Lonely Planet Blue List Review

I got my hands on a copy of another book out from Lonely Planet, the guidebook publisher who has lately been churning out all manner of new titles related to travel. Now, I have to say up front that I am biased. I LOVE Lonely Planet. I love everything about the company (well, except for Tony Wheeler’s Web site), and was gleeful about my own fortune in doing a podcast months ago with Don George, one of my travel writer heroes. 

Well, one of the newest titles out from LP is a kind of encyclopedia of opportunity, a sprawling tome of life-experiences that will make your head whirl and will have you reaching for your credit card to book the next flight out of dodge.

The idea behind Bluelist is simple, and certainly well-known to anyone who has been on the road for a while. As LP puts it, “to Bluelist something is the travel equivalent of 'you should see my guy, he's the best'. It's the act of recommending a travel experience. Any travel experience.” In this case, these experiences and places are suggested for you by the editors and writers at LP…who should know.

And so the book is loaded with page after elegant page of tips, suggestions and recommendations from nooks and cities all over the world. It’s good, and the kind of book you’d keep on your coffee table and thumb through while half-watching a football game or something.

Now, if I have anything negative to say it’s that some of the entries are sparse and much of the book lacks depth…at least the kind of depth you expect from Lonely Planet. Now that may be the point, but when you read about a great trip like Overland Track in Tasmania, you want o know more. I suppose they expect that you will go to the (impressive) Bluelist Web site, or will Google the place on your own. Anyway, that’s my gripe. Otherwise ,it’s a nice addition to the LP oeuvre.

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