In Review: Knopf MapGuide: New York

~ When I travelled to New York in the spring of 2008, for the start of my two month stay, I had several ‘indispensable’ guide books in my suitcase, but it didn’t take long before one small book proved to be the most indispensable of all.

Alfred A. Knopf/Random House, produce a series of city specific “MapGuides” (as they call them), that are compact, filled with information, illustrated with large, fold-out, easy to read maps, and which just as importantly, are very lightweight.

The New York MapGuide runs to just 48 pages, but don’t let that put you off. The designers of these little books have managed to pack a wealth of information into those pages that other publishers would do well to make note of.

You begin with an opening fold-out map of New York which helps you visualise the eight large districts the guide is divided into. At the end of the MapGuide are another four pages of valuable information, handy tips and useful address.

The eight districts with their accompanying fold-out maps are:

1. Downtown
2. Lower East Side and East Village
3. SoHo, Greenwich Village, Chelsea and TriBeCa
4. Midtown East
5. Times Square and the Theatre District
6. Upper East Side
7. Upper West Side, and finally
8. Central Park and Harlem.

For each district there is a double-page of addresses listing restaurants, cafés, bars, music venues and shops, followed by a fold-out map for the relevant district with essential attractions and places of interest to see. While the shops, attractions and places of interest are by no means the only ones on offer in New York City, all the main buildings and attractions are listed in the guides or marked on the maps.

The last fold-out consists of transport maps for the Manhattan subway system and Manhattan’s bus services, and four pages of information that include a selection of hotels ranging in price from $70 up to $300 and over.

What I also like about the MapGuide is that despite the brevity of the entries, they still manage to pack all the essential information you need into the space allocated for them – as this entry for the Woolworth Building shows:

Woolworth Building, 233 Broadway (Barclay St). Commissioned by Frank Woolworth for his company headquarters, this building is as big as the empire he create. In 1909 the five-and-dime-store king purchased a piece of land on Broadway and paid for his skyscraper in cash. Four years later the tallest building in the city was opened: an enormous 60-story (792-ft) Gothic structure with a Latin cross-shaped lobby, marble walls, Byzantine-style mosaic ceilings – everything here exalts the virtues of work and prosperity. (New York MapGuide, 2006, Ed.)

There you have it. An encapsulated history of the Woolworth Building in just 79 words and numbers! We learn who commissioned it and when, how long it took to complete and how it was paid for, how tall it is and even something about the architecture and design features of the building. Concise writing at its best.

To complete this small and incredibly useful package, the MapGuide has a Thematic Index. That is, an index listing all the sites and addresses in the guide by theme. This makes it very easy to find restaurants for example, or museums or parks and gardens.

As already noted, this slim guide weighs next to nothing, fits easily into a handbag, backpack, or coat pocket, is easy to use and nowhere near as conspicuous as fighting with the large fold-out Manhattan maps that many visitors seem to struggle with. Nor do you have to lug around large, heavy guide books filled with hundreds of pages of tightly packed information.

As long as you have done the bulk of your research and reading utilising larger publications before your New York visit, and assuming you already know what you want to see in New York City when you set out each day, the New York MapGuide should be all you need to get you through the day in that magnificent metropolis.

Highly recommended.

Note: The above review and quote is based on the 2006 edition of the New York MapGuide.

Click here to buy the 2009 edition of the Knopf MapGuide: New York (Knopf Mapguides).

The Countdown Begins

~ It is June already.

Here in Australia that means the start of winter, while in the northern hemisphere it heralds the beginning of summer.

It has been eight months since returning from my travels to the USA and Europe last year. Assuming I don’t go overseas earlier, and assuming too, that my absolute deadline for heading overseas next year is March 31, then I only have another ten months before I travel again!

Ten months! Those months are going to fly by faster than even I will be ready for.

I’ve already started to think about where I am going to go first, and where my road will lead. Not that I haven’t had the next trip simmering along in the back of my mind ever since I returned last October.

The general thrust of my thinking has always been to return to the west coast of the United States; catch up with relatives in Tucson, Arizona, as well as San Diego, and elsewhere in California. Then the plan is to drive across the US to New York before flying on to London or Athens.

Today, I almost bought a book detailing various road trips across the US. One I probably should have bought anyway, despite the fact that it was published in 1995. Although it is obviously dated, it would be useful – if only to keep me focussed on the dream. In the same Book Exchange, I picked up a second hand copy of David Dale’s 2001 book, The Perfect Journey. This is a revamped and updated version of The Obsessive Traveller which I have written about previously. I’ve already started reading it, and I expect it will be just as entertaining.

I have also been checking out some online sites focussed on road trips in America.

So far the best two I have seen are: Road Trip America, and Road Trip USA, which is based on a book by the same name written by Jamie Jenson.

Road Trip USA, in particular is built around eleven road trips that cross America from north to south and east to west. The specific routes are the Pacific Coast; Border to Border; The Road to Nowhere; The Great River Road; The Appalachian Trail; Atlantic Coast; The Great Northern; The Oregon Trail; the Loneliest Road; the Southern Pacific; and of course, Route 66.

Over the coming ten months I will be using this blog to outline some of my plans and thoughts, and I invite readers to post comments here with their suggestions, tips, favourite destinations, hidden gems, and anything else they think would be useful to me and other readers.