National Geographic Traveler: Hawaii, 4th Edition

Nat Geo makes the best travel books. These aren't rating hotels or restaurants. These books tell about history, suggest self-guided walking tours complete with maps and commentary, or talk about less-visited attractions. I always buy the Nat Geo guidebook, when available, for my trips.

This was an anniversary gift for my son's in-laws. They lived in Hawaii for awhile. They loved the book and enjoys sharing locations they visited while living there. I was hoping the book would be bigger, more like a coffee table book.

Great guide. Wish there was a newer version.

My family is going to Hawaii/Maui for the 1st time in Feb, 2015. I got this book to learn what to do. But I was surprised that I learned way more than what to do. It tells you the history not only the fun things to do.

Good book to take on the long flight to Hawaii. Learned a lot of things that I wouldn't have known before I got there.

This book is 100% complete with information on all of the Hawaiian Islands. I'm using it for research for my next trip to Hawaii. Aloha!!!

Beautiful photographs. Definitely makes you want to board a plane and take off for Hawaii!

The 4th edition of the National Geographic Traveler devoted to Hawaii has just ONE flaw that mars an otherwise informative and well illustrated guide book, and that is the choice to use a virtually miniscule type font point size. I am going to guess that it is, officially, in 8pt - but it "reads" as if it is in 6pt throughout the entire book.It is also a very slender sans-serif typeface meaning it has little or no real "weight" on the very bright white pages. The easiest material to read is in the box insertions sprinkled across each chapter, usually in color, and in probably 10pt type. Some of the very small type is also boldface for captions, all of which is legible. But the body of the copy? Unless you have very good light or excellent eyesight good luck reading the bulk of the text!This is not a small detail, unless only 18 year old 20/20 tourists are the intended readers of this Nat Geo guide. Presumably NG intends to reach and inform as many people as possible to the truly extraordinary cultural and natural adventure that is Hawaii. And this is what is so annoying, the text by Rita Ariyoshi IS compelling, and sensitive to the unique qualities of Hawaii, to its history and its future. What a shame that the reader has to rest their eyes after every couple paragraphs, or simply give up and scan the floating boxes of detailed information.One reason for the typeface issues is that the overall book design is at fault - to preserve enormous margins (a grid system that allowed for some pages to include these floating often colored boxes of more specific material) - the body of the text is by necessity squeezed into TWO columns of text, and what I swear cannot be more than in 6pt. Essentially illegible!For the all important contact numbers and email addresses a whole page should have been dedicated and not a box, that would have allowed the body of the text to be set larger, and to these eyes, at least legible without frustration. The boxes that work the best are also in color, such as Local Lingo (p. 46), but these are found throughout the guide, and perhaps NG felt that these are the only details any reader actually wanted to absorb and note? That is quite unfortunate as the author has a nice grasp of what to say to entire a visitor and to equally imbue a sense of ensure the visitors ENSURE and MAINTAIN what is most precious and spectacular about this paradise.

this was not the best guide I bought but it did have some good features. I bought the Moon guide at Chapters. I should have bought it here instead of this one. If you can only buy one guide this is not the one.

Ich find die Reiseführer von National Geographic ohnehin sehr gut! Leider gibt es für Hawaii keine Spirallo Ausgabe. Diese Ausgabe "Traveler" ist sehr ausführlich, mit vielen Bildern und Infos. Ich würde ihn mir wieder kaufen

Ein super Buch, in dem detailliert die Besonderheiten und Sehenswürdigkeiten der einzelnen Inseln beschrieben werden. Schade ist, dass nur kleine in das Buch gedruckte Karten vorhanden sind und keine großen ausklappbaren.