A guide to the planet's wildest and weirdest places This compendium for the curious showcases over 200 of the planet's weirdest and most wonderful places, organised by line of longitude. Children will discover the Waitomo glowworm caves in New Zealand, wild horses of the Namib desert, the swing at the end of the world in Ecuador, a Stonehenge built from old cars in Nebraska, and hundreds more secret places that people don't know about. Packed with extraordinary natural phenomena and man-made oddities Based on our popular adults title Secret Marvels of the World Fun and entertaining with fascinating photos and illustrations
You know how sometimes you want to look for the places that are out of the way and off the beaten path? This book doubles (for me at least) as a handy travel guide to all those places you wish you’d heard of before — AND — it’s an introduction for young readers (aged 9-12) that the world is so much bigger, weirder and wonderful than they thought.
The book is divided into different longitudes, so right next to learning about the Waitavala Water Slide in Taveuni, Fiji young readers will learn about the Aniakchak National Monument and Preserve, Alaska.
Or right next to a page on Tank Town, USA (yes, it’s famous for allowing you to drive tanks and crush cars), you’ll find that Hell does exist — on Grand Cayman in the Cayman Islands. It contains a group of ancient limestone formation that are spiky black rocks that look like they’re rising out of hell.
Honestly, seeing the beauty of these places just brings home how big our world is, and really, we’re all just one very, very small part of it. It’s a gorgeous, out of left field introduction to the world, customs and people and if you like travelling, whatever your age, you’re going to adore this.
Although this book is aimed at the 9-12 years age range, I really enjoyed reading this book myself. There are over 150 different places to discover. Hidden Wonders takes us through them starting with most west and travels east. There are some really pretty amazing places that I have never heard of before and some that I wouldn't mind visiting one day.
My youngest son, Aaron (9), loved this book! He was fascinated with all the strange and wonderful places. The photo are really great too. This is a book that you can come back to again and again.
This “Guide to the Planet’s Wildest, Weirdest Places” will take you on a ride, uncovering sights you never knew existed. This book offers over 200 of the world’s most weirdly wonderful places including a cave of giant crystals, a grove of singing trees, and a cave illuminated by glowworms.
From the beautiful raised cover to the hidden secrets found within, this informative and engaging book is likely to infect everyone with the travel bug, including parents—consider yourselves warned!
It's marketed to kids but it's a fascinating read for adults too. The book features so-called "hidden wonders" from around the world. Granted, quite a lot of them I'd never heard of, but those were pretty unimpressive. As for the rest, I'd seen or read about them before, so wouldn't exactly call them "hidden". Many of them are man-made things like sculptures, artworks, etc. The rest are archaeological sites or natural formations. None of the locations featured that I didn't already know about really stood out to me as a "must-see", but they were still interesting to read about I guess. Every featured place is accompanied by at least one eye-catching photo. The book layout is attractive and practical.
Yes the imaginary worlds are wonderful, but this year (2020) there is another world that feels imaginary as well. This one. I want to visit our earth, please. All the hidden wonders of it.
I will note, however, that this is very clearly written by a white person, in ways that are at times cringy. Lots of holy sites described as one might describe a quaint oddity, Burma labeled as Myanmar, and "Egungun Voodoo Ceremony" listed among the attractions, as if this religious ceremony were a landmark. Still, on the whole I found it to be a great way to thumb through the world, especially while sitting at home in lockdown.
Question some of the accuracy (esp historical and scientific), and the photos could be better, but pretty good repackaging of some of the guidebook writeups.
Will see if we use any of these to inspire vacations (maybe New Zealand? :) ).
Seems like there’s over representation of Colombia in here...guess maybe that’s a good sign that the Colombia/South America guidebook might be fairly adventure-oriented?
Beautiful but uneven collecting of interesting and offbeat places around the world. Most entries contain beautiful photographs, though the description may make you wish they had chosen a different angle to match up better. Some places are not around anymore, as described. Fun to browse, though not good for serious research beyond picking a topic.
Absolutely beautiful book! This one takes pride and place on our bookcase with the front on show. Everybody comments on it when they visit and it has certainly got our minds racing about the next big adventure!
This book opens up your mind to so many incredible places. Alot are not accessible to normal hikers, but this book shows you many beautiful treasures. Great pictures, and a must for your little explorer.
A lovely collection of truly hidden wonders - most of which I've never heard about. Photos accompanying were now and then underwhelming but overall an intriguing and fun read.