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Museum Store Company : The Finest Selection of Historic and Museum Jewelry, Art History Replicas and Museum Reproductions! Own a Piece of History...Give a Piece of History (tm) MuseumStoreCompany.com | |  | General | Home » » » » » » » Hawaii The Big Island Revealed: The Ultimate Guidebook | | | | | | | Description: | | The finest guidebook ever written for the Big Island and the only one written by writers who anonymously review the island. They visit every beach, restaurant, activity and trail on the island. The result is this comprehensive, humorous and easy-to-read full color guide that will lead you to more adventures than any other book. A must for travelers. | | | Product Details: | | | Author:
| Andrew Doughty | | Paperback:
| 308 pages | | Publisher:
| Wizard Publications Inc. | | Publication Date:
| May 15, 2008 | | Language:
| English | | ISBN:
| 098146100X | | Product Width:
| 138.5 centimeters | | Product Height:
| 206.5 centimeters | | Product Weight:
| 1.23 pounds | | Package Length:
| 8.2 inches | | Package Width:
| 5.5 inches | | Package Height:
| 0.9 inches | | Package Weight:
| 1.1 pounds | | Average Customer Rating:
|  based on 164 reviews |
| | | | Customer Reviews: | |
Average Customer Review:
 ( 164 customer reviews )
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
21 of 22 found the following review helpful:
 Always Spot-on with recommendations, but poorly organizedJul 08, 2011
By V. Natarajan
The plusses:
Just about every place that this book recommended, and that I've tried, has been spot on. Perhaps more importantly, it's also spot-on with respect to its recommendations of tour companies (e.g. snorkeling tours, van tours). Not one restaurant, attraction, tour company, or hotel recommended by this book has disappointed, and it recommends a lot -- you could spend a month on the Big Island and not go through half of what's in this book. For the most part, the maps are clear and helpful, and the book gives contact information as needed.
The minuses:
The information presented is very poorly organized. Largely speaking, this book breaks down into Sights, Activities, Adventures, and Dining/Lodging, and within each section, the listings are broken by geographic region. The problem with this approach is that, in order to see everything there is to do within a particular geographic area, you have to flip to each section. It would be far more convenient to reverse the ordering -- break down the book first by geographic area, and then by activities within the area.
Secondly, the "Sights" section for each area is presented as a single tour that goes through each attraction, and the directions for each site are only given in terms of the location of the previous site mentioned. The problem is, there are often many more attractions than you'll have time for in each area, so it takes considerable work to figure out the location of individual attractions if you want to skip an attraction or go in a different order than the book describes.
Normally, the I'd treat the minuses much more harshly, but the recommendations are so good that I'm going to be more forgiving here.
10 of 10 found the following review helpful:
Great resource for exploring the Big IslandAug 15, 2011
By NC Family
We just used this book to help us navigate the Big Island for a family vacation. The maps were fantastic and the descriptions very helpful. Hawaii tries to hide it's national treasures and signage is almost invisible. This book gave mile marker references and visual landmarks to help you find where you needed to go. The amount of information was a bit overwhelming, but it was great to keep in the car for quick reference as you were trying to decide what to do next. We found the information to be extremely accurate except for restaurant suggestions - some were correct, but rely on your hotel concierge first. We would highly recommend this book if this is your first trip to the Big Island or you are adults traveling alone and a bit more on the adventurous side (lots of hiking and rough terrain not suitable for little legs).
8 of 8 found the following review helpful:
The best travel booksJul 01, 2011
By M. L. Jones
My husband and I travel a lot and have looked at and used many types of travel guidebooks. We have found the 'Revealed' guidebooks to be, without a doubt, the best. The authors/editors don't ever hold back when they feel that a hotel, restuarant or attraction doesn't live up to its reputation or is over-priced. You can count on these guidebooks for the truth, not just a glowing report that someone has paid to have printed in a guidebook.
9 of 10 found the following review helpful:
 Good for learning about places, bad for finding how to get thereJan 16, 2011
By J. Karp
I think this book works best as a comprehensive listing of attractions and activities. When I visited the Big Island with this book along, it was a great way to find cool things to do, many of them that other guidebooks missed. And its descriptions seemed to be pretty accurate.
However, this book isn't any good at describing how to get to these places. They seem to assume you'll be driving one-by-one through each of the attractions listed for an area: the 'directions' they give for the attractions assume you're coming from the previous thing listed. If you're already in some area, and see one particular thing listed in the book you want to swing by and see, you have to jump several pages back in the book and read a bunch of the previous entries to backtrace a route. And even if you do that, and follow along, its not very clear. For example, I had a horrible time locating the Tropical Botanical Gardens north of Kona, and had to ask some locals, who took all of ten seconds to convey what the book could not.
4 of 4 found the following review helpful:
Good reading, but you need to take a lot of notes before your travelJan 03, 2012
By Ling Ho
"Ling Ho"
I bought this book before my first trip to the state of Hawaii. The Hawaii big island was my first destination. I also bought the Oahu Revealed as my second destination was Oahu.
They were both good reading, with lots of good information about the history of the island, climates, people and culture.
As I read further, I can kind of imagine myself being there, driving around the islands.
However, after half way through the Big Islandbook, I realized I am not going to be able to go around the whole island visiting most of the wonderful places mentioned in the book in just 5 days. So, I decided to focus on a few areas.
I spend about 2 evening reading the books, and another 2 hours on the plane reading the book cover to cover.
When I arrived in Hawaii, I found the following problems:
- The books are printed on good quality paper. But they are heavy!
- Both the Big Island book and the Oahu book share many of the information (the history about the islands, and even their stories about powered paragliding are repeated. That makes me having to carry two heavy books when I am having hard time with my luggage with all the snorkeling gears, cameras, etc.
- It is hard to find information about a place using the index. Since each chapters is written like an essay, once you found the keyword, you have to look at 2-3 pages, and then fast reading through the pages to see if some information you have read before is there.
- The author mentioned they used GPS while traveling but often the direction given are turn by turn. I wish they could just give an address or a cross section where I can punch into my GPS.
My suggestion:
Take notes as you read the book. Find a good road map online and print it out, and mark the places you plan to visit. If I haven't gone back and re-read many pages, and take notes, those direction would be meaningless because there is no way for me to read the book while driving. And while driving, I would not have remembered every single interesting points that I have planned to visit while reading the book the first time.
I wish the books can be better organized, or split into multiple volumes. For example, one for carrying with you while actually doing the hikes. I wish the maps can be removed from the book. I wish the photos can be placed next to the next. Sometimes, when I see a photo, I have to look for the texts. I wish it would be easier to find information if I plan to just drive for the day, or plan to hike, or plan to do some snorkeling or diving.
The information on restaurants and shops are not very useful. I would trust Yelp or Tripadvisors reviews more. That's where weight can be reduced also.
See all 164 customer reviews on Amazon.com
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