The 100 Best Worldwide Vacations to Enrich Your Life

by Pam Grout

Travelers are showing a huge interest in the fast-growing sector known as "experiential" tourism—vacations that encompass heritage, culture, nature, ecology, and soft adventure.

In the footsteps of the briskly selling The 100 Best Vacations to Enrich Your Life featuring North American destinations, our new title extends these ardent travelers’ sights to global scale. From helping to build a health clinic in Tanzania to learning massage in Thailand to aiding green turtle conservation in Belize, The 100 Best Worldwide Vacations to Enrich Your Life is full of fun, meaningful, and memorable possibilities for today’s discerning traveler. The lively text irresistibly conveys the charm and excitement of each location and delivers solid, reliable travel-planning information. Abundant sidebars reveal little known local facts, nearby places to visit, lists of things to do, and more.

Other books on the market address singular aspects of experiential vacations around the world (learning, volunteering, culinary). But none presents the best of all categories in one comprehensive guide—until now. The 100 Best Worldwide Vacations to Enrich Your Life holds great appeal for travelers of many interests who want to make the most of their vacations. And, with its elegant packaging, this deluxe trade paperback will catch the attention of gift-shoppers as an inspired and attractive choice.

Genres: Travel, Nonfiction, Reference, Ebooks

288 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2008

About the author

Pam Grout is the author of 16 books, three plays, a television series, and two iPhone apps. She writes for People magazine, Cnngo.com, Huffington Post, and her travel blog, www.georgeclooneyslepthere.com. Find out more about Pam and her out-of-the-box take on life on her website: www.pamgrout.com.

Reviews

[Lisa Sim · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book and it gave me so many ideas for travel. It wasa excellent for brainstorming and thinking outside the box! I am interested in doing a trip with American Airlines--humanitarian trips.

[David · Rating 2 out of 5]

Most of these were not vacations I would never want to take. I didn't expect to be fascinated by all 100, but there were very few that I found really interesting.

[Dray · Rating 2 out of 5]

A good book, for its time. It is definately dated and needs to be updated. It does shed light on some unusual attractions from world centers that could be worth exploring.

[Jerry Summers · Rating 3 out of 5]

Great ideas for arts & crafts, volunteer, learning and wellness vacations. A little out of date. I have made notes.

[Holly · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was really looking forward to this one, but I think ultimately I'm the sort of person who would rather be entertained than "enriched" on my vacations. I have such limited vacation time and even more limited funds to spend on vacations that the idea of trucking it to someplace like France or Chile and then spending an entire week just in one single location doing one single activity is completely unappealing to me. No matter how much I enjoy a good writer's workshop or a pottery class (and I do), I don't want to get trapped at one for the whole of my vacation when there's an entire foreign country to be explored.

One out of four sections of the book is devoted to volunteer vacations where you spend your time off from your normal job performing charitable work in war zones, poverty-stricken developing nations and similar depressing spheres. If you can do that, God bless you, but I just flat-out can't, especially since the volunteer opportunities pitched here frequently aren't even free.

I did manage to sift out a handful of vacation-planning ideas that I realistically might enjoy, and from those, there are one or two that I could realistically afford. So I didn't walk away completely empty-handed, but I am obviously not the target audience for this book.

[Meghan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Basically I went through this book and made a bucket list, there are so many cool experiences! Even if I don't book with the exact travel company or do it by the book, I got lots of great ideas from Grout!

I didn't realize this is part of a series, I definitely want to pick up the American one which most likely has trips more within my budget.

[Jack · Rating 5 out of 5]

Aaah, this makes me want to just travel travel travel.

If, like me, you are one of those who have this "penchant for the back street and side door" (quoted from the book), this book will get you there. I'm still reading but to me it is by far the best "not your usual travel book".

[Angie Libert · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some appealing ideas! Such as: babysitting chimps in Spain, protecting leatherback sea turtles in Trinidad, bottle-fed lion cubs in Zimbabwe, embark on an odyossey in the Greek Islands, or soak in the African Savannah in Ethiopia.

[Rebecca · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have three trips in this book earmarked as "must experience at least once"!

[Oh · Rating 3 out of 5]

powers one's wanderlust dreams :)

[Cherie · Rating 4 out of 5]

A- Great quick read with fantastic suggestions on fantastic vacations to take - arranged in categories. Really good ideas.

[Stephanie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book. I enjoyed reading about what to do for vacations.

[Marjorie · Rating 5 out of 5]

So many great vacation ideas, I want to do about 1/2 of them. For a person who loves to travel this book was inspirational. Now to choose the first trip.

[Amber · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fun to browse, but utterly for dreamers and lottery winners.

[Leira · Rating 2 out of 5]

Only read the sections I'm interested in.