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"Plagiarise, but always be sure to call it research."
Tom Lehrer, Entertainer |
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Books by our members
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Only in ... Zurich, by Duncan Smith |
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Only in ... Zurich, by Duncan Smith
 After years of working in the publishing industry promoting other people's travel books, in 2003 'urban explorer' Duncan Smith began writing and illustrating his own. Now his 'Only in ….' series of European city guidebooks are essential reading for travellers wanting to discover hidden corners of cities such as Budapest, Berlin, and Prague, whether they are first-time visitors or residents wanting to learn a little more.
Latest in the series is Only in ... Zurich, a guide to the unique locations, hidden corners and unusual objects of Switzerland's largest city (published by Christian Brandstätter Verlag, price €22, and available through Amazon, ISBN: 978-3-85033-547-8). This comprehensive illustrated guide covers more than 80 fascinating and unusual historical sights from ancient walls and secret gardens, to curious museums, converted factories, and shops with a difference.
Duncan 'walks' readers through Zurich's 12 districts in a journey through time from Roman Turicum and the Old Swiss Confederacy to the Helvetic Republic and the Industrial Revolution, pointing out along the way, a variety of weird and wonderful objects that range from a complicated clock to an elephant in the woods, an emperor's paddle steamer to the original 'Dark Restaurant'.
Duncan is now busy discovering the hidden corners of Paris for the ninth 'Only in …' book, due for publication next year. For information on all titles in the series, visit Duncan's website, www.duncanjdsmith.com
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Australia by Penny Watson |
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 Australian member Penny Watson has had a busy year with Lonely Planet, co-authoring the latest edition of Australia, East Coast Australia, and Discover Australia Lonely Planet guides. For research, she spent nine weeks on the ground in Australia's NSW, a varied landscape of beaches, hinterland, bush and outback.
On the way Penny found some great pubs including Russell Crowe's Nymboida Hotel in the small town near Coffs Harbour; old homesteads such as Mt Tenandra, an old pastoral station near the Warrumbungles National Park; and quirky hotels like PJs Underground Hotel, a cavernous place in the desert that maintains a constant 22 degrees.
'I clocked up nearly 10,000kms by car, and bunny-hopped through the Outback in a six-seat Cessna aeroplane - nice if you can handle the 46 degree heat!' she says. 'For the south coast leg - one of Australia's prettiest and most overlooked stretches of coast - I hired a campervan and found a string of unknown bush campsites with ocean-views that you'd pay five-star rates for anywhere else in the world.'
Penny has also contributed recipes to Lonely Planet's The World's Best Street Food from her experiences in Hong Kong, where she is currently based. She's written various articles for the Sydney Morning Herald too about her adventures on the road for Lonely Planet, and about her travels in Asia. You can read many of them on: www.theage.com.au/execute_search.html?text=penny+watson&ss=Travel |
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PCH Hotels Guide 2012 by Mike Gerrard and Donna Dailey |
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PCH Hotels Guide 2012 by Mike Gerrard and Donna Dailey
Mike Gerrard and Donna Dailey have published the 2012 edition of their guide to Pacific Coast Highway Hotels. They sell the guide on their website, www.Pacific-Coast-Highway-Travel.com, as well as on the Kindle, the Nook, in the Apple Store and as a paperback on Amazon in the USA.
“This is the third edition of the guide,” says Mike, “which began as an experiment in 2010. I hoped we would sell a few copies via the website, but not long after we wrote it, the ebook boom took off and we were able to do Kindle, Nook and Apple versions too. About the same time, Amazon in the USA introduced their self-publishing arm, CreateSpace, and because we spend half our year in the USA and have a US address, we were able to use this to provide a print edition too. I do hope they introduce that option in the UK soon. It wasn’t so long ago that if you wanted a print edition you would have to order and pay in advance for something like 500 copies. Through Amazon you just load up the file and they can print individual copies, one at a time as they are ordered - and still make a profit on it!”
The guide recommends about 150 hotels in all the major stops along the USA’s Pacific Coast Highway, running through California, Oregon and Washington. In addition there are another 50 or so hotels recommended for the most popular diversion, into California’s Wine Country. Hotels are rated in three different price bands, with longer write-ups, a photo, and links to longer reviews on their website for hotels where Mike and Donna have stayed themselves.
“It’s been well worth doing from a financial point of view,” Mike adds. “Last year we sold almost 1,000 copies, and because it’s self-published we get most of the money ourselves. It’s an extra income stream created by our website, which is one reason I’m almost evangelical in encouraging travel writers to start their own niche website.
“What’s been interesting is that sales divide up pretty evenly between the website, the print version and, surprisingly to me, the Kindle version. We also did an app of the book through GuideGecko, and that’s sold another few hundred since it was launched, but the royalties there are of course very small as apps are so cheap.
“The guide runs to about 15,000 words, and I worked out one time that after one year we’d earned about £100 per thousand words, for a book we commissioned ourselves to write! By the second year that was up to £200 per thousand, and hopefully by the end of 2012 we’ll have earned £300 per thousand words from it.”
Mike and Donna’s guide costs $7.99 for the ebook version, and is available at: http://www.pacific-coast-highway-travel.com/Buy-Our-Hotel-Ebook-Guide.html.
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Wildlife & Conservation Volunteering , by Peter Lynch |
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Wildlife & Conservation Volunteering , by Peter Lynch
 A biology degree, teaching and leading field trips in my younger days left an indelible imprint on my psyche so that writing and researching Wildlife & Conservation Volunteering – the complete guide for Bradt (2012) was a complete joy. Surprisingly I don’t really enjoy simple wildlife watching trips, I find them too passive and prefer to be actively involved in field trips.
This second edition had been completely updated and expanded, including more organizations assessed, more volunteer stories and more field adventures. There is also a new chapter on great wildlife migration events – how, when and where to see them, with more great photographs.
A conservation volunteering experience is so much more than a wildlife trip or safari, not just for the positive feel-good factor of doing something useful but because of the hands-on involvement and insights they provide into the life of wild creatures.
Jason, a ranger on the deserted island of Curieuse in the Seychelles, told me how when he arrived for work on the morning of 24th December 2004 all the giant tortoises had mysteriously disappeared from their normal beachside habitat. Two days later the tsunami struck but the tortoises had laboriously struggled up onto the islands high ground – behaviour he had never seen before. It seems like scientists are missing a low-tech trick for a tsunami early warning system.
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Marsh Lions, by Brian Jackman |
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 Written in 1982 with Jonathan Scott, Brian Jackman’s bestseller The Marsh Lions is being reissued in March by Bradt (£9.99) on the 30th anniversary of its original publication. Hailed as an African classic when it first appeared, the new edition has been expanded to bring the true story of Kenya’s most famous lion pride up to date and also includes super new colour photographs by Angie Scott.
‘The wilderness that lions inhabit is a kind of parallel wilderness and for three years at the end of the 1970s, I was privileged to enter their world, waking at dawn to the sound of their voices and driving out into the boundless grasslands of Kenya’s masai mara national reserve to observe their complex social behaviour,’ explains Brian.
The result was the Marsh Lions, the true story of a particular pride that would later become the superstars of the BBC’s Big Cat Diary TV series, and by the time it was finished, the three Marsh Pride males and their lionesses were as familiar to me as old friends.
‘The book came about through a chance meeting with Jonathan Scott, the wildlife photographer, who was working in the Mara as a safari guide when I went there on a travel assignment for The Sunday Times, and has been hailed as an African wildlife classic since it first appeared in 1982.
‘Its reissue on the 30th anniversary of its original is a source of huge satisfaction for Jonathan and for me. Not only because we have been able to bring the saga of Kenya’s most famous lion pride up-to-date and introduce them to a whole new generation of wildlife enthusiasts, but also to draw attention to the plight of these magnificent carnivores, which are fast disappearing throughout most of their range.’ |
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Suffolk Coast and Heath Walks, by Laurence Mitchell |
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Suffolk Coast and Heath Walks, by Laurence Mitchell
 Laurence’s latest book for Cicerone is Suffolk Coast and Heath Walks: Three Long-distance Routes in the AONB and focuses in detail on three routes in the Suffolk coastal region, much of which is designated as an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.
With a unique landscape of cliffs, marshes, dunes and shingle beaches, as well as rare plants and birdlife galore, there is much to attract anyone seeking interesting day walks or longer multi-day itineraries. The three long-distance walks described in the book – the Suffolk Coast Path, the Stour and Orwell Walk and the Sandlings Walk – link together to provide a comprehensive and varied circuit of the entire Suffolk Heritage Cost that takes in Lowestoft, Felixstowe, Ipswich and Southwold. The book is illustrated with OS maps and colour photographs and is packed with information about points of interest along the way.
Once an important region for England’s seafaring tradition, coastal erosion and the silting of ports meant that the Suffolk coast languished as a backwater for centuries until the onset of low-scale tourism in the late Victorian period. While the charming, old-fashioned resorts of Southwold and Aldeburgh provide homely facilities and a lively cultural scene, there are many other places along this coastline where crowds are virtually unknown.
‘Although I live just to the north of this region in Norwich, I have been visiting the Suffolk coast for as long as I can remember,’ says Laurence. ‘There were some stretches to the south of the region that were totally unknown to me though. Isolated little hamlets like Shingle Street, for instance, which is exactly that – one street, a line of cottages and a shingle beach – and glorious expanses of tidal saltmarsh on the Shotley peninsula, south-east of Ipswich that seem to be almost totally devoid of people even in high summer.’ |
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Faces of Finland, by Tim Bird |
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Faces of Finland, by Tim Bird
 Tim Bird is the face behind a travel-friendly volume designed for business visitors to Finland and illustrated entirely with his own photographs. First published in 2006, Faces of Finland has just been reprinted with updated text and pictures.
Tim has lived in Finland for more than 20 years, so is well qualified to present this lively, personal portrait of his adopted country. Richly illustrated, Faces of Finland covers everything from people, history and customs, to climate, nature and industry. So whether you want to find out about the famous sauna-bathing ritual or the country’s innovative high-technology industries, the role of women in Finnish society or the country’s beautiful natural landscape, this book can help you.
Available from Finnish bookstores, Faces of Finland is also available by mail order from the publishers Yrityskirjat (which means ‘company books’) for 29 euros –
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or phone +358(0)9 477 7860.
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My Italy: Festivals and Fiascos, by Valery Collins |
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My Italy: Festivals and Fiascos, by Valery Collins
This is the latest title from Guild member and tour leader Valery Collins, an entertaining and informative read that looks at the hotel and trip fiascos, the exploits and expectations of group members visiting Italy’s many diverse festivals.
Published under the Vanguard imprint by Pegasus Elliot Mackenzie, price £11.99, Festivals and Fiascos transports readers to a wide variety of events including the Venice Carnival, Sorrento’s White Procession and Black Procession, and the Verona Opera, as well as local festivals to patron saints, polenta parties and even a Cow Queen parade.
‘It’s not often when I travel on my own that something happens to make me roar with laughter, but when I was nearly swept away by a stampede of cows – contenders for the title of Cow Queen in the small town of Pinzolo – I was reduced to helpless laughter,’ says Valery.
‘I wanted to share this experience and so the idea of writing about my travels in Italy, embracing the theme of festivals and fiascos was born. Italy is a feast of festivals and travelling as a tour manager with groups of people has produced a fund of fiascos. I’ve visited many such events and so each experience was converted into a chapter of the book.’ |
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"The setting is superb, like Rome, Istanbul is built on seven hills, and as with the eternal city, the simultaneity of past and present thrives here. At the confluence of Islam and Christianity, Istanbul groans under the weight of its own history. More impressive than any veneer of twenty-first century excess are the ones far removed. Those ancient layers form the very fabric of this city of over 20 million inhabitants."
© Gary Buchanan, Turkish Delight, World of Cruising, Autumn 2007 |
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