Patricia Schultz

"As a travel lover, the idea of this list really appealed to me, but in applying it, the book has fallen short. For three years, when I traveled I looked up the places I was going to see what made the list in that spot. The actual recommendations were very disappointing. They mostly focused on insanely expensive accommodations and restaurants. I ended up being able to visit only a few. But somehow I had great trips without these supposed gems, and it seemed to me that many of the great, show more cheaper things I did see and do should have appeared on the list over a fancy hotel. Yes, a book like this is bound to inspire controversy; any top 10 list will. At least it gets you thinking about your real travel priorities." show less

Since I am trapped by COVID I have been indulging in travel porn and building my list of places to go once I'm free. This book is pretty good for that as road trips are probably going to be the most accessible travel adventures for a while.

I would be interested to see what didn't make the cut. I'd say that 7-800 of the 1,000 are places I might like to go or have already seen. The ones I'm not interested in are mostly golf courses and resorts. I like resorts, but the ones this book show more recommends are more expensive and less fun than I'd like.

There are lots of places that I had not heard of, which is the best reason to read this book. North America is full of things to do and I think this gave me at least 100 places to go that I wasn't aware of before reading. show less

Be warned: this book isn't what you might think it is. Rather than a list of things to see on your world tour, half of the entries seem to be devoted to mega-exclusive rich-list hotels. A quote from the entry on Barbados (pp 858-859) should serve as an example: "Sandy Lane is one of the resort world's classiest acts, its houseproud Bajan staff treating every guest with the same degree of service they gave Queen Elizabeth when she visited... Things are done on a grand scale, from the show more snow-white Rolls-Royce greeting you at the airport to complimentary Champagne at breakfast and vast marbled bathrooms the size of most hotel guest rooms."

Can you afford to stay in places like this? If so, buy this book. The rest of us will probably flip through it for a little vicarious "travel pornography", but this can't quite get rid of the subtle irritation that the editor's idea of "places to see" should be geared to the moneyed traveller rather than to the average one. show less

It's nice to dream and make plans of where to go next. For this the book is fun, but I am a little disappointed and disturbed at the unequal distribution of places between the countries and continents. Dozens of places in the USA (almost 200 pages out of 900) and Europe, but only 11 in Russia, 5 of them in Moscow and 5 in St. Petersburg plus the Transsiberian Railway (that's a total of 8 pages)? You'd think Russia was the smallest country on the planet and only consisted of those two towns show more connected by a railway...
Also the places listed in Switzerland are definitely not on my list where I absolutely have to take my foreign friends. They're mostly very snobbish places. show less