Yard and garage sales, friends-of-the-library book sales, publishers' clearance sales and the like are great sources for one of the most frequently encountered forms of travel writing, the guidebook.
In its most basic form, the guidebook is designed to help travelers find a place to eat, a place to sleep and an interesting place or two to visit while in an unfamiliar locale. Because information such as opening times, cost of admission, etc., change frequently in our modern era, guidebooks usually are printed as handy (i.e., small) paperbacks that one can easily stuff in a purse, backpack or similar accessory, and dispose of without guilt when the information contained therein becomes outdated. The covers of these guidebooks often are plasticized so they can better endure frequent consultation.
Guidebooks can be very general, such as those that cover an entire country, or more specific, such as those that cover only a single city within a particular country:
Guidebooks, however, are not published just to cover urban areas. There are guidebooks for virtually anything that might interest a traveler: national parks and other scenic areas; sites of historical interest; sites of architectural interest; sites of artistic interest; sites that are "off the beaten path;" and so forth:
Experienced travelers often express a strong preference for the guidebooks of particular publishers, because the information in such guidebooks is believed to be more accurate, more current, easier to read and understand, better illustrated, etc. Among such popular guidebooks are those published by Michelin, Lonely Planet, Rough Guides, Fodor's, Frommer's and Baedeker's:
The great thing for someone building a private library is that these types of guidebooks are readily available for very little money. The challenge for most collectors will be preservation: because almost all of these are published as paperbacks, it is important that those printed on acidic paper be well segregated from those printed on acid-free paper. And all such books will require an environment that is well-controlled for humidity and heat.
Of course, travel guides have been published for over two millenia. If you have the time and the patience, antiquarian guidebooks present a particularly interesting collecting challenge, one which we will examine more closely in tomorrow's post....
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