Sometimes using the internet can be a bit frustrating when you want to get comprehensive travel information in one place, and just want a nice travel book but don't want to spend money on a book that you'll use only one time.
Well, your local library is a wonderful place to find travel guides for just about every state, province and foreign country you want to visit. For popular destinations like Hawaii, they'll often provide 3-5 books from the top travel publishers (Frommers, Fodors, Lonely Planet...)
So, get up, go out, and make the trek to the library! If you don't have your local library's lending card, it's usually free to sign up for one by bringing in a piece of ID or bill that contains your current address.
Happy Borrowing!
Travel Books Online
It started off controversial and publishers are fighting them, but as long as it's up, use it as much as you can! I'm talking about Google Books, where they've scanned many popular books and have made them available online.I must warn you though, they're selective with hiding certain pages/chapters. For some books, you'll see 90% of it. For others, you can't read any of it.
Lucky for you, I've figured out how to find the books where you can read them online! Just follow the instructions below.
- Go to http://books.google.com
- Put this into the search box: subject:"Travel" [destination]
- Directly below the search box, where you see "Showing:", select "Limited Preview and Full View"
- Click the button "Search Books"
Save the good ones you find! Make sure you're logged into your Google account, and then click on "Add to My Library" located right below the book thumbnail.
You should know that your library is public! Here's mine :)
New Zealand Guided Tour
I created a Google map that shows the activities from Active New Zealand's TUI tour, to get an overall picture of the trip. I'm really excited about it!
View Larger Map
I'm looking into booking their Dec 21 trip but it's almost full and it's only July! I think I better book soon.
Want to learn how to make your own? Read my Google Maps tutorial.
View Larger Map
I'm looking into booking their Dec 21 trip but it's almost full and it's only July! I think I better book soon.
Want to learn how to make your own? Read my Google Maps tutorial.
How to Create an Itinerary - Part 2
Google Earth's widely recognized purple glowing earth ball.
After you've created your itinerary in Google Map's "MyMaps", you'll probably want to print it out to take it with you on your trip. Here's how:
- Install Google Earth if you don't have it already.
- Click on the
logo located to the right, above the map.
- Google Earth should open your itinerary automatically.
- In Google Earth, in the left menu, your itinerary locations are listed under the folder "Temporary Places".
- Two lines under the folder, you'll see this icon
with no words next to it. Click once on it.
- Go the to menu File > Print...
- Select "Selected Folder in My Places" and then click the "Print" button
A little warning regarding the individual location maps. Google Earth zooms in on each location. If the satellite map looks fuzzy on Google Maps because they haven't deemed it special enough to get more accurate pictures, then they'll be fuzzy in Google Earth as well.
How to Create an Itinerary - Part 1
My road trip on Vancover Island using Google maps.
A great way to plan a road trip is to use Google Maps. It has a feature called "My Maps" where you can mark multiple locations and type in comments such as a description, phone number, address, website url, etc. You essentially create a mini-guidebook for your trip!
In the map above for my Vancouver Island road trip, I had chosen icons to reflect what each location was for. The bed icons were B&B's we booked. The hiking, boat and some others were day-time activities planned. We didn't do all of them and I had put in too many on purpose so that we had choices depending on our mood or the weather which leads me to the following advice...
- Plan too many activities! You're not bound to do all of them but a vacation is more enjoyable when you're flexible.
- Find things to do indoors and outdoors - If it starts raining in July, you'll have something touristy to do indoors and not feel like your vacation was spoiled by rain.
- Google "[city/place] tourism" - you'll get plenty of websites that give you things to do at your destination.
Back to Google Maps. You'll need a Google account to use "My Maps" but if you already have a gmail account, that will work. Here is how you use it:
- Create and name your new map.
- Add locations. You can do that in two ways.
- Search for the location. For example, I search for "YVR", Vancouver's airport code. When it's found, you can click on "Save to My Maps".
- Drop one where ever you'd like. To do this, first make sure your map is showing where you want to mark. Then click on the upside-down drop located on the top left hand corner of the map which looks like this:
Then with your mouse, click where you want to mark. A bubble pops up for you to fill in the place name and any details you want, which leads me to the next step....
- Put in details of each location. I usually like to put in the phone number, address, place description, admission charge, days/hours of operation, etc
- Repeat steps 1-3 for more locations.
Unfortunately, Google has not made "My Maps" to be printer friendly and you can only access your points and info online. In "How to Create an Itinerary - Part 2", I'll detail out how to use Google Earth as the printing solution.
Jenny's Tip: I like to use the online version of MyMaps for storing for short weekend day trips. You know, you're bored on Saturday afternoon, you want to go out, but can't think of a nice place off the top of your head. I love hiking, so I found many local conservations and regional parks and put them in. Now I just pull it up quickly and pick a place to go to!
Why not plot out your favorite places to eat, drink, and whatever else you like to do in multiple locations ;).