It is pretty much routine these days for travelers to pack some sort of guidebook when they head out on an
adventure. For years, I’ve been a dutiful fan of the guides done by Lonely Planet, Let’s Go, Insight and Moon. But it
is not just the long-distance trips where guidebooks prove their usefulness. Sometimes it is nice to get your hands on
a guidebook that tells you a bit about your own back yard.
So last weekend I mentioned that I took a nice drive up
the Hudson Valley to check out a few of the little towns and to visit the (regretfully bad) Green Corn Festival. Well,
I neglected to mention in my post that for the trip I carried along the
Moon Guides Handbook to the Hudson Valley, and I was
very surprised (and pleased) how good it was. Written by Nikki Goth Itoi, who grew up in the Catskills and so obviously
knows the area, the book does a fine job highlighting the history of the region and providing tips on some of the
lesser known spots (like the Sleepy Hollow Graveyard) that you might otherwise zoom by without a second thought.
Very often the maps in guidebooks are so bad that they are virtually worthless, but the Moon Guides maps were spot on,
and basically obviated the need for me to carry or use my state map. The notes on the various places we visited (Sleepy
Hollow, Irvington, etc.) were also nicely detailed and really helped flesh out our understanding of the area. The book
was so helpful that as the Fall colors arrive in the region this year, I’ll be bringing along the Moon guide again.
Thumbs up.