DK Eyewitness Travel: My Favorite Guide Books Feature Article Discussion Forum

I first discovered books from DK Publishing when my children were babies. We had a picture book from DK called My Big Book of Everything. This book had very sharp pictures of every day objects and I credit it as being a great early vocabulary builder for both of my children. They are now middle school age and travel with us on many of our cruises. I have again turned to the DK Publishing company for guide books that help me both plan my shore excursion and educate my children about the places we will be visiting.

My recent collection now includes Barcelona, Madeira Top 10, Mexico, The Canary Islands and Rome. The "travel guides" are full size books, vary from just over 200 pages to about 500 pages, and are the most comprehensive. The "Top 10" books are tall pocket sized, about 120 or so pages, and provide the highlights of the top ten attractions in a range of categories. Both books contain hundreds of photographs, helpful maps, phrases and practical traveler's information.

Features of Full Size Books
Perhaps what I like most about the full size books is the way that they utilize graphics and illustrations as well as text to present what is unique and worth seeing at your destination.

Science
Sometimes the books will use these techniques to convey geological or biological highlights of the destinations. In the Canary Islands book they use graphics …