|
|
|
December 2008 - Bradt Travel Guides
Nova Scotia
£14.99
Site of Alexander Graham Bell’s exhaustive 30-year experiments with multi-nippled sheep; the world’s only ‘Government-documented UFO crash site’; scene of WW1’s most devastating explosion; the only place where the name ‘Pugwash’ is synonymous with Albert Einstein’s high-minded 1957 conference on nuclear weapons rather than a comic cartoon captain… All this amidst a gastronomic wonderland at latitudes comparable to Bordeaux, one where more Gaelic is spoken than in Scotland, and where Digby Chicken is a fish. Yes, it’s the remarkable Nova Scotia.
[more]
October 2009 - Bradt Travel Guides
Angola
£17.99
‘Angola is not a holiday destination for beginners’ understates the introduction to Bradt’s first edition country guide, a declaration that must surely rank alongside ‘Benidorm is not noted for its Spanish culture’ and ‘Boy George is gay’ in the annals of shocking global epiphanies. However, despite having only one functioning escalator in the whole country, as accurate a measure of development as any, public perception of Angola still lags well behind the reality.
[more]
22nd September 2009 - Bradt Travel Guides
Weird World
£14.99
‘Spiritual Enlightenment’ to the left, ‘Mud Wrestling’ to the right. Faced with this kind of choice taken from Weird World, Bradt’s new travel compendium of bizarre images co-published with Wanderlust magazine, there’s only one possible conclusion… Wherever you are in the world, no matter how remote or how undiscovered, at all times you’re never more than a camera shutter click from profound weirdness.
[more]
4th September 2009 - Bradt Travel Guides
Bangladesh - First Edition
£15.99
Bangladesh – it’s poverty-stricken, flat, flooded, overcrowded, corrupt, has a fatal attraction for cyclones and nestles sweatily in the fragrant armpit of India. This is how most people conceive one of the world’s youngest nations, independent since 1971 following a vicious war of secession with Pakistan. Why would anyone choose to go there? Mikey Leung, co-author of Bradt’s new Bangladesh guide, doesn’t shy from the reality. ‘To be frank, researching this guide was a right pain in the backside.’ However, Leung expands and invites travellers beyond the headlines ‘inside this friendly region of south Asia whose people may be short on space and material wealth, but who possess hearts of infinite kindness.’
[more]
24th August 2009 - Bradt Travel Guides
Access Africa: Safaris for People with Limited Mobility
Cost £15
In times gone by safaris were the preserve of trigger-happy aristocrats in silly hats along with assorted fiery zealots keen for converts amongst the ‘ignorant’ African natives. For the most part, the latter-day democratisation of world travel has consigned that colourful but misguided regime to history. The publication of Bradt’s Access Africa goes further still, however, and sees even those without a country estate, a hotline to Jesus Christ or an everlasting gap year – but with varying degrees of limited mobility – confidently hitting the safari trail.
[more]
24th August 2009 - Bradt Travel Guides
North Africa: The Roman Coast
Cost £15.99
What have the Romans done for us? One might imagine an unstoppable torrent of paraphrased grumbles from those ancient peoples whose human rights were impinged by imperial edict. However, if evidence of investment, development of infrastructure and the maintenance of a civil society were required to justify occupation, then the North African coast makes an impressive case for the indefensible.
[more]
15th June 2009 - Bradt Travel Guides
Britain from the Rails
Cost £17.99
Forget BDSM airlines’ sneakily high-cost flights, leave your Chelsea Tractor in its shed, keep your bank balance in the black and the environment in the green and take a fresh look at the railways. An ever-changing view cataloguing Britain’s past, present and future, and honest intercity travel times avoiding airport moshpits and motorway madness are both worthy attributes. It’s a chastening thought, but after reading Britain from the Rails one has to admit the possibility that Jimmy Saville was right – this is the age of the train.
[more]
25th May 2009 - Bradt Travel Guides
Sierra Leone
Cost £16.99
Although the civil war’s been history since 2000, if you mention travelling to Sierra Leone it’s assumed you’re either an NGO worker or a trooper in the SAS. Even in Freetown, Europeans are inevitably greeted with the polite enquiry ‘What project?’ in anticipation of a multisyllabic acronym response starting with U and N. However, Bradt has been here before with its Mozambique and Rwanda guidebooks amongst others, proving that the right sort of tourism can be an effective means to support a shattered economy and build firm foundations for future development. Cecil Williams, manager of the national tourist board, says, ‘We need people to know that Sierra Leone is a destination that is safe, in spite of the fact we have come out of war. There’s no mayhem on the streets.’
[more]
11th May 2009 - Bradt Travel Guides
Africa Overland, Ethiopia, Switzerland without a Car
Cost £9.99
New Editions - Africa Overland 5, Ethiopia 5 and Switzerland Without a Car 4
[more]
20th April 2009 - Bradt Travel Guides
Bradt Gets Happy
Reasons to Be Cheerfull - Number 13 - Hilary Bradt
Conceived as a counterblast to self-congratulatory ‘super rich’ countdowns, this year’s Independent on Sunday Happy List, published 19th April 2009, features Bradt Travel Guides’ founder, Hilary Bradt, along with Sir David Attenborough, Thomas the Tank Engine and 97 others…
[more]
15th April 2009 - Bradt Travel Guides
GeckoGo.com Goes Bradt
Free Content
Bradt Travel Guides has launched a unique partnership with one of the world’s most exciting and innovative travel-planning websites. The award-winning publisher is joining forces with GeckoGo (www.geckogo.com), a website established two years ago to create a global network of people with a passion for travel.
[more]
27th March 2009 - Bradt Travel Guides
New Editions - Out Now!
Cost £9.99
It worked for JFK so why not Bradt? The first new ‘Ich bin ein Berliner’ city guide editions have hit the bookshelves of the free world and are certainly the proudest boast within earshot of Bradt HQ in the Federal Republic of Chalfont St Peter at the moment. The City Guide series has been thoroughly refreshed and reformatted. The books still have the personal, opinionated and detailed information by expert authors for which they were already so respected, but now they are really stylish in look too – with a swish new design and far more colour and photographs. The colour, grid-referenced maps are easier to use too, and the books are conveniently pocket-sized. So sticky buns all round then…
[more]
20th March 2009 - Bradt Travel Guides
Grenada - First Edition
Cost £14.99
If you think Fish Friday smacks of yet another abstemious European religious affectation foisted upon carefree Grenadian islanders to ensure they don’t enjoy too good a time, think again… The weekly party celebrating myriad fruits of the sea, complemented by oceanic quantities of rum, beer and local juices, was in fact instigated to boost local economy and identity in the dark days following 2004’s Hurricane Ivan. Understand this unique perspective on disaster relief and you’ll begin to grasp why author Paul Crask has been captivated by his subject – Grenada.
[more]
13th March 2009 - Bradt Travel Guides
New Editions - Out Now!
Cost £14.99
Maldives, Cape Verde Islands, Sri Lanka, Zanzibar...
[more]
13th February 2009 - Bradt Travel Guides
Volunteering - First Edition
Cost £13.99
Increased awareness of the probable effects of human activity on the ecosystem has been outstripped by the exponential growth in the number of conservation-volunteer organisations. Many make similar-sounding, squeaky-green claims to be ‘saving the planet’, ‘giving something back’, ‘doing the right thing’ and even promise travellers the chance to ‘change their lives’. However, when challenged, many of these groups are unable to provide credible accounts of exactly how their projects make a positive contribution towards conservation. It’s assumed that doing something – anything – is good enough…
[more]
13th February 2009 - Bradt Travel Guides
Israel - First Edition
Cost £15.99
It’s nine years since Palestine was published, and Bradt’s unerring ability to be ahead of the news is again demonstrated with the first edition of Israel set to hit the shelves of all good bookshops. No country divides opinions more strongly; seen by much of the Middle East as Europe’s 'betrayal of the Arabs' manifest in a state and by others as an outpost of democracy offering refuge to a people persecuted throughout history, Israel was never going to be an easy project. However, lying at the confluence of the Syrian-African Rift Valley and the European steppes, away from the frontline bombardment of TV news's big guns and grandstanding politicians, Israel maintains huge appeal as a tourist destination.
[more]
30th January 2009 - Bradt Travel Guides
New Zealand Wildlife - First Edition
Cost £14.99
Anecdotally, New Zealand is a land of sheep (about 40 million of them), a marauding tribe of 15 big blokes in black shirts and a cautious population of rotund flightless birds with long beaks trying their best to avoid becoming free-range ready meals. Unsurprisingly, the genuine diversity of flora and fauna inhabiting ‘the other antipodes’ is somewhat more complex than the urban myth.
[more]
16th January 2009 - Bradt Travel Guides
Borneo
Cost £17.99
Monkeys amply endowed with schlong-shaped noses, headhunters, endangered rainforests and orange-haired old men of the jungle all compete to condense the essence of Borneo. However, let’s not forget the playboy prince, cities and regions named to resemble the tumbling chimes of a gamelan and the world’s largest flower, whose bouquet cleverly mimics that of a rotting corpse… Whatever fabulous images its name may conjure, the reality of Borneo is even more remarkable.
[more]
21st November 2008 - Bradt Travel Guides
Turks & Caicos Islands First Edition
Cost £14.99
Despite rather Mustafa-come-lately claims of early Ottoman footfalls, Bradt’s new Turks & Caicos Islands guide describes an archipelago having little to do with Turks, Turkey or turkeys. Most agree Columbus in 1492 was the first to disturb the brilliant white sands of Grand Turk with European bootprints, setting in motion a familiar pattern of cultural exchange featuring slavery, syphilis, and state sponsored piracy. After historical dalliances with the salt and guano trade, 300 years later the rather less artery-hardening and certainly more fragrant industries of tourism and off-shore banking are mainstays of a British Overseas Territory that may have embraced the US dollar but still sings God Save the Queen.
[more]
7th November 2008 - Bradt Travel Guides
Baltic Cities
Cost £14.99
For decades ‘Baltic’ has been a term best avoided, reserved for poorly heated church halls, wartime convoys and British summers, a word only just avoiding Iceland’s unhappy association with oven chips and frozen pizzas. However, a region chilled by almost half a century of Soviet occupation has thawed. Author Neil Taylor is an authority on the Baltic states and has observed the increasing pace of change since individual independent sovereignty was reasserted, noting ‘Who would have thought in 2000 that eight years later London would have a daily flight to Kaliningrad, and Liverpool a twice-weekly service to Kaunas?’
[more]
10th October 2008 - Bradt Travel Guides
Shangri-La - First Edition
Cost £14.99
Shangri-La - ‘The best place you’ve never been to!’ is how Michael Buckley describes the subject of his eponymous guidebook, a realm he further defines by what is not there, ‘No sickness, no disease. No guns. No police. No problems with money…’ - hold on, don’t all rush at once! 75 years after the publication of James Hilton’s novel Lost Horizon, where the lofty utopia of Shangri-La was first manifest, Bradt’s guide to nowhere might seem a somewhat esoteric endeavour for a pioneering travel publisher. However, Buckley’s guidebook exploration of those regions laying a more than tenuous claim to be the ‘real’ Shangri-La, his grasp of eastern philosophy and skilled travel prose, go a long way to turning myth into reality.
[more]
26th September 2008 - Bradt Travel Guides
Seychelles - USA by Rail - New Editions
Cost £14.99
Seychelles and USA by Rail - Out Now!
[more]
19th September 2008 - Bradt Travel Guides
Transylvania - First Edition
Cost £14.99
Too fast the year has turned a corner, aquaplaning on puddles of a British summer’s liquid sunshine – Halloween is almost upon us. In Chalfont St Peter the crepuscular rays of dwindling daylight search deep into the Bradt offices. A nearby murder of crows is disturbed, breaking the evening’s tranquillity in raucous flight. In the furthest recesses of a basement storeroom something ancient is awakened - Transylvania lives...
[more]
12th September 2008 - Bradt Travel Guides
Kazakhstan - First Edition
Cost £15.99
Tension in the Bradt office preceding delivery of Paul Brummell’s long awaited Kazakhstan guide exceeded even the strain in comic Kazakh character Borat Sagdiyev’s eye-watering lycra mankini. However, the reality of Kazakhstan, the world’s ninth largest country, stretches the fiction of Borat beyond its elastic limit. Author, Paul Brummell, is Britain’s Ambassador to Kazakhstan, a position that sees him well placed to comment on a rapidly changing country, independent only since 1991.
[more]
22nd August 2008 - Bradt Travel Guides
Sao Tome and Principe - First Edition
Cost £14.99
Bradt’s dedicated first edition of São Tomé and Príncipe is the nearest the publisher is likely to get to producing a guide to Middle Earth, the Portuguese-speaking islands being the closest landmass to the intersect of the Greenwich Meridian and the Equator. Far from dragons, hobbits and orks, the forgotten shores of Africa’s second smallest country provide a non-fictional living testament to colonialism and the slave trade in West Africa.
[more]
11th July 2008 - Bradt Travel Guides
Central and Eastern European Wildlife
Cost £15.99
After decades of persecution and habitat destruction in western Europe, brown bears, wolves and bison are just a few examples of wild species either extinct or clinging on for dear life, confined to heavily monitored reserves under almost clinical conditions. Bradt’s new Central and Eastern European Wildlife guide looks towards ‘New Europe’ and its wealth of wild species preserved by politics and tradition.
[more]
11th July 2008 - Bradt Travel Guides
Luxembourg
Cost £13.99
During the 60s and 70s ‘Big L, 208 Radio Luxembourg’ boasted the world’s most powerful transmitters, each evening rising from a sea of Medium Wave static to beam poptastic playlists to the UK’s ‘now generation’ still languishing under Auntie Beeb’s austere regime of popular culture rationing. Jimmy Saville, Tony Blackburn, Jimmy Young and Noel Edmonds all got their big breaks thanks to Luxembourg’s liberal regime of radio licensing. However, today all is forgiven and Europhile UK travellers are again seeking out Luxembourg not via radio dial but on the road map, as a quirky and alternative cultural break.
[more]
4th July 2008 - Bradt Travel Guides
Mongolia - Slovenia - New Editions
Cost £13.99
New Editions - Mongolia and Slovenia - Out Now!
[more]
13th June 2008 - Bradt Travel Guides
MBE for Travel Publishing Pioneer
Pioneering publisher and traveller Hilary Bradt has been included in this year’s Birthday Honours List published by Buckingham Palace tomorrow 14th June 2008 ‘for services to the tourist industry and to charity’.
[more]
6th June 2008 - Bradt Travel Guides
Belarus - First Edition
Cost £14.99
The prospect of visiting an unreconstructed Soviet-style republic for pleasure may seem mildly masochistic and possibly verging on the perverse. Geographically the most westerly of the USSR’s former republics, unlike its former comrades -- many of whom who have sold their tractors and either joined the EU or at least embraced the glittery bits of a capitalist free market – Belarus maintains a steadfastly solid Soviet outlook. Over 80% of the country’s economy is still state-controlled, with massive collective farms dominating an agriculture industry earnestly engaged in pig breeding and the cultivation of potato, flax and beet. However, as Bradt’s Belarus author Nigel Roberts observes, those in search of the travel equivalent of a jolly good spanking will be sadly (if not sorely) disappointed by Belarus. ‘A visit to this astonishing country really is one of those life-defining experiences. It is so completely unspoilt by the trappings of modern tourism and Western materialism that it’s easy to feel a sense of having slipped into another time and dimension. In many ways, the country is a living museum of Soviet communism, but to treat it as such would be a gross disservice to the astonishing resilience of its people.’
[more]
23rd May 2008 - Bradt Travel Guides
Total Solar Eclipse 2008 & 2009
Cost £6.00
Such is the fascination of a total eclipse that umbraphiles from all over the world are already at an advanced planning stage for 2008/09 solar events. Bradt's new guide, Total Solar Eclipse 2008 & 2009 ensures that those seeking out one of the briefest but most profoundly moving natural spectacles, make the most of their viewing opportunity.Total Solar Eclipse 2008 & 2009.
[more]
22nd May 2008 - Bradt Travel Guides
Bradt Bolivia Author Wins LATA Award
Cost £14.99
20th May was an auspicious date for Bradt author David Atkinson, as the Latin American Travel Association chose him as joint winner of their top award – Travel Article of the Year 2008. David’s winning copy, published during 2007 in Wanderlust magazine, suggested adventurous travel itineraries in Bolivia and offered the kind of insightful background advice that can only come from the author of a well-researched travel guide.
[more]
23rd May 2008 - Bradt Travel Guides
Colombia - First Edition
Cost £16.99
Colombia has an image problem that even Max Clifford would find difficult to spin. However, what much of the world has yet to realise is that for the most part Colombia has moved on. As author Sarah Woods confidently states, 'The widespread common delinquency of the 1990s has given way to a fierce national pride… Today Colombia is a safer place to visit than much of the US and Mexico… travellers are unlikely to encounter anything more dangerous than a hungry mosquito.'
[more]
16th May 2008 - Bradt Travel Guides
First Edition - Wildlife of the North Atlantic
£16.99
The North Atlantic is a long way from the often quoted ‘warm blue waters of the Caribbean’ or other similarly attractive-sounding southern seas, and as such a casual observer might consider its less inviting hues and more modest temperatures to hold little allure for marine species. However, as Tony Soper’s new guide Wildlife of the North Atlantic aptly highlights, northerly latitudes support a profound richness of life all too easily unknown or ignored by landlocked city dwellers and those without intimate knowledge of the sea. Great whales navigate through on their perpetual oceanic migration, basking sharks topping up their tan, turtles snack on jellyfish and smaller cetacean species even drop anchor to take on supplies. Those out cruising coastal waters may find dolphins riding their bow wave whilst gannets dive bomb mackerel in their wake. Sea caves and sandbanks provide safe harbour for grey and common seals, and cliffs take lofty living to its natural conclusion for a multitude of raucous seabirds from gannets to gulls.
[more]
9th May 2008 - Bradt Travel Guides
New Editions - Out Now!
Cost £14.99
New Editions of Albania, Cayman Islands and Nigeria hit the shelves!
[more]
28th May 2008 - Bradt Travel Guides
Algeria - First Edition Out Now!
Cost £15.99
Cancelled elections, military government, insecurity, terrorism and radical Islam have all proved less than effective marketing initiatives by ‘Destination Algeria’. As such, from the early 90s Africa’s second largest country effectively disappeared from the map, drowned beneath the sands of the Sahara and then veiled by an increasingly thick fog of geographical ignorance...
[more]
25th April 2008 - Bradt Travel Guides
Buongiorno Bradt!
Bradt Goes Italian
Bradt have signed a deal with Italian publisher FBE Edizioni to translate and publish their guides in Italian. This is a major step forward for Bradt and as Managing Director, Donald Greig explains ‘launching Bradt in Italian under our own brand is in line with our plans to gain broader consumer recognition, especially in those territories where Bradt guides are currently sold in English. We’re delighted to be working with FBE, a successful travel publisher with whom the Bradt brand sits very comfortably’.
[more]
25th April 2008 - Bradt Travel Guides
Iraq - Then & Now
Cost £15.99
If you thought tourism to Iraq was dead, a collateral victim in a war long supposed to have been won, think again. On 1st May 2008, five years to the day since George W Bush’s ‘Mission Accomplished’ speech, Bradt Travel Guides will publish Iraq Then and Now: a guide to the country and its people. Co-author Geoff Hann knows tourism in the north of Iraq is still very much alive, he regularly leads tours there - twice in the past year. Journalist and co-author Karen Dabrowska knows Iraq, the surrounding region and its issues intimately, and is also Assistant Editor of Islamic Tourism Magazine.
[more]
11th April 2008 - Bradt Travel Guides
Chinese Wildlife - First Edition
Cost £16.99
To outsiders, China projects a publically ambivalent approach towards wildlife, seemingly treating it as just another natural resource to be harvested and fed to its expanding economy. The demands of traditional Chinese medicine are rightly blamed for the ongoing demise of several endangered species, and the old anecdote about anything with four legs bar a table ending up on restaurant menus further compounds an apparently mercenary attitude towards the natural world. Martin Walters’s new Chinese Wildlife guidebook does not aim to overturn these preconceptions, which turn out to be broadly correct anyway. Yangtze River Dolphins are almost certainly the latest species to be crushed beneath China’s boots as it continues on its long march of progress. What Walters does seek is to highlight the careless and uninformed destruction of China’s remarkable natural-history heritage. He comments, ‘publishing a book such as this is both timely and urgent, partly to promote further field work, conservation and ecotourism, and partly to increase public education and awareness.’ Though cuddly headliners such as Giant Pandas are valued as national icons, and as such are closely guarded, many others less fortunate, including the south China tiger, have been hunted to extinction as unwelcome pests. Chinese Wildlife covers the whole spectrum of flora and fauna, from delicate orchids, to mammals and invertebrates. Details of key World Heritage sites, marine and nature reserves, including when to visit, are backed up by full-colour maps and over 300 colour photographs. There’s been much recent emphasis on international co-operation with China in trade, tourism and sport, not least the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Walters makes an overwhelmingly prescient case, supported by Heather Angel’s superb wildlife photography, for even more concerted joint efforts in the areas of wildlife conservation and the environment.
[more]
4th April 2008 - Bradt Travel Guides
New Editions - Montenegro and Lithuania
Cost £14.99
Out now!
[more]
20th March 2008 - Bradt Travel Guides
Congo - Democratic Republic / Republic
cost £15.99
Bradt’s new guide is the first in well over a decade dedicated to the overlooked elephant in Africa’s living room that is Congo. From the outset, author Sean Rorison’s acknowledgements set the tone, featuring backhanded thanks to all those policemen and anonymous petty officials ‘for the forced pleasantries and intentional delays…
[more]
7th February 2008 - Bradt Travel Guides
New Editions - North Korea and Zambia
Cost £14.99
New Editions - North Korea and Zambia - Out Now!
[more]
22nd February 2008 - Bradt Travel Guides
Something Different for the Weekend
Cost £9.99
Something Different for the Weekend is also something different for Bradt, a guide focussing on a style of travel rather than a destination. Appealing to those overlooked by the glossies' aspirational travel features, and whose lives exist outside the bubble of celeb-inspired unreality, Eames explores 52 short breaks for imaginative travellers. As he says, "Destinations with big PR machines get more than enough coverage already in the national press to need any help from me. On the contrary, this book is my personal PR for those places which don't have the marketing muscle to elbow their way into the mainstream, places that are nevertheless aesthetically , physically and intellectually up my alley, and hopefully your alley too."
[more]
1st February 2008 - Bradt Travel Guides
Bradt Take Top Wanderlust Award
Lonely Plane Knocked Off Top Spot For The First Time In Five Years
Lonely Planet, global purveyors of the ubiquitous backpacker’s bible, has been knocked off top spot at the annual Wanderlust Travel Awards by fearless indie publisher Bradt Travel Guides. Historically Bradt’s own ‘road less travelled’ has followed a very different route from that favoured by ‘big publishing’. Frequently pioneering, occasionally controversial, often fighting commercial expediency and always allowing authors freedom of expression, Bradt’s unique style has proved to be a winner with Wanderlust readers.
[more]
25th January 2008 - Bradt Travel Guides
Peruvian Wildlife - First Edition
Cost £15.99
For those of the opinion that Peru’s natural history is confined to perpetually worried-looking guinea pigs and agro-industrial coca plantations, the contents of Bradt’s Peruvian Wildlife will be a startling revelation. Those whose interest in flora and fauna already extends beyond that which can be killed, cooked and eaten (or indeed snorted!), this slim volume is a unique and handy-sized travelling companion, providing a balanced and colourful overview of the region’s wildlife.
[more]
18th January 2008 - Bradt Travel Guides
Eccentric Australia - First Edition
£12.99
Acclaimed Australian author and photographer Steve Parish has joined Bradt’s list of eccentrics with his new, quirky, full colour and highly personal pictorial travelogue, Eccentric Australia, published in time for 2008’s 26 January Australia Day.
[more]
18th January 2008 - Bradt Travel Guides
East African Wildlife - First Edition
Cost £19.99
For many, travelling to East Africa means one thing – wildlife. Philip Briggs’s new full colour title East African Wildlife, bridges the gap between the scant wildlife coverage of lesser titles and the overly worthy analysis of field guides so weighty that they require a dedicated team of bearers, armed scouts and tea boys to transport them around. Though there are many charismatic and well-qualified wildlife guides, the prevalence of local ignorance can be surprising and frustrating. Too often visitors’ natural curiosity is met by polite platitudes, bland generalities and uncertain half-truths. Here, East African Wildlife steps up to the mark and provides a wealth of knowledge in a handy-sized volume illustrated by over 325 full colour photographs.
[more]
11th January 2008 - Bradt Travel Guides
Guyana - First Edition
Cost £14.99
Water tumbling from the world’s biggest single-drop waterfall at Kaieteur needs to be tested for steroids if Guyana’s list of superlatively large wildlife species is anything to go by. The country’s one million-acre Iwokrama reserve encompasses a long list of America’s, and in some instances the world’s, largest species, including black caiman, capybara, arapaima (freshwater fish), anaconda, giant anteater, giant river otter, giant river turtle, false vampire bat, harpy eagle and jaguar. However, by contrast, tourism exists only on a small scale.
[more]
11th January 2008 - Bradt Travel Guides
Bulgaria - First Edition
Cost £13.99
For many years, cheap red wine, alarming folk music, austere bargain-basement package holidays and an elderly kleptomaniac womble have summed up the quintessential Bulgarian experience for the majority. However, though associations endure, reality moves on. In 2006 Bulgaria joined NATO and last year it joined the EU. As author of Bradt’s first edition of Bulgaria, Annie Kay writes: ‘The Bulgaria of the 21st century is very different from the rather old-fashioned country I fell in love with as a student in the 1970s. Sofia is now vibrant and exciting, buildings are being restored, and new bars and restaurants are opening all the time… It’s a perfect destination for a city break.’
[more]
4 January 2008 - Bradt Travel Guides
Iceland - First Edition
£14.99
Andrew Evans went to Hella and back, along with most other small towns in Iceland, during his research for Bradt’s new guidebook. Wearing out at least two pairs of hiking boots, not to mention losing several fine woolly hats to the wind, Evans’s year-long Icelandic saga has produced an extraordinary book on a similarly extraordinary land. By no means least, it has taught the author to pronounce ‘Hvannadalshnjúkur’ and ‘Eyvindarstađaheiđi’ without flinching.
[more]