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One for the Road: The Travel Mom's Ultimate Book of Family Travel
Self-proclaimed Travel Mom Emily Kaufman has written a handy guide for mothers (and fathers!) in search of strategy when it comes to planning a family vacation. Although the reviews are mixed on just how useful this book really is, I thought The Travel Mom's Ultimate Book of Family Travel was still worth a mention as part of this week's Mother's Day reading roundup. The book is really geared to moms who need help planning their very first family vacation, so it might be a cool Mother's Day gift for first-time moms itching for a summer vacation. It includes general trip planning advice, as well as a series of suggested family-friendly destinations. Check it out of the library before buying though, as some reviewers have said it's really only valuable as a primer. Basically, it's light on content that you'll need to refer to again and again, but could really offer up some good ideas for rookie travel moms.
Kaufman has two kids of her own, and is a travel contributor to ABC's Good Morning America and Woman's Day magazine.
Filed under: Learning, Books, One for the Road
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Kelly May 8th 2007 3:39PM
Unless I'm mistaken, this book has been out there for quite some time already (as in years).
Kelly Amabile May 8th 2007 4:53PM
The most recent edition was published by Broadway Books in January 2006. Not all books mentioned on One for the Road are new releases.
Kelly May 11th 2007 8:29PM
Of course, you can certainly recommend what you like. But surely if you're not highlighting books that are new, you should be going for quality. After reading your post, I hopped on Amazon.com and the readers' reviews for this book were just TERRIBLE. (Except for one that was obviously written by the author or her BFF.) Then I did Amazon's "peek" and the chosen excerpt was so utterly generic that, well, I had a hard time believing anyone but a first-time parent with absolutely no travel wits could find this useful. As a mom of three, I'm just so sick of recycled, useless blahblah that gets repeatedly recommended by, well, bloggers. I just wonder how you came to select this book out of the many, many books out there.
Kelly Amabile May 12th 2007 8:49AM
As you can see by the mix of books I've mentioned for this mother's day feature, I've tried to gather titles from a variety of voices and genres: straightforward travel tips, personal memoirs, anthology collections, and historic travelogues. I agree with you that this may not have been the best choice to suggest as a basic travel mom primer, but in my attempt to appeal to readers with different tastes, it just happens to be what I chose.
My suggestions are meant to be just that -- I'm simply sharing a cross-section of titles around a certain theme, and although I'll generally suggest books that receive good reviews, I'm sure I'll misjudge and mention a dud from time to time. I hope some of the other selections from this week appealed to you, and please feel free to offer up some mom-related travel suggestions of your own.
Kelly May 12th 2007 6:16PM
Kelly, I meant no offense. Here's the thing: I, like most of your readers, am busy. I come to this site to get some travel tips and recommendations, and I assume you guys have done your homework and checked them out ahead of posting. I guess I just don't think it's okay to recommend stuff you haven't read. You have a big audience. With that comes a responsibility to steer us to the good stuff. Anyone of us could hit the travel section of a bookstore and yank something out randomly. But that's not what your readers expect of you.
Kelly Amabile May 12th 2007 7:33PM
I don't claim to be a daily book review -- and when I DO review a book, I'll make it very clear that that is the case. I apologize if you were mislead, but I see nothing wrong with suggesting book titles to readers -- the market is so flooded and I think some readers appreciate the travel-related suggestions. Again, I agree that suggesting books that have received bad reviews is not a good practice (unless I've read them and disagree with those bad reviews) so Travel Mom serves as a lesson to me in that regard.
I do lots of research on books, with particular focus on travel publishing. There are tons of books out there, and I'm simply trying to push relevant travel titles to readers in a thematic and/or timely way.
Next week I'm featuring all new May releases, only one of which I've read. But they are timely and travel related and I think that is valuable info enough to pass on to readers that don't follow other book related news outlets.
You will see occasional book reviews from me, as well as interviews with authors. I hope some of the book content I provide will be of use/value/interest to you.