A wonderful coffee table book for the traveler or the wannabe traveler. The gorgeous photography is a highlight of this book that is sure to ignite a desire to travel. Offering lesser-known alternatives to well-known destinations, the book breaks the destinations down into categories: historical, natural wonders, cities, etc.

Whether you are a travel buff or just a fan of beautiful photos, this book is a winner. ( )

This a beautifully photographed "coffee table book." For those who think visiting the Louvre or the Uffizi are too common, check out the ideas in this book. It has interesting trips both large and small for travel all over the world, from Iceland to Africa. This book is especially fun for those of us who rarely get to travel at all, so that we get to learn about the beautiful and fascinating places, and to see them at their most beautiful. ( )

The premise of Off the Tourist Trail is ambitious: narrow the planet’s must-see attractions to the hundred crème-de-la-crème; delineate what makes them so fabulous and acknowledge their drawbacks (usually crowds and commercialization); and then offer worthy alternatives. Oh -- and accompany it with mind-blowingly stunning photography.

The result? A coffee-table book presented with Dorling Kindersley’s trademark lush sensuality -- smooth, heavy pages; vibrant colors; pleasing layout -- that is beyond successful. To be clear, the book is less an actual travel guide and more a guide for expanding one’s worldview. Yes, uber-travelers might happily substitute one continent’s beach or festival for another’s, half a world away. But historical sites and natural wonders seem much less interchangeable, and the takeaway from this book is an awareness that even unique prototypes actually do have similars (Lascaux isn’t the only example of prehistoric rock art; Pompeii isn’t the only preserved ruins; Route 66 isn’t even the best driving trip).

My only caution is to Bill Bryson fans, drawn by the prominent attachment of his name to the book. Be forewarned -- his unbelievably short, repetitive, and vacuous Foreword frankly disrespects both the book and the reader.

Otherwise, highly recommended! ( )

This may become my favorite time-wasting, daydreaming book ever. Just paging through, seeing suggestions of places to visit that I've never even heard of before, but likening them somewhat to places I *have* heard of, but want to avoid because of the [crowds, cost, cliche, take your pick]. As Bryson says in the intro, it's a shame I'll never get to them all, but better that than to ever run out of things to anticipate.

As in all DK books, the photography is gorgeous, rich colors, interesting and varied views of whatever is being covered. There are, necessarily, few pictures of any one destination, but they've done their best to provide an overview while not making similar places look the same. The book itself is definitely NOT a "travel" book - it's more coffee-table size than pocket size. It's not meant to be an in-depth guide so much as a jumping-off point.

The book is divided into sections by different kinds of tourism: ancient/historical sites, festivals, journeys, architecture, natural wonders, beaches, sports, art/culture, and cities. The cities section tends to focus on lesser-known sights in major cities, since there's nothing you can quite say is almost the same as New York/Paris/London/Beijing.

While the book only provides the very basic information on each destination, it's still a great way to find out about places you may never have heard of otherwise, and then do your own research. And even though the focus is non-tourist destinations, many are presented in a "this, instead of that" format, and there is always a sidebar covering the basics if you still feel compelled to go for the more well-known example, with ways to avoid the worst of the crowds (e.g., visit the North Rim of the Grand Canyon instead of the more popular South Rim; go out to the Giza pyramids early in the day when it's less crowded; etc.).

I really can't recommend this one enough. If you have it on your coffee table, I can almost guarantee that every visitor will end up paging though it, fascinated. ( )

This is a beautiful coffeetable book: Large in size, and full of short texts and lots of awesome colorful photos from all over the world. If you like to travel, you will probably enjoy just looking at the photographs in this book.

But the pictures are not what this book is mainly about: You will find famous tourist attractions from all over the world listed according to categories such as Historical (e.g. Pompeii), Great Journeys (e.g. Camino de Santiago), Natural Wonders (e.g. Niagara Falls), Cities (e.g. Amsterdam) and so on. For each tourist attraction, the book suggests a less crowded but equally awesome alternative: Herculaneum instead of Pompeii, Pilgrimage to Rome instead of Camino de Santiago, Iguacu Falls instead of Niagara Falls, Delft instead of Amsterdam etc. The suggested alternatives are sometimes geographically close, but sometimes on entirely different continents. I recommend that you look closely at what is similar about the suggested alternative before choosing a place to visit. For example, while Herculaneum and Pompeii are close in almost every respect (geographically close, both document Roman life as it was before the same disaster struck both cities), other places will differ in many regards. For example, Iceland and Yellowstone National Park may both be good places to see a geyser, but if you're interested in Yellowstone's wildlife, I don't know whether Iceland would be a good alternative. Similarly, I love Amsterdam and I'm sure Delft would lack many of the characteristics that I like about Amsterdam. And I might be able to gamble both in Reno and Las Vegas, but if you go to Reno, you will miss out on the architecture of the Las Vegas strip.

For each place recommended in this book, there is a description, pictures, a map and a little info box with practical stuff like where to eat and stay. In my opinion these info boxes could have been left out because the main value of this book is not in providing concrete travel advice (you would almost certainly want to get a guide book to the place you pick from this book anyway).

I see the value of this book mainly in providing interesting suggestions about where to travel to next - independent from the more popular alternatives. The book really leaves you yearning to travel, and many of the places presented in it are probably ones you wouldn't have thought to visit before reading the book. It might also be worth looking at this book if there is a place you absolutely want to visit but if for some reason you have difficulties traveling there (too far away, booked up etc.). In that case, you may find the next closest thing in this book.

Summing up, I recommend this book to anyone who likes to travel and flip through a beautiful collection of interesting places around the world, or to anyone who is looking for inspiration as to where to go next. ( )