Monday, August 03, 2009

Travel, It's a Must.

I don't know about you, but I always feel that travel is a necessary in life. To leave my home and go elsewhere seems to rejuvenate me. Be it a country on the other side of the ocean or the hill country just to the west of Austin, as long as I leave my beaten path of every day. Last year it was the mountains, this year, it's the beach.

So, I'm probably not alone when I say that I need to do a little research on my intended destination before a trip. I like to Google as much as I can about the town, city, village, resort we're going to and then I check the Library's catalog and databases for more information. With this trifecta of research, I am always satisfied when I travel back home that I've seen and done it all and avoided the traps.

Here are some hints on getting prepared for your wonderful trip!

The Library has many wonderful travel magazines, take a peek!
Frommer's Budget Travel
Conde Nast Traveler
Elderhostel
Expedition
National Geographic
National Geographic Adventurer
National Geographic Traveler
Texas Highways
Trailer Life
Travel & Leisure
Travel 50 & beyond

These two databases are an absolute must when traveling near or far.
Global Road Warrior is a very informative database offering everything from greetings and courtesies, holidays, currency converter, health notes to maps, tipping, and travel warnings for 175 countries. Great for the foreign business traveler too.
PressDisplay is the database to use if you want to read newspapers from around the world, there are more than 800 U.S. and international titles! This wonderful database offers full text, full color, full page formating. Read what's going on in Italy, Brazil and the UK, among many other countries before you go.

If you're at a loss of where to go, just wander around in the 910s of any library, those books focus on geography and travel. You will find so many guidebooks, you won't know where to go first!

When you Google (or any other search engine), try these keywords:
how to travel
how to travel with a baby
how to travel with a dog
how to travel to China (or your desired country)
how to travel alone
budget travel
vacation ideas
vacation destinations

Check out popular travel websites!
Travel Channel
Rick Steves
Fodor's
Rough Guides
Frommer's
Let's Go
Travel Texas
Texas Parks and Wildlife

Enjoy your trip, and don't forget to visit the library when you get there!

[image from the New York Public Library Digital Gallery]

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Hello there! Global Road Warrior has interesting information but not everything is correct. I was reading information about my country and there were some important mistakes in the section about culture. Just a heads up!