1,000 Places to See Before You Die: A Traveler's Life List

Take a safari into Botswana's Okavango Delta, the world's largest oasis, where "if you see 10 percent of what sees you, it's an exceptional day." Sail the Grenadines, 32 islands and hundreds of dotlike cays strung like a necklace of gems across 40 miles of pristine waters. Tour the covered souks of Aleppo, where the labyrinthine streets seem straight out of A Thousand and One Nights and frankincense and myrhh are still sold. Hike the Tasman Glacier. Climb the Tuscan hills to San Gimignano. Stay at the Hassler in Rome, or Paris's Crillon-you must, at least once. There's Canyon de Chelly, Tokyo's Tsukiji Fish Market, the backwaters of Kerala, Ipanema beach, the Buddhas of Borobudur, Mesa Verde's cave dwellings, the Oaxaca Saturday market, Ballybunion Golf Club.

The prose is gorgeous, seizing on exactly what makes each entry worthy of inclusion. And, following the romance, the nuts and bolts: addresses, phone and fax numbers, web sites, costs, best times to visit. Of special interest are subject-specific indexes-gorgeous beaches, destination restaurants, world-class museums-making the guide entirely user-friendly, no matter if you're dreaming or going.

Book Description
Introducing the Eighth Wonder of travel books, the New York Times bestseller that's been hailed by CBS-TV as one of the best books of the year and praised by Newsweek as the "book that tells you what's beautiful, what's inspiring, what's fun and what's just unforgettable everywhere on earth."

Packed with recommendations of the world's best places to visit, on and off the beaten path, 1,000 PLACES TO SEE BEFORE YOU DIE is a joyous, passionate gift for travelers, an around-the-world, continent-by-continent listing of beaches, museums, monuments, islands, inns, restaurants, mountains, and more. There's Botswana's Okavango Delta, the covered souks of Aleppo, the Tuscan hills surrounding San Gimignano, Canyon de Chelly, the Hassler hotel in Rome, Ipanema Beach, the backwaters of Kerala, Oaxaca's Saturday market, the Buddhas of Borobudur, Ballybunion golf club-all the places guaranteed to give you the shivers.

The prose is gorgeous, seizing on exactly what makes each entry worthy of inclusion. And, following the romance, the nuts and bolts: addresses, phone and fax numbers, web sites, costs, and best times to visit.

For a person who loves to travel, I just had to purchase this book to see what places I need to go to and review places I have been to.

According to the author, I missed a lot of places because I was too busy to vistit all the recommended 5 star hotels. For an example, Torres Del Paine, Chile is one of the most beautiful nature wonder of the world with its glaciers, lakes, peaks, and majestic views. Instead of writing this, the author decide to descibe in detail about the over-priced hotel in the park.

Author consistently writes about:

1. Hotel, hotel, and more hotels. Not just any hotel, but the most expensive accomodation in town.
2. Hotels, of course. I have not counted, but I can guess about 250 places to see are hotels.

If you like hotels, this is a book for you, otherwise look elsewhere.


Not bad ... for a to-do list   December 24, 2003
 272 out of 290 found this review helpful

I was prepared to really dislike this book, if for no other reason than because it takes one of my passions -- travel -- and reduces it to a kind of grocery list. Travel, I have always thought, is about experiencing a different culture and its history and not about checking the most important cathedral or museum in a city off a to-do list.

But I must admit this small-but-thick book intrigued me. Most of the criticisms of something like this will be of specific choices the author makes: How could she overlook X? Or what was she thinking when she included Y? And while I admit that I scratched my head at a few curious omissions and chuckled at some of the choices that did make the cut, I must say that overall, the selection is very good. Every traveler or would-be traveler will find selections of interest on its pages, whether they are looking for luxury or natural beauty or history or art or culinary masterpieces or thought-provoking journeys.

But I think the real strength of 1,000 Places to See Before You Die is author Patricia Schultz' lively writing. Ms. Schultz has a real gift for description, and her love and enthusiasm for the places she writes about at once manage to excite the reader about the place being described and to give him or her a small taste of it before even diverting the eyes from the page.

All that said, I would be disappointed to scan someone else's copy of this book and see places that have been already visited crossed off in red ink or to discover that future trips were being planned to maximize the number of the 1,000 places that can be visited in a short time. I don't think the book should be used like that, but rather as a means to provoke thought and conversation regarding the best of what the world has to offer us by giving us the views held by one person (albeit someone who is extremely well traveled and with unusual writing talent). We'll all come up with our own lists in our heads, lists that may or may not overlap with the contents of this book. And that's something worth being passionate about.


A great choice for the traveling grandpa   January 2, 2004
 179 out of 197 found this review helpful

If grandma and grandpa are getting bored in retirement, this is a fantastic book to buy them. If *you* are looking to explore the world, consider a Lonely Planet or guide better geared at the under-65 crowd.

Certainly people would quibble with my list of 1000 places, but here is why I believe this book is not appropriate for anyone who doesn't get an AARP discount:

- Euro-american focus. The book is almost insulting in its lack of coverage of Asia, Africa, and the Middle East. For instance, there is nothing listed in Delhi except a restaurant vs. nine sites in over-touristed Morocco. There is virtually nothing in places not covered by travel guides, such as Central Asia and almost anywhere in Africa that doesn't have pyramids or characters from "The Lion King." Iraq is the cradle of civilization, but apparently UFOs in Roswell and Disney theme parks are more important. At least Schultz acknowledges the bias, saying that places like Kolkata and Madagascar are "arduous choices."

- Cultural insensitivity. Schultz's use of the most anglicized names possible and long-replaced colonial monikers (like Calcutta and Laotian for Kolkata and Lao) makes her occasionally sound like Mr. Burns asking for "the Prussian consulate in Siam."

- Intended for traveler-writers with unlimited budgets. Despite claiming with a straight face that she's "never a travel snob," Schultz typically choses the most expensive way to see a place. I am a travel snob, but sometimes Schultz's recommendations of tours are too outrageous even for me. For instance, Ayuthaya, Thailand, is easily reached by a comfortable air-con first class bus from Bangkok for 95 cents, but Schultz recommends a $390 tour.

- Questionable rationales. Schultz gives the Toronto Four Seasons an entry because, well, celebrities have stayed there. Never mind that the Toronto Four Seasons is potentially the most shabby, cramped, and run-down property in the chain. I have certainly never seen it on a list of Four Seasons's top properties, and the food was nothing spectacular. Entries like that make me wonder if Schultz is holding back the truly great establishments.


Kudos - A Job Remarkably Done   February 13, 2004
 83 out of 96 found this review helpful

I have been professionally traveling for 35 years and for personal reasons twice that. Yes this 900-page travel bible features a lot of (historical, must-see and unusual) hotels, but there are so very many more museums (the world's biggest and best and the small gems too), festivals (a betrothal festival in in Morocco's Atlas Mountains and the Spoleto Festivals in both Spoleto, Italy and Charleston USA), food experiences (the Maine Lobster Festival and George Blanc in France) and sites of natural beauty (the Grand Tetons, Patagonia, Cappodocia in Turkey, Italy's Dolomite Mountains, Connemara in Ireland) - oh and I could go on and on....as Patricia Schultz does. You can never please everyone all the time, but no one has ever come as close as this intrepid author, and with a lovely and easy to read prose that should awaken the adventurer and explorer in all of us. I gave 20 of these books away as Christmas gifts and now have 20 best friends who are still talking about the best gift they ever received.


Places to see if you're a millionaire or fast food conniseur   December 30, 2003
 70 out of 79 found this review helpful

Maybe I'm being a little critical, but I was extremely disappointed with the authors selections. She chose many high-end expensive restaurants rather than great historical sites. Charlie Trotter's in Chicago? Why not spend $1000 less to see a ballgame at beautiful Wrigley Field. You'll be able to spend more time there, plus catch a baseball game while you're at it. Also, I was upset to see that a rib restaurant in Tennessee surpassed Rainier National Park or the Olympic Penninsula as a sight to see. What about the salt mines in Krakow or the Alambra in Rhonda? For the author's sake, I suppose you do become wary after the first 500 places. Eventually you want to go to $5000 a night spa in Jackson, Wyoming (yes it is one of the mentioned places to see) and dictate a travel guide from there.