and am pleased to see how Neil Levy has developed and improved the guide. All 70 maps are now computer-generated and printed in two colors. Neil has broadened the scope to include moreinformation on the upscale facilities, while expanding the ecologicaldiscussions. As a companion to my own guide Moon Handbooks South Pacific it's unmatched,and I recommend it to both travelers and serious students of Micronesia. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Australia & Oceania - General    2. Travel    3. Travel - Foreign    4. Travel Guides    5. ASIA    6. Guidebooks    7. Micronesia    8. Travel & holiday guides   

Reviews (9)

A Guide To The People And Culture Of Australia
"Culture Shock! Australia: A Survival Guide to Customs and Etiquette" by Ilsa Sharp is a guidebook to living in Australia.This book is not a travel guide, but rather a guide to the people and culture of the country.The main audience for this would be someone who intends to spend a lot of time in Australia, but it can also help business travelers, and even tourists.
Interesting info, but painful writing style
This book does contain some interesting information on Australian culture, and on what makes Aussies tick.But I found the writing style to be particularly annoying; even painful.The Australia book available within the "Culture Smart" series, while offering less detail than this book, is far easier on the eyes and mind.

Enjoyable but dated
An American friend, five years in Australia, lent me her 1999 version of this book. I've been here two years, from England, so I found it interesting. I agree that it has been inconsistently updated, and the Australia of 1991 seems to have been different in many ways to the Australia of 2004. Also, life in Perth must be different to that in Brisbane, where I live, 2,700 miles away. For a start, they play Australian football (and soccer) whereas Rugby League is the main game here.Read more

Subjects:  1. Australia & Oceania - Australia    2. Australia & Oceania - General    3. Travel    4. Travel - Foreign    5. Australasia, Oceania & Other Land Areas    6. Travel & holiday guides   

Reviews (4)

Just what I was looking for.
This is the 3rd dive travel book I have purchased writen by Lawson Wood. He covers all the information you will need to plan a dive trip to Cozumel, Cancun and the Mayan Riviera. Besides the 160 dive and snorkel sites there is a brief history of the area and lots of travel tips. If you are a diver you will like the dive site discriptions and underwater photography. This is one of the best books of its kind on diving in the Mayan Riviera area.

good coffee table book on dive sites of the Yucatan
This book is very nicely arranged and designed. The writing is clear and concise and well thought out. The sections on the marine environments and diver safety were great. Not so great were directions getting to some of the dive locations. The author may have visited most of the dive sites on a dive boat and never attempted to reach the locations by car. We are snokelers and tried unsuccessfully to reach some of described locations on the Mexican Riviera. The map of the Mexican Riviera was not good. The scale was off by an order of magnitude. A few of the roads listed in the book on the map were not actually there. Some of the actual roads were not on the map. Most roads going from Highway 307 toward the shore are hotel private property. We repeatedly got turned around by uniformed personnel at hotel gates and had to give up reaching dive sites. It might be useful in future editions to tell how to get to a location by car. Giving GPS coordinates would be good too. This is a good book for planning a diving trip to the Yucatan area. But not so great once you get there.

A Good Book Overall But Lacking For A True Adventurer
This is a good book for someone visiting the Quintanna Roo Coast and Cozumel who is going to use commercial dive operators for most of their diving. For the true adventurer however it is not really adequate. Why? Well say you need to find a reef on your ocean kayak and you are without a dive guide. This book will not really help you find that reef because it does not go into exact reef location detail, it just says like 100 yards off beach X. Well those beaches in Cozumel are long white strips of sand and are prettty much indistinguishable from one another. Also, no information on where to camp on Cozumel and on the Quintanna Roo Coast. It does however have good reef descriptions, general travel info and helpfull advice for tourists. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Australia & Oceania - General    2. Caribbean & West Indies    3. Cozumel    4. Guidebooks    5. Mexico    6. Scuba & Snorkeling    7. Scuba diving    8. Skin diving    9. Special Interest - Adventure    10. Travel    11. Travel - Foreign    12. Yucatâan (State)    13. Sports & Recreation / Scuba & Snorkeling   

Subjects:  1. Australia & Oceania - General    2. Australia & Oceania - South Pacific    3. Travel    4. Travel - Foreign    5. Micronesia    6. Polynesia    7. Travel & holiday guides   

Reviews (3)

Pretty Accurate
Pretty accurate however some of the prices listed in the Guide Book are outdated so double check all quoted prices.

Most practical guide to mid-price travel
I tend to prefer the layout of Frommer's guides, and this one was no exception: easy to read with easy to find, relevant info.Of course, no one guide to a country this size can cover it all in depth.Insight and Nat'l Geographic have the best pictures, and Let's Go is the best budget travel guide and might be worth buying even for non-hostelers.Daytrips to Eastern Australia is a good supplement for longer stays there.
A few comments & some comparisons
I'm surprised this is only the second review on this book. I agree with the previous writer that one probably needs to read more than one travel guide on a country as big and diverse as Australia, but I would definitely give this guide more than just 3 stars. I think it deserves at least a four, but to sort of counteract his paltry three stars, I'm going to give it a 5. :-)
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Subjects:  1. Australia & Oceania - General    2. Travel    3. Travel - Foreign    4. Travel Guides    5. Australia    6. Travel & holiday guides    7. Travel / Australia & Oceania   

Reviews (8)

It is really really really bad travel guide!!!,
I started to use Lonely Planet 15 years ago. I can say that I am a witness of how much quality deteriorite it has been. I used to just buy it by default. It was a Bible for me. But, a BIG but, this Lonely Planet Australia set a new lowest standard for the series.
Great book for big cities
On my recent trip to Australia, I only visited the typical big American tourist spots: Sydney, Melbourne and Cairns (Great Barrier Reef).This book had great information about where to stay, what to do, and great places to eat.
so far, so good
I'm planning to go to Australia and have found some useful information in this book. Of course, I haven't tested it out yet. The history and background included have set the stage for my other research. Some of the recommended lodgings seem a bit too cheap for me. I'm not a hosteler, I want a little comfort but I don't need to stay at the Ritz. Still, this book does have plenty of details on the sights to see and it serves as an overview of the country. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Australia & Oceania - General    2. Travel    3. Travel - Foreign   

Reviews (2)

A brief comment
I've been ploughing thru Oz guides lately researching and planning a possible trip, and this one is comparable to the Frommer's guide. A good guide, less photos than the Dorling-Kindersley, Nat'l Geog., and Insight Guides, but then you're getting two to three hundred pages less of info for five to seven dollars more in those books.
I can't get used to the 'fodors layout' but it's really good.
In spite of the fact I'm not used to the fodor's books layout, I think it's a good guide.
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Subjects:  1. Travel - Foreign    2. Travel    3. Australia    4. Travel & holiday guides    5. Travel / Australia & Oceania    6. Australia & Oceania - General    7. Travel Guides   

Subjects:  1. Australia    2. Australia & New Zealand - Australia    3. Collections Of Photographs    4. Photo Essays    5. Photography    6. Pictorial works    7. Subjects & Themes - Travel - World/Australasia    8. Photographs: collections   

Reviews (2)

The Perfect Travel Companion
I was amazed to read the current review surrounding the Footprint New Zealand Handbook and would like to rally to its support! Look elsewhere for guidance on New Zealand
I purchased this guide as a break from the Lonely Planet guide I used the last time visiting New Zealand three years ago.With that guide, I encountered the same travelers again and again.This was my second trip--the first was two weeks touring by motorcycle, this second trip was for 6 weeks engaged in a variety of activities on both the North and South islands.Read more

Subjects:  1. Australia & Oceania - General    2. Australia & Oceania - New Zealand    3. Travel    4. Travel - Foreign   

Subjects:  1. Papua New Guinea    2. Travel / road maps & atlases   

Subjects:  1. Australia & Oceania - General    2. Australia & Oceania - New Zealand    3. Travel    4. Travel - Foreign    5. Travel / Australia & Oceania   

Subjects:  1. Australia & Oceania - Australia    2. Australia & Oceania - General    3. Reference - General    4. Travel    5. Travel - Foreign    6. Australia    7. Travel & holiday guides    8. Travel / Australia & Oceania   

Reviews (3)

Links to Polynesian Presence in Americas
Childress has uncovered a deep Pacific base for ancient navigators,
interesting, but no classic
Good compilation of information (as you can probably judge from the 5-page bibliography), but not much of a leisurely read. Discusses possible origin of the polynesians, ancient ruins found on the said islands, as well aslegends and artifacts passed on through generations. The author manages totouch alot of topics, but as a general interest book, it just doesn't work.

Insight into early Polynesian Culture
This book takes the reader into the maritime realm of the first seafarers of the Pacific Ocean. Most fascinating of the ancient cith of Mu where the first pan-Pacific maritime university trained sailing fleets to discoverand chart this very ancient part of the world. Delves a little bit intopossible ties with Lemuria and other lost lands of the Pacific. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Ancient Archaeology    2. Australia & Oceania - South Pacific    3. Australia/Oceania - South Pacific    4. Description and travel    5. Extinct cities    6. Fiction - General    7. General    8. New Age    9. Samoan Islands    10. Special Interest - Adventure    11. Tonga    12. Travel   

Reviews (1)

Can't wait to travel down under...
Very complete overview of Australia, which is not realy a country, but an entire continent, with various climates and landscapes. Phillip Mathews has done a great job describing the history, the people and nature of this country, and the accompanying photos are excellent. Some of the fold-out panoramas are nearly three feet wide, and vividly sharp. The book also includes a large number of areal shots, which give an unusual view of some of the remote areas, which are still impenetrable for the regular visitor.Read more

Subjects:  1. Australia & Oceania - General    2. Photography    3. Travel    4. Travel - World/Australasia    5. Australia    6. Photography & Photographs    7. Places & peoples: general interest   

Subjects:  1. Australia & Oceania - Australia    2. Australia & Oceania - General    3. Travel    4. Travel - Foreign    5. Travel Guides    6. Travel / Australia & Oceania   

Reviews (1)

3 for Fiji
We used the Moon Handbook Fiji and the Lonely Planet Fiji books along with this map and got along fine.All three were useful for different purposes.Although weight is a factor when traveling this far and dragging all the baggage through checkpoints, its worth having all the right information to get you in tune with the customs and on the rightroad.You can never have enough maps, this one is one of the most current. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Fiji    2. Travel / road maps & atlases   

Reviews (6)

Inspirational and Engaging Account
Although large in size, and filled with breathtaking photographs, this book includes so much more than the regular "picture book".Robyn's thoughtful words make you feel as if you are traveling right along with her and her famous camels.The story is engaging and heart-wrenching; and the reader runs through the same emotions that Robyn feels at each leg of the journey, from the tragedy of loss to the jubilation of completion.
Lovely, lovely book
The combination is a winner because of:
Incredibly beautiful
This book breaks all the boundaries - combining Photography, digital media and narrative to capture the wild spirit in us all. Makes me want to buy and camel and set off! ... Read more

Subjects:  1. 1950-    2. 20th Century Description And Travel    3. Australia    4. Australia/Oceania - Australia    5. Davidson, Robyn,    6. Description    7. Description and travel    8. Travel    9. Travel - Foreign    10. Davidson, Robyn    11. Journeys   

Editorial Review

In the world of competitive off-shore sailing, Christmas Day is thought of as Boxing Day Eve--that is, the eve of the annual Sydney-to-Hobart Race. One of the world's three major offshore races (along with the Fastnet out of England and America's Newport Race to Bermuda), the 630-mile course from Sydney, Australia, to Hobart, Tasmania, is a test of skills, guts, and endurance in notoriously unpredictable, fickle waters--and in any weather. Read more

Reviews (19)

The Imperfect Storm
The Southern Ocean---that landless sweep of sea that girds the lower third of our planet and isolates Antarctica---is notorious for its evil weather. Huge rollers, unchecked by any landmass, roil around the circumference of the Earth, making this area one of the most daunting, hazardous and challenging for any mariner.
Worth a read
This is such a riveting story that it would be hard to write a bad book about it. Mundle is a fine writer, and the book is easy to read and a real page turner.
Inspiring and frightning
Rob Mundle is journalist and it shows. But behind the bonhomie and parochialism of the yachting scene insider there's an immediacy to this narrative, a rawness to the action and a fire in these heroics that combine to make Fatal Storm an inspiring read. There's something wild about this story, something that makes it different to Fastnet Force 10. There are moments in Fatal Storm when the sailors reading it will be afraid.
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Subjects:  1. Boating - General    2. Environmental Conservation & Protection - General    3. Sailing - General    4. Special Interest - Adventure    5. Sports    6. Sports & Recreation    7. Sailing    8. Travel / Adventure   

Subjects:  1. Australia & Oceania - Australia    2. Beverages - Wine & Spirits    3. Cooking    4. Reference - Guides (General)    5. Travel - Foreign    6. Australia    7. Wines