Traveler's Handbook, 8th : The Insider's Guide to World Travel (Traveller's Handbook)

1 Excellent resource and inspiration
This book is everything it's cracked up to be. One thing anyone considering buying this should note, though is that it's a UK based publication. In discussions about visas and work permits, it assumes EU citizenship. A lot of the advice wouldn't pertain to a U.S. citizen. Most of the directory information only lists U.K. based organizations.

That said, this is a great resource and very inspirational. It's made me think about going to places that I would have never even considered before. That's mostly because it combines engaging narratives by obviously well-travelled writers along with nuts and bolts practical information on the "how to" planning stages, and insightful advice.

It prepares you for the cultural differences you're likely to encounter, and prompts you to think about contingencies due to weather, medical, or political trouble. There are warnings about the hazards and adversity of some travel without trying to scare you away from it. The book manages to be a general purpose travel guide without being generic. It would be an equally good read for adventure travellers as it would for cruise ship enthusiasts.

The reference section alone is well worth the price, giving you fascinating and comprehensive information about every country on the planet. This book approaches you like a good friend who happens to be an experienced travel agent, hoping to help you plan a trip of a lifetime. It is remarkably well written and organized. I can't imagine planning a trip overseas without it.

2 Don't travel the world without it!
This is a great book. It is little in size, but huge in content. The editors have covered just about every aspect of world travel. If you want to know about riding a camel, how to survive being kidnapped, or how to avoid hassles in a certain country, this book will have the answer for you. It also includes a lot of emergency contacts, practical global travel tips, and useful website addresses.

3 This book is THE hitchiker's guide to the planet Earth.
What an indispensable guide for the world traveler. This book is cover-to-cover bits in a single volume, weighing the same as a water bottle. This book is literally the planet earth's version of the famed "hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy", with short, informed essays on everything from choosing guides to all forms of travel to finding great rates to finding places to stay to equipping for a trip to what to do when things go wrong (topics for that one include: theft, trouble with the law, surviving a hijack, surviving a kidnap, surviving in jungle/desert/cold, and my favorite: surviving a civil war). Plus it's got 300 pages of directory, like an all-bits almanac....