Summer often means time for a vacation, close to home or a long drive away to the mountains, to the coasts or even a trip to another country. Road trips are an American favorite, being an independent mode of travel offering the freedom of stops and starts at any time along the way.
Driving trips are my favorite, too, so "Epic Drives of the World" caught my attention. It's a new, beautiful book issued by Lonely Planet, one of the best travel-oriented publishers. What's inside is a collection of 50 journeys, another 200 ideas for great motoring and hundreds of breathtaking photographs from across the globe.
Lonely Planet asked its network of travel writers to contribute their choices for rewarding and adventurous trips. Organized by region, the trips cover Africa and the Middle East, the Americas, Asia, Europe and Oceania. Each trip includes a description by the writer and a "fact box" of planning information - how to get there, what to take and length of the trip.
Classic trips represent familiar destinations in the United States and Canada such as Route 66, the Going to the Sun Road in Glacier National Park, Napa Valley, Cape Breton's Cabot Trail and Quebec's La Gaspesie Loop. Among European routes, there's France's famous wine road in Alsace (Route des Vins), Iceland's Ring Road, the Black Forest High Road in Germany and the Picos de Europa in Spain. Coastal regions are well represented from Norway's spectacular west coast and Ireland's Wild Atlantic Way to Captain Cook's Highway in northern Australia, Croatia's Adriatic Highway and the Pacific Coast Highway in the U.S.
The truly adventurous can explore the remote Central Kalahari Game Reserve in Botswana, one of Africa's largest protected areas. Travelers to Nepal can get out of congested Kathmandu, dealing with a road said to be the fifth most dangerous in the world on the way to the majestic Himalayas. In South America, motorcyclists can travel parts of the trail Che Guevara used and later wrote about in "The Motorcycle Diaries," or drive down Brazil's Costa Verde, a scenic stretch of the country's transcoastal highway that passes through rainforest, idyllic beaches, colonial villages and skirts wild tropical islands. In South Africa, the Panorama Route traverses an area of geologic amazements, one a canyon 16 miles long, the third largest in the world. More amazing geology is to be found on a road trip through New Zealand's southern alps and lake district.
One of the longest drives is Australia's Great Ocean Road, a 340-mile loop from Melbourne to the 12 Apostles, a group of limestone sea stacks. This road is a war memorial constructed by 3,000 Australian World War I veterans over a period of more than 20 years as a tribute to their deceased comrades. Short drives are also featured like the Hana Highway on Maui and the Three Corniches, along the cliffs above the Mediterranean from Nice to Menton in France. Race car enthusiasts can trace the route of the Targa Florio, the world's oldest sports car race, which took place from 1906-77 in Sicily on roads full of corkscrews and hairpin turns.
Asia has the fewest road trips, with five countries represented. One, familiar to many Americans of a certain age, is Vietnam's Ho Chi Minh Road between Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon) and Hanoi, a road that carried manpower and supplies from north to south during the Vietnam War. It is another road best traversed via motorcycle.
For those compiling a travel bucket list or for for those simply interested in other cultures and landscapes, this book is inspiring and well worth the time to peruse stunning photographs and read fascinating stories and facts. And for those eager to hit the road, this book is a wonderful temptation.
Another new book of similar content just arrived at the library: "The Road Trip Book: 1001 Drives of a Lifetime," edited by Darryl Sleath. It offers a one-page summary and a photograph of more open-road destinations in an impressive 950-pages - a veritable dictionary of travel.
Madeline Matson is reference and adult programming librarian at Missouri River Regional Library.