Ultimate Montana Atlas & Travel Encyclopedia

This is the best guide book I've ever purchased. It's huge, with so many pictures and information - really all you'd ever need to know. The author has historical and local info, as well as reviews of restaurants, hotels, B & B's etc. Maps, phone numbers, detailed info on parks, and the book is organized very helpfully by different areas of the state. If only all travel books were this helpful! I recommend it very highly - even if you just want to learn more about Montana. I need one of these books for my own state. :) Enjoy!

Just after graduating college in May 2003, I moved to Montana. Since my move, I have been using the Ultimate Montana travel guide to design my adventures through the cities and backroads of Montana. My hiking, camping, fishing, dining, lodging, and travel experiences have been greatly enhanced by this incredibly easy to use book! This book is a must have for visitors and Montana residents alike. With the assistance of this book, I have been able to get a stellar introduction to the beautiful state of Montana, and will continue to use the book for my up and coming travels and excursions! A FANTASTIC book!!!

What a great book. We are going to Montana for the first time, and I didn't know where to start. Hotels, food, gas stations, etc. It's all there in a really nicely laid out, simple format. Information about almost every stop along the way. Will be going to Montana with us, and passed along to friends that will be going later this year.

We love to go to Montana and in looking for a guide that wasn't run of the mill...blah...blah...blah I came across this one. At first I thought the [...]price was a little steep but I read the reviews for it and thought why not.I only had time to glance through the book before we left on vacation. But riding in the car I could really digest my purchase. I read ahead before we came to each area we wanted to see. I read it aloud to my husband in case I missed anything that he might like to see also.The book is wonderful. It gives you everything you may want to know and then some. So many books touch mainly on tourist trap destinations. This book touches on all of it...off the beaten path type places along with everything in between.We love Montana and we learned so much that we didn't know. There is alot of history meshed together with the do and see parts.This book is worth every penny. Don't just think about ordering a copy....get one!!! Ten Stars!!!!

With a skepticism born of the east coast, my tendency upon seeing something described as "the ultimate" is a "Yeah, right" response. But in this case, they may be on to something. "The Ultimate Montana Atlas and Travel Encyclopedia" by Michael Dougherty and Heidi Pfeil Dougherty is an incredible compendium of facts, stories, information, advice, suggestions and observations. The Doughertys call this book "the essential reference guide to the treasure state," and that's an accurate description.I like to read guide books, and I have stacks of them that I've perused: of places I've been, of places I'm going, of places I'll never visit. As an inveterate reader of guide books, not to mention a traveler to some of Montana's most arcane and unusual places, as well as being a collector of trivia, information and gossip, I didn't expect there to be much in this book that I hadn't seen already. I was wrong. It was chock full of unusual and interesting information, and it was all I could do not to grab my keys, jump in the car and head for parts heretofore unknown.This book still had things to tell me.The entry for Livingston puzzled me as I couldn't figure out what criteria had been used to give commercial establishments a big write-up or to essentially pass them by with a simple mention. A phone call to the writer-editor-publisher shed light on this mystery. Those commercial establishments that got big write ups paid for them. I'm not certain what my philosophy is about this . . . certainly Triple A does much the same. I felt better after I knew that's how the decision was made, because you can use the appropriate pinch of salt, just as you would when reading an ad. Publisher Michael Dougherty explained that this revenue greatly helped to pay for this project and certainly they would have had to have charged a lot more than thirty bucks for this book without that. Still, there are also entries that are clearly included because the Doughertys were enthralled by them, and those are the pieces that make for the most engaging reading. This guide covers everything from kitsch to class, with everything in between. For eclectic travelers it really is a treasure trove.Because they want to make this the ultimate guide to Montana, they'd like to hear from readers about great stuff they might have missed. The Washoe Theatre in Anaconda, for instance. This was an immense project and that they manage to include as much stuff as they did, stuffed into a reasonably sized package of a book (about the size of the Spokane phone book) is quite an accomplishment. You can't fault them for missing a thing or two, and if you call them up to tell them about it, they're pleased to hear about it, and will include it in future revisions.The guide is stuffed with detailed maps, mile by mile information for all Montana State and Federal Highways as well as information on Dining (1796 restaurants), lodging (685 motels, 150 guest ranches, 200 bed and breakfasts) 350 campgroudns, 96 for