International Geographers Deliver the Big Picture

TOURING NORTH AMERICA, various authors (Rutgers University Press, each $9.95 paper, $25 hardcover). An ambitious and impressive new series of 13 different guides to our continent (and some of its offshore islands), these volumes were published in cooperation with, and sponsored by, the 27th International Geographical Congress--with Anthony R. de Souza, editor of the National Geographic Society’s journal “Research and Exploration” as series editor.

As might be expected from such scholarly associations, these are serious, well-documented works--as much geography texts as guidebooks. There are brief “Hints to the Traveler” appended to each one (“Poison oak(‘s) . . . shiny green and red leaves tempt the unwary into picking it. Don’t!”), and there are abbreviated descriptions of significant museums and other tourist attractions throughout, but there is no hardcore guidebook information offered--restaurant recommendations, museum hours, that sort of thing. Nonetheless, these are valuable books for anyone planning to visit an unfamiliar part of North America, full of solid historical, geographical, cultural and ecological information. Buy a conventional guidebook to an area you’re going to visit for the other stuff--and trust these volumes for the facts, and for the larger context.

For the record, the individual volumes are: California Landscapes, Southern California Extended, Beyond the Great Divide, Crossing the Heartland, The Plantation South, The South Revisited, Across the Appalachians, The Capital Region (this one penned by editor de Souza himself), Megalopolis (i.e., from Washington, D.C. to Boston, with New York along the way), Ancient Mexico, The Caribbean Islands, Canada North and The Heart of French Canada.

EUROPEAN CUSTOMS AND MANNERS: How to Make Friends and Do Business in Europe by Nancy L. Briganti and Elizabeth Devine, revised and expanded (Meadowbrook Press/Simon & Schuster, $8 paper). Guides to personal and business etiquette in foreign countries are sometimes pretty silly, full of complex, arcane caveats that no traveler is likely to remember and no local citizen is apt to expect that traveler to observe in the first place--the “Never-take-the-sec- ond-to-last-cocktail-frank-with- your-left-hand-after-five-p.m.- when-you’re-about-to-sign-a- contract-in-Liechtenstein” sort of thing.

The present volume is a good deal more sensible than that. It does warn readers off insensitive behavior (in Spain, “Never make negative comments about bullfighting”), and away from potentially embarrassing moments (“The English pronunciation of ‘bus’ means ‘fornication’ in Hungarian! Pronounce the word ‘boos’ ”), but most of the information herein is strictly practical. There are sections on local laws (jaywalking is illegal in Germany), on driving customs (in Italy, most gas stations accept cash only) and on visits to private homes (in Finland, don’t be surprised if you’re invited to take a sauna). Notes on public holidays, office and meal hours, proper dress, tipping, public transportation and more are also offered. In short, this is a valuable reference book for anyone going to any of the 25 Europe countries it covers, especially for the first time.

It must be noted that the authors do sometimes falter a bit, however. It is not necessarily correct, for instance, that in France “A bistro is a bar, much like an English pub.” That’s one sense of of the word, but many bistros are intimate family-run restaurants, with nary a bar in sight. And anyone who tips an usher in Spain a mere 10 pesetas (slightly less than a dime), as this book counsels, had better be prepared to hear some mighty colorful Spanish.

EUROPE ON A PLATE: Eating, Drinking and Travelling Around Europe by Sarah and Denis La Touche (Benton-Guy/Seven Hills, $14.95 paper). Earlier this year, this section carried a weekly series of dispatches from Australian-born Dale Paget and his American wife Susan as they toured America in a station wagon, on a budget of less than $40 a day, with their two children in the back seat. “Europe on a Plate” is sort of the same idea--except that the La Touches are from New Zealand and are childless, their journey takes them not through America but through seven European countries, their budget was $80 a day (with a separate amount set aside for take-home purchases)--and their means of transportation was a new Volkswagen Komet Hiltop, which, I regret to report, they named Kermie the Kamper. (This isn’t surprising when you learn that the La Touches are also the authors of The Kiwi Kwickie Kookbook.) Their reports are folksy, wide-eyed, sometimes charming, sometimes evocative. Frankly, though, they aren’t liable to be of universal interest. It’s a bit like watching a slide show of a stranger’s summer vacation.

ENVIRONMENTAL VACATIONS: Volunteer Projects to Save the Planet, second edition, by Stephanie Ocko (John Muir Publications, $16.95 paper). This is a sensible but surprisingly personal how-to guide, containing both background information and specifics, for anyone who might consider devoting vacation time to doing ecological good. The author’s sense of (appropriately enough) involvement adds color and authenticity to the subject. Her entry on the Crow Canyon Archaeological Center in Cortez, Colorado, for example, begins thus: “The screen door squeaks at the Crow Canyon lodge, but if you get up really early and sit in one of the rush rocking chairs on the long porch as the sun slips over the La Plata Mountains, you might see a deer drink quietly at the pond. “ Nice. But let’s get one thing straight: No volunteer project, however well-intentioned or far-reaching, can “save” the planet. Surely helping make life (human or otherwise) on the planet a little better is goal enough.