Whenever it’s time to plan one, there are a few guidebooks that I turn to again and again, because they are well-edited, accurate and it’s easier to skim through them than it is to plow through a jillion websites of dubious vintage.

You’ll notice that none of them are kid-specific;  I like the unusual, unknown and offbeat, and my children usually do, too. Plus, hey, I’m driving, so I get to pick.

Other than my other favorite tips (see my earlier post on how to plan a tailpipe-kicking road trip) here are my favorite references….

***  Road Trip USA – This is a top reference for me because Jamie Jensen’s Road Trip USA finds the most wonderfully obscure stuff. The book covers 6 major routes, and if my trip area isn’t included it doesn’t do me much good, but I always check it first (and the Road Trip USA blog, of course.) The series now has books for certain routes, like the Pacific Coast Highway.

***  Off the Beaten Path travel guide by Reader’s Digest – Yes, the old fogies at Reader’s Digest have one of my favorite guidebooks. Off the Beaten Path is packed with useful information about unusual sights that I don’t find anywhere else; I always check it for each state that I’ll visit.  Worth tracking down a copy, along with Most Scenic Drives in America and See the USA the Easy Way (great loop tours.)

***  Insiders’ Guide: Off the Beaten Path – from Globe Pequot Press, these are easy to find in the travel section of any bookstore. Super-detailed and usually written by locals, the Missouri and Kansas versions were invaluable to me when I drove from Texas to Chicago and back for BlogHer a few years ago, exploring the “Square States.”

***  1,000 Places to See Before You Die – Overly dramatic title, but I do find good things here, arranged by state.

***  Anything Frommer’s – my favorite general guidebook. I always have the current edition for wherever I’m living (currently Texas.)

***  RoadFood by Jane and Michael Stern – because, well, food. Must have. Preferably not from yet another Chili’s, although they’re fine in a pinch.

***  For any particular city where I’ll spend significant time, I look for the TimeOut guides. Very British, very detailed, very thorough. Can read them over and over during subway rides and never be bored.

My biggest guidebook surprise over the last decade?

The quirky and detailed Lonely Planet Guide to Louisiana and the Deep South, used to death during our Great American South road trip from Florida to Arkansas and back. At the TBEX travel blogger’s conference recently, I had the pleasure of telling the US Lonely Planet editor, Robert Reid, how much I used and adored this guidebook.

What are your road trip planning favorites? Please let us know in the comments.

I have rather strong opinions about bloggers who get freebies, including free travel, and then don’t disclose to their readers when content is based on those nice opportunities.

For myself, I think there are rules about that sort of thing, so I’ve posted my thoughts in a new permanent Page: the Blog Disclosure Policy for the Family Travel Guide.

You can see the link in the upper right corner of the blog Home page, under Family & Travel Resources.

In sum, I say that if I get free stuff to write about, you’ll know it because I’ll disclose it.

I prefer to pay for my own stuff, though, so I can be truly mouthy about it.  But you kind of expected that from me, right?

For more detailed thoughts on the new FTC rules, you may wish to bounce over to one of my other blogs and read: What do new FTC blogging rules mean for press trips and fam tours?

Keeping it real, so you know what you’re getting….

She wrote:

“I am hoping to go visit my girlfriend in Atlanta. She has a three year old and I have a one year old. We want to take a long weekend to Savannah with the girls! This would be perfect!”

Have a great time there with your kids, Sara!

Around Savannah – Where To Go And What To Do With Children is a handy guide to family-friendly places all around the city, plus ideas for short trips nearby.

(For more ideas in the Peach State, see my travel with kids in Georgia post or this Budget Travel Trip Coach article for Savannah and Charleston.)

I’ve only been to Savannah once myself, but I was impressed by its lovely, walkable layout, “pocket parks” every few blocks in the historic area, support for the arts at Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) / Telfair Museum of Art and FOOD….can you say Paula Deen?

Here’s what I like about this guidebook by Gwen McKee and Kacey Ratterree:

***  Lots of good specific information about each attraction, including all-important bathroom and food availability, plus hints especially for parents and suggestions of other sights nearby.  Warning – many outdoor places include the “bring bug spray” hint.

***  Fun quotes from the author’s and illustrator’s children (“I want to see all the birds and I like to fish.”)

***  Plenty of variety: historic sites like Girl Scout founder Juliette Gordon Low’s Birthplace, nature trails and parks, events like the November Savannah Children’s Book Festival,   special restaurants like The Pirate’s House (I’ve eaten there….fun Treasure Island tie-in) and gems like the Beach Institute African-American Cultural Arts Center and its incredible Ulysses Davis folk art sculpture collection.

***  Helpful discussions of how to visit some of the nearby coastal barrier islands, most of which are accessible only by boat.  One example is Sapelo Island and the community of Hog Hammock, which is “the last intact Geechee/Gullah community in the Sea Islands of Georgia and comprises direct descendants of slaves brought to Sapelo Island in 1802.”

If all this sounds like your kind of book, here’s what to do to win my copy:

—–>  Leave a brief comment below about why you’d like to read “Around Savannah.”

—–>  At the end of this week, on Friday, August 21, 2009, I will randomly pick one of your comments using one of the cool tools on Random.org, then I’ll announce the winner in a separate post.

—–>  If you win, I’ll email you at the address you leave when you comment (to get your snail mail address,) then I’ll box up the book and send it to you. Yes, I’ll mail to places outside the US.

Thanks for participating!

It’s not geared specifically to family travel, and even though Tim’s an experienced Dad as well as a terrific travel writer, I worried that this particular book would get too “backpacker-y” for my blog’s readers.

Not to worry – although there are several countries listed where only the most intrepid parents would take the kids, I found a lot of good ideas here for my own travel planning.  There are super-helpful price ranges for each country, to help you plan typical expenditures for lodging, meals, transportation and seeing attractions.

At the end of each section, Tim describes what you can get in each country for the equivalent of one US dollar or less;  “3 rats on a stick in Laos” – yay! Humorous local color notwithstanding, he gives plenty of examples of less, um, exotic purchases.

His quick evaluations of each country’s best beer or local liquor are an “adults only” bonus.

Consider this book as a value-focused destination Idea Finder; it gives you a broad overview of what to expect at various budget levels, then you can plunge in and buy a country-specific guidebook (if you’re thinking south of the US, Tim has also written the excellent Traveler’s Tool Kit for Mexico and Central America.)

Some of the book’s best tips for parenting travelers:

***  Go long. Better to make a journey and stay in one place or region for two or three weeks than rage all over trying to pack in too many sights. With young kids, this goes double. Get off the plane or out of the car, slow down and stay awhile; you’ll learn and enjoy a place a lot more.

***  Take advantage of budget airlines within regions.  If you are going to country-hop, they’ve shrunk distances across Europe and Asia. For more airline ticket info, there’s BootsnAll’s own Cheap Air Tickets site.

***  Money quote from Tim: “If you demand pampering at every stage, you will pay pampering prices.”  Cheapest Destinations does NOT think that staying in Ye Olde Fleabag Hotel is such a fun idea; Tim insists that countries he lists as desirable have basic tourism infrastructure and support, and he’s also quite blunt about where you’ll find a “soak the tourists” mentality.

***  The book is very sensitive to the dietary needs of vegetarians; I like that and don’t see it too often. Tip if you’re vegetarian:  go to India.

***  Places that I personally want to take my family after reading this book? Jordan, Turkey and Guatemala. Tim is a fan of Spanish immersion classes in Guatemala, which he’s done with his wife and kids. It sounds terrific.

***  More places that intrigue me:  Honduras and Peru. Of course, the recent Shashi Bellamkonda guest post about Machu Picchu here on Family Travel already had me fired up.

***  Europe a must-do for you? Consider Hungary, Portugal and rural Spain (for more on kids in Spain, see Jeanne at SoulTravelers3.)

***  Bargain skiing – Transylvanian Alps in Romania, in the Czech Republic and in Turkey.

This is an excellent reference book if you have a globe in one hand, a budget in the other and kids in front of you saying, “When can we go someplace really cool?”

Normally after a book review I do a giveaway, but sorry, I’m keeping this one because Tim autographed it just for me.  He wrote, “To Sheila – step away from the laptop!”

Think the guy knows me pretty well?

You can buy World’s Cheapest Destinations here (where the purchase price goes to Tim and the publisher, without middlemen) and there’s an ebook version there as well. See this page for more purchase options.

The Coin Flipper at Random.org picked commenter Sheril as the winner of the book, so I’ll be mailing it off to her.

Congratulations, Sheril!

If my Mom memory fails me, I can get right back up to speed with Shelly Rivoli’s excellent book, Travels with Baby: The Ultimate Guide for Planning Trips with Babies, Toddlers, and Preschool-Age Children.

The San Francisco Bay Area-based Ms. Rivoli is an experienced traveler and mother of three (welcome to her new baby Theo, born this month!) She’s active on Twitter and also blogs about her latest thoughts and advice on travel with young ones.

Here are some highlights from Shelly’s book:

*** Detailed pre-trip planning tips, including “Fifteen Things You Might Not Think to Pack” (yes, an inflatable beach ball is a total what-to-play-with lifesaver!)

*** Honest feedback about the relative ease of traveling with infants, who mostly just want to be carried and nursed, and have a clean diaper on their bottom. With a good carrier, you are free to walk around and do adult-ish things like shopping while baby snoozes, or those curious little eyes peek out from the sling to take in the sights. In a few short months, they will be running all around getting into things, and the infant days will seem like a piece of cake.

*** Lots of helpful guidance about international travel, including food and water safety, vaccinations and “bringing the ugly Winnie the Pooh diaper bag” so that its contents are obvious and it’s less likely to be swiped. On Shelly’s blog, one of her latest entries is about flying to India with a 2-year-old. I like her sense of adventure.

*** She has a whole chapter on taking a cruise with young children; which seems like a no-brainer good idea but can have a number of unexpected pitfalls, as Condé Nast Traveler‘s Wendy Perrin will tell you.  I also like Shelly’s extensive section on train travel (such as it is in the US.)

If all this sounds like your kind of book, here’s what to do to win my copy:

***  Leave a brief comment below about why you’d like to read “Travels with Baby”.

***  At the end of this week, on Friday, March 27, 2009, I will randomly pick one of your comments using one of the cool tools on Random.org, then I’ll announce the winner in a separate post.

***  If you win, I’ll email you at the address you leave when you comment (to get your snail mail address,) then I’ll box up the book and send it to you. Yes, I’ll mail to places outside the US.

Thanks for participating, and thanks very much to Shelly for sending me a review copy.

Good luck!

Er, anyway, the winner as selected by the Sequence Generator at Random.org is Kara/Mountain Mama from the Traveling Mamas.

Remember that fun audio interview I did with 3 of the 4 Mamas when we were all in Kansas City together?

I am glad that Random.org picks a comment number for me (it picked 3 and Kara left comment #3) because I always feel bad that I can’t give the book to everyone who stops by.

One more Pauline Frommer guidebook is up for grabs, though – swing over to the Perceptive Travel blog before the end of the day on Tuesday, December 16 and leave a comment for a chance to win Pauline’s “Spend Less See More” guidebook to Italy.

Next up is Pauline Frommer’s Hawaii: Spend Less, See More.

As I’ve written before, I’ve always been a fan of the various Frommer’s travel guides, because they are budget-friendly, full of helpful details and info-packed sidebars, and they make a big effort to show people how to find local experiences and atmosphere.

Pauline Frommer is the daughter of Arthur Frommer, who launched the original Europe on $5/Day back in 1957. She’s also a mother of two, so her books tend to carefully include family-friendly attractions in addition to the “usual suspects” at a destination.

Hawaii is a soft spot for me since my first Navy ship was homeported in Pearl Harbor.  I also want to put in a plug for the folks who work to support Hawaii tourism; I’ve met Michael Ni (@michaelni) and Nathan Kam (@nathankam) on Twitter (plus Michael in person!) and I also follow @DavidHTA who markets his beautiful state worldwide.

Here are particular highlights from the Hawaii guidebook:

• “Best beaches if you’re a kid” are listed, but none are on Oahu (where most tourists tend to go.)  Pauline does recommend Waikiki Beach for people-watching and the North Shore for water sports. (If you’re a beachy person, you might enjoy the scenery and friendly philosophizing on Beach Walks With Rox, a video series filmed on a Hawaii beach.)
• Kauai beaches are her pick for the best, but she also notes that they have more drownings than other islands. “Never turn your back on the water.” She also lists some fun one-of-kind boutiques on Kauai – which is not known for its shopping – and also covers opportunities for volunteer work on the island, in gardens and for whale-counting.
• On Oahu, I like her thorough discussion of World War II sites like the Arizona Memorial, Bowfin submarine and battleship Missouri.  There are good “local info” sidebars on things like yummy food from island “shrimp trucks,” and a frank discussion of the “cheesy and heinous” Polynesian Cultural Center. I appreciate forthright opinions in guidebooks, even when I don’t agree with the assertions.
• The guidebook has a comprehensive list of annual events – like the Merrie Monarch hula festival – a discussion of why Hawaii prices are sometimes so high for basics (no, it’s not just to rip off tourists,) an overview of coral reef “etiquette” for snorkelers/divers and a Hawaiian language glossary.
• The Maui section features detailed dining options to fit most budgets.
• Great tip from Molokai: you can mail a coconut with a message on it from the Hoolehua Post Office: Post-a-nut. I mean, what kid wouldn’t want to do that?!

If all this sounds like your kind of book, here’s what to do to win my copy:

• Leave a brief comment below about why you’d like to read “Pauline Frommer’s Hawaii”
• At the end of this week, on Friday, December 12, 2008, I will randomly pick one of your comments using one of the cool tools on Random.org, then I’ll announce the winner in a separate post.
• If you win, I’ll email you at the address you leave when you comment (to get your snail mail address,) then I’ll box up the book and send it to you. Yes, I’ll mail to places outside the US.

Thanks for participating, and thanks to Sarah Gorback at Wiley Publishing for sending me a review copy.

Good luck!

She lives in Bristol, UK, but I certainly appreciate my international readers so of course I’ll ship prizes like this anywhere in the world.

Thanks to all for reading the post; the next one will be for Pauline Frommer’s guidebook to Hawaii.

I’m also going to review/give away Pauline’s Italy guidebook on the Perceptive Travel blog next week. Woo-hoo!