Spring 2019;

A lovely travel coffee table book from Lonely Planet (and my best friend for Christmas/Yule). It was divine to look through and start my heart beat several times, enlighten me to further dreams of travel, and even inspired me to a possible trip I might be taking over the beginning of Spring Break in a few months. All in all, I appreciate this book for absolutely what it is. ( )

In this book, Lonely Planet identifies 240 iconic travel destinations worldwide, organizes them by groups of 20 into 12 emotional experiences (Awe, Serenity, Passion, Joy, Enlightenment, Alone, Amusement, Inspiration, Exhilaration, Fulfillment, Adventure and Reflection) -- and accompanies them with full-color photographs on smooth, heavy pages to make an inspiring travel guide.

The organizational premise disappointed me: I was frustrated that each emotional grouping felt sort of mixed and muddy, and all of the groupings felt sort of the same as one another. But once I put that premise aside and instead just “armchair traveled” through the destinations, the book exceeded my expectations. The photographs aren’t just beautiful, they’re typical of Lonely Planet -- lively near-narratives in themselves. The abundant, informative text and well-captioned photos don’t just draw your interest to each location, there are sidebars that give details about how actually to travel there.

I keep a vacation wishlist spreadsheet and was inspired to add about 25 destinations from this book.

(Review based on a copy of the book provided by the publisher.) ( )

Please see my review on Amazon.com under C.Wong. Thank you. ( )