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Great Escapes: 500 Unforgettable Travel Experiences by Richard Hammond and Jeremy Smith

You might expect that a travel book by Richard Hammond would have to be about journeys you can take by car, 500 of the world’s most scenic drives in the world perhaps, but you would be wrong. This book actually offers 500 unique experiences and ranges from the normal tourist activities like sightseeing on The Ghan train in Australia or diving in the Philippines to more unique and special experiences like teaching rugby in Fiji or staying with a Samoan family. It unearths inspiring holidays and great ways to get off the beaten track for a more authentic kind of travel.

The escapes in this book are so diverse that you can use some as your basis for an entire trip, while others could be chosen to fill in a day while in a location. Unlike most travel books which groups activities by country, this one while dividing the world into regions, groups each escape loosely into types of activity. This is great if you decide that you want to go to Western Europe on a winter holiday and were wondering where to go, but if you were going to Crete and looking for something to do, you will find yourself jumping over pieces on Croatia. Each section is introduced with a map of the region and numbers corresponding to the escape numbers marked on the map. It is best to quickly flick through the entire section though as even by using the maps it may be easy to overlook some things while others might not be marked exactly where you might think (for example The Ghan travels from Adelaide, South Australia to Alice Springs and Darwin in the Northern Territory but shares number 467 located on the map in southern Western Australia with the Indian Pacific train journey.

The index at the back is also arranged by theme so it is great if you want to go bird watching, on safari, visiting Mayan ruins or walking but not so good if you want to see what you can do in Panama. It really is a book for those with more of an idea of what they want to do or see than where they want to go. In other words it is a great book for picking a location for a holiday based on what you want to do, rather than choosing what activities to do once you have already booked your holiday. Great Escapes will ensure a unique holiday though and suggest some of the best places in the world to do what you like to do on an escape.

RRP $40.00
Published and distributed by Penguin Group under the Rough Guides title
 

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