PRESS RELEASES
Washington
County
Public Library
205 Oak Hill Street
Abingdon
,
VA
24210
Contact: Ida Patton
(276) 676-6390
email: ipatton@wcpl.net
Making
Memories:
Summer Travel and Your
Washington
County
Public Library
by
Ann Mathews
Start your trip by traveling through the on-line
catalog and the shelves at your library. For a general inclusive start,
look at A Foxy Old Woman’s Guide to Traveling Alone: Around Town and
Round the World. The table of contents helps you to think
through many travel concerns. Ben-Lesser includes budget planning,
personal safety, guiding principles for clothes selection, and awareness
exercises.
The book also addresses traveling with children. That brought to
mind an acquaintance who took two of her grandchildren on a cruise each
year. We’re talking grade school, junior high age. She knew how to
make memories. Travel with children is also addressed in an e-Book
selection by Burns called Tips for the Savvy Traveler. She
also includes checklists, questions to ask, and a chronology for
propitious times to do the things on the list.
The library also has Cruise Vacations for Dummies.
If budget is a concern, Peter Greenberg’s The Travel Detective:
How to Get the Best Service and the Best Deal from Airlines, Hotels,
Cruise Ships, and Car Rental Agencies, might be worth a glance.
Greenberg is the travel editor of NBC’s Today Show.
Sangster, in his Traveler’s Tool Kit; How to
Travel Absolutely Anywhere, starts out with “choosing where you
really want to go.” Where you might want to go could be to America’s
Most Charming Towns & Villages. Yes, Abingdon is mentioned
in this 4th ed. by Larry Brown. We are helping other
travelers to make memories. Or, while people are making a loop
through our town you may want to See the
U.S.
the
Easy Way
: 136
Loop
Tours
to 1200 Great Places. Published by Reader’s Digest,
suggestions are given so we can see their town.
Family outdoor trips can be made up of mostly positive memories, if
you start with a handy check-off list of things you don’t want to
forget. The list is included
in The Sierra Club Family Outdoors Guide: Hiking, Backpacking, Camping,
Bicycling, Water Sports, and Winter Activities with Children.
“Everything you need to know to make it easy & fun to travel
with your kids from babies through teenagers” is what it says on the
cover of Lanier’s Family Travel & Resorts. If you
picture yourself biking, then Mountain Biking the Appalachians: Northwest
North Carolina/Southwest Virginia, by Finley may be just the title you
want to read.
There are more topical lists, in large print, in the Air Travel
Guide for Seniors and Disabled Passengers, by Ronald and others.
The Library shelves hold guides on travel
including DK publishing’s Eyewitness Travel Guides, like the old
Baedekers, but with color pictures. There are all of “the” names
in travel guides such as Frommer’s, Fodor’s, Mobil’s, Lonely
Planet, and Rough Guides, as well as on line sources.
Just pick a place you want to travel to and check it out at
your library.
For the less adventurous there’s even a Disney World for
Dummies. Well, there could be some memories made if traveling with
preschoolers or rambunctious youngsters. For the romantic there’s
the Idiot’s Guide to New Orleans.
When traveling to any major
U.S.
city with your children, take time at your library to check out the main
attractions before you go. That
way, you’ll know where you’re going before you get there, and have
time to see more. You’ll enjoy your trip at a relaxed pace,
because you’ll know the territory. Ask my children what they
remember about a few family trips to
Philadelphia
, and D. C. They kept looking for buildings and monuments they had
seen in the books from the library. My daughter made memories one
weekend in
Paris
, traveling with her college roommate, a jar of peanut butter, and very
few francs. They used the library before their trip, knew what they
wanted to see, and where it was.
Whatever
you do, travel. Make the
memories even if you have to do it on a tight budget, maybe especially if
you have to do it that way. We
still have good old
U.S.A.
ingenuity, and your WCPL library is the place to get a good start on
making your travels memorable.
P.S. For the armchair traveler there is Literary Trips: Following
in the Footsteps of Fame. Vol.2, published by GreatEscapes.com.
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