National Geographic Traveler: Hawaii

I took this book along with me to Maui in Sept 2007 and referred to it several times. Although the book does contain some information in the back about hotels and restaurants, this book's focus is on the attractions, nature, and history of the Hawaiian islands. Since it's a National Geographic publication, the book is full of gorgeous photography of the highlights of Hawaii. The book is organized by island (which makes sense) and contains articles on the best attractions. These are wonderful if you want to learn about the places you are seeing. Where I found this book most useful was in guiding us through the drives. For example, the section on the "Road to Hana" shows a map of the route with some photo examples of what you might see. The trip has a narrative that explains (in order) the highlights of the drive. This was a wonderful guide to the drive. If you are looking for a guidebook with listings of hotels, restaurants, activities, and shopping, then this is not for you. But if you want to learn about Hawaii and invest in a beautiful book worthy of paging through while dreaming of Hawaii, then you should get a copy of this book!

National Geographic has a reputation when it comes to travel. This book isn't an in depth step by step review of the islands of Hawaii. Instead, it has a lot of large, glossy photos as well as cultural background on the items you will see. This is a gorgeous armchair book to sit and page through, to get you excited about your trip to Hawaii or to dream about going. The photos are well done and really capture the beauty of these islands. Every island has its own charm and atmosphere. You get a great sense of that in the book. Where other travel books talk about "go to mile marker X and turn right to see Y", the National Geographic book goes into the background of why the location is important, what its cultural significance is, and it makes the visit much more memorable and meaningful. On the down side, if you had ONLY this book, you might not find the locations :) It is very short on the how-to-get-there information. Their entire section on the Volcano National Park - a *huge* park with a plethora of fascinating locations - is maybe two pages of text long. They miss out on critical pieces of information that are important to really enjoying this part of the trip, too. There are few maps in here, and none are really helpful. Again, this is where other books do a better job for practical visit information. Still, it's true that no one book can really meet all the needs of a location. I found this to be a perfect supplement to the other books on Hawaii that I already had. When we took our Pride of America cruise to the islands, National Geographic Traveler Hawaii was definitely on our cabin bookshelf the entire time, so I could reference it each evening before we hit our next destination. It was easy to scan, provided helpful background information and got me ready for the next day. A great book whether you're going to Hawaii sometime soon, or just dreaming about it! Even if you just get the book to admire the photos of the area, and to learn more about the culture of this fascinating region, it really is quite an interesting read.

This book is very well laid out by island. While other guide books are filled with mostly text this is not, as it contains lots of colored photos and maps. Also is not quite, a thick, as some of the books I have seen on Hawaii and this makes it a great choice to take along with you on your trip to Hawaii.

This book is GREAT!!! The color pictures are fantastic and are something that everyone can enjoy. This book also has detailed information about the history of Hawaii. Your travel agent probably could not give you this much info.