1,000 Places to See Before You Die

I've mentioned the book 1,000 Places to See Before You Die a couple of times already, so I thought it would be worthwhile to stop and discuss the book briefly.

A quick internet search will reveal that the book is modestly controversial from a traveler's perspective.  From what I can tell, most of the angst is driven by a viewpoint that the book prompts people to go to places to get the checkmark on the list, rather than to have meaningful travel experiences.  That is, the book, by its nature of being a "best of" list, promotes a sort of "been there, done that" mentality, or else the desire to go there and do that, and therefore, get the check.

I'm not sure that I'm going to weigh in on that argument.  In the end, you could use the book that way, and if you managed to check off all (or even most) of the 1,000 places, you could definitely say that you were well-traveled.  I'm not sure that you could go that many places without having a meaningful travel experience of some sort.  If the whole point was to say that you are well-traveled, (and there is a breed of traveler out there that seems to collect passport stamps and exotic locales just to have the collection and be a travel superstar) then the book could facilitate that, to be sure.

I have a copy.  I don't use it that way.  I tend to use it as a reference.  If I'm going somewhere, I can look it up and see if it made the book, and if so, what is recommended.  It seems to me more like a world travel guide.  That means it skims over a lot, and picks what somebody thinks is the best things to spend your travel time on.  That does bring up the secondary argument I've seen, which is that it misses lots of great stuff.  I won't argue that point either, except to say that in any list, you have to decide what makes the cut and what doesn't, and for this list, that was the author's decision.  My list wouldn't be the same either.

I do use the book as a reference point.  When I'm going somewhere, I check to see recommended sights and activities.  When I've already been somewhere, I check my thoughts against what made it and evaluate against my own experiences.  As I compile my list of places to go around the world, I'm sure that some of the entries will prompt further research, or maybe even a resounding, "Yes!!  I have to go there!"

I've only had the book for a couple of months now, and it's not the sort of book you just sit down and read from beginning to end, so as I continue to write on here, review specific entries, etc., my opinion may change.  Initially, though, I think it is like almost any other travel guide - it caters to a specific sort of traveler in the overall recommendations, and it is a list that was put together with the best judgment of the author.

That said, as I've started to go through, I'm planning on tagging posts with locations in the book with the 1000 Places tag.  That way, as my own travel planning gets further along, I can always use the tag as a brief refresher on what I saw that may have piqued my interest.