A Review of " The Most Scenic Drives in America" [19]

The Most Scenic Drives in America, Newly Revised and Updated: 120 Spectacular Road Trips by the Editors of Reader's Digest
Reader's Digest, ISBN 978-1606523582
March 1, 2011, 400 pages

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My dear readers, you may have noticed that I like to travel.
And I like to take picture of places I travel to.
I am happy to go by air or sea or train..but what I love most is a Road Trip.
Charge the GPS, fill the tank, pack some snacks, make sure the camera is ready, pick a direction and let's go!

Well, if you too love a great road trip and need some ideas for some future trips...or if you just want to sit on your couch and take a beautiful journey in your mind, the newly revised and update The Most Scenic Drives in America is a book I think that you will love. I know I do.

The book gives 120 different trips, divided into four major areas of the US, Western, Rocky Mountain, Central and Eastern, in each case also extending up into Canada to include some trips to visit our northern neighbors. For each, there is a very nice map, a great deal of useful information, beautiful photographs and links to the web sites of attractions and places that are discussed so you can go online and get additional information. Each point of interest along the trip in each drive is numbered, with a discussion of the must see sights. The length of each trip is given, with suggestions of when the best time to go is and other nearby attractions that you might want to visit while you are in the area.

Looking over the list, I figure that I have probably driven about 20 of the included drives, in Nova Scotia, New England, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, North Carolina, Delaware, Maryland...oh, and New Jersey! So that only leave me about 100 to go and I wish I could just grab this book, take a few months off work and hit the road. But honestly, as great as my trips were, I wish I had a look at this book before I took them, because there are some things I missed. This book is just full of great ideas, and really, no matter where you live in the US, there is probably a route nearby for you to explore.

And did I mention the hundreds and hundreds of fabulous photographs? I must say, one thing I really enjoyed looking through this book was checking out the pictures from places I have been and comparing them to my own. Mine don't come off too badly but I picked up a lot of great ideas for the future.

Now, I do think I should mention that when you set out on any of these trips, you may need to gather some additional information..like from those web sites the book gave you. It does not discuss where to stay, except in general terms, or some mentions of a few lodging that are sights in themselves and the same is true with places to eat. But I have no problem with that because that is not what this book is.
What it aims to do, to give us ideas of some fabulous places to visit and a lot of great information about planning those trips, it does a great job at. But even if you are not going to take any of these drives..even if you don't own a car!...this book will give you many enjoyable hours, just paging through, getting off the Interstate and checking out some of the most beautiful places in our country.

My thanks to Amazon Vine for providing me with a copy of this book to review.