1,000 Ultimate Experiences
I have been pouring through what I think will be my key coffee table book of inspiration next year: Lonely Planet’s 1,000 Ultimate Travel Experiences. I know we all have our own travel bucket lists: some of the public, some of them private, and a jumble of ideas and destinations in between. Now, I know that STE can sometimes be a dangerous place (oh – I’d like to go there. Oh, and there too! Wait, where’s that photo taken? Wow! Sound familiar?) but if you don’t want to be floored by 349 pages of travel-tastic destinations, then I encourage you to stop reading now.
However, if you can’t resist the temptation of 1,000 travel more ideas, then let me tell you a bit more about this guide.
The 1000 Ultimate Travel Experiences Guide Layout
After a one page foreword from the Lonely Planet founder and a table of contents, the Ultimate Travel Experiences guide gets right down to business. The 1,000 experiences are actually a series of lists, each just 2-4 pages long with a photo.
Each experience has a brief paragraph about the tip, and then followed by a 2 sentence “suggestion” to help you make it happen – e.g. do you have to take a guided tour to do the experience, or arrive at 7AM when it opens, or a website where you can find out more information. This one bit of information really closes the deal for me, as it really gives you that nugget of information that will get you off the sofa and out exploring!
There’s no real discernible order to the list, which makes this book the perfect lazy Sunday reading: open it up to any page and start browsing. There’s of course a easy-to-traverse index to find tips by country, as well as a ’sights and activities’ index which organises the lists into experience types, sort of like how our travel super specials are arranged.
My Favourites of the 1000 Ultimate Trravel Experiences
The Red Square, in Moscow, Russia: A Great Place for Deep Thinking
The guide has a list of “ultimate itineraries” which are grouped by geography – they make good jumping off points for other lists. But as for me, it’s hard to choose, but a couple of my favourite lists include:
The Best Places for Deep Thinking, which includes:
- a cafe on the Left Bank in Paris, France
- the Red Square in Moscow, Russia
- Schaarbeek Cemetery in Evere, near Brussels, Belgium
- the view from the Acropolis in the early evening in Athens, Greece
- Birla House (where Ghandi died), Delhi, India
The World’s Most Spectacular Natural Attractions, including:
- the caves, waterfalls, and other charms of the Plitvice Lakes, Croatia
- the aptly-named Lake District, England
- the world’s highest sand hills in Sossusvlei, Nambia
Get Your Copy Now
Unless you got a copy for Christmas (unlikely), then be sure to grab a copy today via the handy Amazon.com widget below (it is not currently available on the Amazon.co.uk site). It’s definitely got the STE thumbs up as a must-have for a coffee table near you.
I’ve also added 1,000 Ultimate Travel Experiences into our list of recommended travel guides.
Disclosure: The author was provided a review copy of this publication, which in no way reflects on the editorial review.
Russia photo by punxutawneyphil
Andy Hayes is the managing editor of Sharing Travel Experiences. Featured in Newsweek, the Wall Street Journal, National Geographic Traveler, and other major publications, he travels for up to seven weeks at a time and spends the other seven right here with you. Follow him on Twitter, @andrewghayes.
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December 23rd, 2009 at 5:55 pm
This book looks amazing! The cover alone is really striking. Again, another one to add to the ever-growing “must read” list. Thanks for bringing this to my attention Andy!
December 23rd, 2009 at 8:58 pm
@JoAnna – somehow I think you’ve seen many of these experiences, but nonetheless it is still a worthy goal to hit more of them
December 23rd, 2009 at 9:21 pm
@Andy ~ And that doesn’t make them any less fun to relive!
March 22nd, 2010 at 5:03 pm
[...] Recommended Travel Guides for nearly anyplace and anywhere, including such awesome books like Row 22 Seat A And B, My Life in France by Julia Child, Step Back from the Baggage Claim, Weird Europe, and 1000 Ultimate Travel Experiences. [...]