Travel Best Bets: An Insider's Guide to Taking the Best

Valuable professional insights that will make every trip memorable, safe and seamless.

Traveling can produce some of life's most exciting and rewarding experiences, provided each traveler is well prepared for the trip. Claire Newell, renowned travel agent and TV travel show host, reveals professional secrets that will help avoid frustration, disappointment and unnecessary cost, leading to a successful trip from all points of view. Travel Best Bets: An Insider's Guide to Taking the Best Trips Ever offers warm and engaging personal counsel for all trips -- from family vacations to honeymoons to group holidays.

Travel Best Bets is chock full of insider tips- from finding the best travel values, to obtaining essential tourist visas, to understanding key insurance policies, to planning great itineraries. As well, there is a source list of easily accessible international websites, ideal for verifying upto-date information on destinations.

Whether you're a first-time traveler or a seasoned adventurer, this outstanding handbook covers every important detail in chapters that include:

• Planning for Paradise
• Insurance -- Cover Yourself
• Staying Healthy
• Staying Safe
• Air Travel -- Flying High
• On the Road -- Renting a Vehicle
• Cruises -- A Life on the Waves
• All in the Family -- Traveling with Kids.

Travel can be the magical experience every traveler dreams about, thanks to this comprehensive, convenient and easy-to-use general guidebook.

Claire Newell is the host of Travel Best Bets on Canada's Global television network. The founder of Jubilee Tours and Travel Ltd., one of Canada's largest independent travel agencies, she lives in Vancouver.

Most helpful customer reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful.
For Travel "Newbies"
By A. T. Hall
This book is full of a good variety of basic and detailed travel tips..I think they are very obvious things if you have traveled frequently...nothing new here. I was hoping for DEALS and tips on getting the best ones, so i am only giving this a 3. But it is more of a guide to taking the most prepared trip ever. Not the best price...or destination.
Reccommened if this is the first time you Fly, Cruise, Leave the country, or are traveling with kids or a group, ..this will have information that is helpful( weather, currency, safety including checklist and extra websites.)..

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

Today's most authoritative guide on how to travel anywhere, anyhow. This guide contains expert advice from the world's most experienced travelers, personal reflections from globe-trotting celebrities, survival tips and health facts, profiles of every country as well as a comprehensive contacts directory. Whether you're a backpacker or a business traveler, an adventurer or a beginner, you'll find this book essential and inspiring.

There are so many travel choices it's frightening, or it would be if not for Miranda Haines's Traveler's Handbook, which helps with issues like when to travel, where to travel, which festivals to aim for or avoid, what guides to buy, and what kind of focus you want in your trip: independence, adventure, romance, luxury, work, or eco-travel. The Handbook explores each option, describing the ups and downs of traveling alone, as well as the practicalities to consider for pregnant, elderly, and diabetic travel, honeymoon, gay, and vegetarian travel, and female, student, and business travel.

There are chapters on all the concerns of flying (how to choose an airline, getting a good deal, traveler's protection), overlanding (motorbikes to trucks to buying and selling a car abroad), train travel, river travel, hitchhiking, foot, and microlight travel, cargo ship, horse, and camel travel. There are chapters on visas and money, health and luggage, communication, computers, and theft, as well as surviving a hijack, a kidnap, and a civil war. No travel stone is left unturned. And as if this weren't enough, there follows a directory of all the countries in the world, with info on population, capital, currency, government, religion, safety, and best times to visit for each. This plus world weather charts, rainy season guides, sea temperatures and city altitudes make this an incredibly thorough and useful book.

Travel is the unknown, and the unknown promotes anxiety. It's reassuring to read these careful, perceptive words penned by someone who's given some thought to all the angles.

Today's most authoritative guide on how to travel anywhere, anyhow. This guide contains expert advice from the world's most experienced travelers, personal reflections from globe-trotting celebrities, survival tips and health facts, profiles of every country as well as a comprehensive contacts directory. Whether you're a backpacker or a business traveler, an adventurer or a beginner, you'll find this book essential and inspiring. (5 x 7 1/4, 960 pages, charts)

Most helpful customer reviews

22 of 22 people found the following review helpful.
Excellent resource and inspiration
By Todd Adams
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.

28 of 30 people found the following review helpful.
This book is THE hitchiker's guide to the planet Earth.
By Adam Rifkin
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....

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful.
Don't travel the world without it!
By Sheri Lee Stritof
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.

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The Cancun Insider: Get the Most out of your Cancun

Get the Most out of your Cancun Vacation Even if you're on a Budget!

Whether this is your first trip to an exotic destination, or you're a seasoned traveler who wants to have more freedom than is offered in an all-inclusive resort, the Cancun Insider will reveal many insights about this beautiful destination.

This book has been written based on experience in the trenches, skipping all the fluff and delivering actionable tips and tricks and travel hacks that you will be able to use all along your trip. Along the way these tips and tricks will help you get oriented in a new culture, help you stay safe, discover many things that most travelers simply don't know about, save you a ton of money and avoid tourist traps.

Even if you are planning on staying in an all-inclusive resort, with the help of this book you will get to see parts of Cancun that will open your mind to the richness of the Mexican traditions. The Cancun Insider will guide you on a path that will give you a taste of the real Mexico and a peek at the everyday life of a different culture.

In The Cancun Insider you will learn:
- All the Basics like When to Visit Cancun, What You Should Bring
- How to get up to 80% off on Excursions, Attractions, and the Hottest Clubs
- The Nicest Beaches, Spanish Hacking Tips, and Shopping Secrets
- How to Get Around the City for Pennies, and Where to get a free map
- Authentic Restaurants and Little Markets that Only the Locals Know About.
- Quality Healthcare and Dental work at Ridiculous Prices
- Free and Budget Friendly Activities, Shows, Dancing Lessons and more

And Many More Sneaky Tips and Tricks that will Make Your Trip Awesome.

Visit Cancun-Insider.com for more details!

Praise for the Cancun Insider:

"If you are planning on going to Cancun The Cancun Insider is a must-read! Don't miss out on a vacation of a lifetime!" - BGE Radio

☆☆☆☆☆ "I would recommend this book to anyone looking for tips on saving cash while still having an incredible vacation." - Amanda Z.

☆☆☆☆☆ "We found this book very helpful for finding the offbeat items. ." - Tami D. Cowden

☆☆☆☆☆ "if you want a real inside view of Cancun, this is the book for you. " - Kathleen R Raulerson

David Rowicz is a positive thinker,  an enthusiastic world traveler, and serial entrepreneur. When he isn't using his expertise in business development and creative marketing to create strategies for world-class clients, he travels the world for inspiration and balance. He lives in Montreal and has spent his career choosing the road less traveled, simply because he finds it more fun!

Most helpful customer reviews

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful.
Indispensable
By Meghan
Right at the get-go, it’s clear that David Rowicz’s ‘The Cancun Insider’ is for the traveller who does not want to compromise on enjoying a wonderful vacation destination such as Cancun, Mexico. And refreshingly, Rowicz has hit the nail on the head with this book: forget about all those other travel guides that seem to be so preoccupied with how to get where—‘The Cancun Insider’ is, to put it bluntly, all about how you can have a truly great time in Cancun.

Rowicz knows what he writes about—he has stayed in Cancun in exactly the same circumstances that you might be thinking about visiting it—on a limited budget. The author—who obviously understands where the reader may be coming from—leaves no stone unturned in really discussing everything a “tabula rasa” may need to know about the destination—from the local culture, to even cures for hangovers. And most importantly, Rowicz shatters the misconception that you can’t have so much fun if you’re on a shoe-string budget—in fact, you CAN, and you must. And with this book, it’s going to be a heck of a journey.

As if that’s not enough, Rowicz’s writing is pure gravy—he has a flair for entertainment, which is highly important for a “fun guide” like this. If the book that purportedly shows you how to have a great time isn’t actually a great read, then you have the bleeding proof right there. You get the zeitgeist, the mood, the atmosphere of Cancun—and this from someone who has lived “in the trenches” and who knows where to go and what to avoid and what is really up as far as having a great time is concerned. ‘The Cancun Insider’—right from the introduction to the safety tips to striking quick friendships in Cancun, is just spot on. Plus, there’s humor in the right places—what’s there not to like?

Overall, ‘The Cancun Insider’ is a truly priceless guide to Cancun, Mexico, especially if you’re on a tight budget. Order a copy of this book today—or send this as a gift to anyone you know who is thinking about going there—heck, gift it to them even if they’re not specifically gunning for Cancun, because this book might help them make up their minds. A resounding five-star rating for this wonderful guide.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful.
excellent!
By Michelle
Highly recommend this book! But beware, I bought several kindle edition Cancun books and this is the exact same book as "Cancun: This is NOT a Travel Guide", strange thing is these books have different authors so how does that happen???? I'm complaining to Amazon!!!!

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful.
The best guide out there for my family and I
By Nathan Palmer
This is by far the best guide out there. Sure, this guide isn't for everyone... he even says it himself. If you have thousands of dollars to spend, only want to visit the biggest tourist traps, or if you want to stick with expensive (and overrated) restaurants, this NOT the guide for you. If you're like me, going with a family that is on a budget, that wants to really experience authentic Mexican culture and food, and have a lot of fun while you're at it, this is the perfect thing.
Although I'm "Gringo", I have lived in Central America for many years and so I'm familiar with the Latin American culture. However, Rowicz offered many insights that were unique to the Cancun area that I really appreciated, since I had never visited the Yucatan. Sure, he definitely has parts of the book that are geared to young, single adults, but he has overwhelming amounts of useful information for famlies and others as well.
In my opinion, the only thing that could make this Guide Book perfect is if he included more information of the surrounding cities of the Riviera Maya, like Playa del Carmen, Tulum, etc. He definitely has valuable information about these areas, but the central focus is on Cancun, just as the title would suggest.
I'll say it again: If you know you're not the type of the person that does not enjoy trying new things, experiencing new cultures, or if you have plenty of money to spend, this probably isn't the guide for you. But my wife and kids thoroughly enjoyed our vacation here and can definitely thank Rowicz for providing some great vacation ideas and tips.

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