THREE WEEKS!
I CAN'T WAIT! I can not believe I am going to be leaving the country and going to SPAIN in under a month! With only three weeks left to plan, there is ALOT left to do! So this Blog entry is kind of to tie up the loose ends of planning and purchasing travel books.
Since I am a first time international traveler, I have invested in some very expensive, but useful, travel books! I sat in Barnes and Nobel, a store I admittedly do not go into often, and stared at the travel book section for about an hour and came up with a grand total of five books I thought would be good purchases.
Side Note: When you are planning a study abroad trip, there are a lot of unexpected expenses. Such as travel books, but I will go on to tell you about a few more things I have invested in recently to make my trip to Europe a great one!
So back to travel books, I picked up a few. First and foremost, I am going to two countries where I am not fluent in language, so I picked up two travel size pocket phrase books in French and Spanish. I got the "Eyewitness" brand basically because they were the smallest and I am a small girl so I do not want to be lugging around HUGE "pocket" dictionaries all day.
Then, as I sat and stared some more at the travel books, I found three different travel books where I really liked the format.
The first, was the LONDON travel book, I found the "Rick Steves' Pocket LONDON" Book. A friend of mine told me to check out Rick Steves because his is a whitty traveler with a lot of good tips. He higlights shopping, food, sights, and nightlife in each area. My personal favorite touch that Rick Steves Travel guides have are the what seem to be Hand Drawn maps! Which as sooo cool to look at! I found this pocket travel guide at Barnes and Nobel for $12.99.
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| CLICK HERE : Rick Steves' Website The second book i found at Barnes and Noble was "Frommer's Paris Day by Day" which is yet another pocket size travel book. (Do you see a trend with the pocket size books ;) ) This is personally my favorite book I purchased. It was $12.99. Some of it's highlights include 22 different itineraries that you can choose between to plan a day in Paris, a waterproof map attached in the back, and highlights of local restaurants, hotspots, and hotels. Something that Frommers does that I really enjoyed too, is they list prices, addresses, and phone numbers for each and every place you visit. With each itinerary, there is a map with the route outlined, how long you should spend at each location, and even pit stops for food at local restaurants and bars! How cute?! Regardless, I have really enjoyed reading through this book and picking and choosing which iteanrry was best for me and I recommend this travel guide brand to any one who is traveling for a short amount of time in a specific area! |
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| CLICK HERE: Frommer's Paris day by day Guide |
The third book I found was of course SPAIN! Woohoo! I can't wait. This travel book, is unfortunately not travel size. Since I will be spending a little over a month in Spain, I thought it would be fitting to at least by a full size travel guide! So I had a recommendation to get the "Lonely Planet Discover Spain" book. This brand in-particular is great for college students traveling abroad because it gives itineraries for broad areas of a country. For example, "Discover Spain" has highlighted and planned a trip called "Basque Spain & Camino de Santiago." This is the area of Spain where I will be at during my studies, so I flipped to those pages and found out a few places I would like to go. Some of the ideas that Lonely Planet offered were: a Pintxo Crawl (tasting all of the local food and wine in San Sebastian), Bilbao's Museo Guggenheim (Guggenheim Museum), and Leon's Cathedral. This is a great guide if you are staying in a general area, have the means to travel, and really want to embrace the culture of a country or region!
Thanks for Reading!
Lauren
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