Unforgettable Places to See Before You Die

by Steve Davey, Marc Schlossman

An inspiring exploration of the forty most memorable travel destinations in the world. As travelers become more experienced and sophisticated, they become more discriminating about their destinations. Many are seeking the unusual and avoiding the routine and predictable tours. Unforgettable Places to See Before You Die takes readers to familiar places, like the Taj Mahal, and lesser known destinations like Lalibela, Ethopia. Three hundred magnificent photographs accompany fascinating essays about each location. The chapters cover forty destinations ranging from New York City to Petra, Jordan, The book features international destinations for extraordinary scenery, ancient monuments, unusual cultures, rare wildlife, soaring architecture, art and more. The sites range from wilderness areas to cities to uninhabited locations and ruins of past civilizations. Unforgettable Places to See Before You Die is aimed at adventurous travelers seeking new sights and experiences. It offers insider tips and practical advice for maximizing the enjoyment of each visit such as avoiding crowds, best time of the year to visit and more. With gorgeous photography, this book is a must for international and armchair travelers.

Genres: Travel, Nonfiction, Reference, Coffee Table Books

256 pages, Paperback

First published March 18, 2004

About the author

Steve Davey is a photographer and writer, whose work has appeared all over the world. He is the author of Footprint Travel Photography - the leading guide to travelling with a camera.

Reviews

[Tugbadursun]

Kitapta bahsedilen yerlerin çoğu benim için pek ziyaret edilesi noktalar değil, yani fazla zorlu yolculuklar içeriyor. O yüzden onları okumak, fotoğraflarına bakmak güzel oldu. Tabii tarih olarak 2004'te çıktığı için çoğu bilgi eski kalmış. Ama eğer siz benden daha cesur bir gezginseniz, belki kitap oralara gitmeniz için size ilham verebilir. Santorini kısmında verilen "katırlar sizi ezebilir" uyarısını keşke gitmeden önce okusaydım dedim 😅

[Clare]

This book is bad for you if you suffer from wanderlust! It is a very exciting book to read and kick starts all manner of trip planning. Honestly I want to visit just about everywhere in the book but now top of my list are St. Petersburg, Havana, the Grand Canyon, the Alhambra in Granada, Aitutaki in the Cook Islands, Karnak Temple in Egypt, Rio de Janeiro, New York, Ngorongoro Crater in Tanzania, Santorini, Makalu in the Himalayas and Machu Picchu. So a whole lot of dreaming going on! There is so much more in here too. And the photography is beautiful.

[Amy]

This book isn’t one I would use for my travel planning. I didn’t find it too inspiring with the photos that made me jump up and say, “Oh, I want to go there!” And it didn’t give any ideas for what I would do once I did go to particular places. After awhile, you get a sense of complete desolation or isolation from the photos. The author isn’t enamored or interested in other people. Even photos or NYC or India lack photos of people.

[Ligaya]

Interesting travel and photo book but I didn't understand the order in which the book was organized, if any, and maps would have been very helpful. Beautiful photographs, many of which were strangely devoid of people, and blessedly short text for most of each site. Now in 2018, much of the flight and hotel info is likely out of date but this is still a good book to start of list of things to-do.

[Ian Laird]

Steve Davey gets tetchy when he is not permitted to photograph rock paintings and other sacred sites at Uluru in Central Australia. Doing so would be offensive to the local First Nation people, so he has to content himself by including several similar views of the whole rock at a distance taken at different times of the day.

On the one hand he acknowledges ‘Balancing the needs of Anangu [local traditional owners] and the tourists shows the difficulty of resolving the differences between a culture that pretty much values and reveres everything with a culture that seems to revere almost nothing.’ (p196). But he must have been having a bad day as he cannot let it go and continues by saying the commercial photography provisions ‘effectively rule out photographing almost half the site,’ (p196).

As a non-indigenous Australian who has enjoyed walking around Uluru (as of October 2019, walking on Uluru is not permitted) and Kata Tjuta (formerly ‘The Olgas’), and marvelling at the beauty and spirituality of both places, I have little sympathy for foreigners put out because they can’t take a picture. We should remember Sean O’Connell’s words to Walter Mitty. Sean explains that he sometimes refrains from taking a photo (in this case a reclusive snow leopard), keeping the experience just for himself.

Having got all that off my chest, this is, nevertheless, a remarkably balanced selection of 40 places round the planet worth seeing in person. Forty is a small number, it would be easy to choose 140. Thirty-four countries are included with several having a couple of entries - China, Brazil and Australia, while India (the Taj Mahal, Varanasi and the Jaisalmer Fort) and the USA (the Grand Canyon, Manhattan and College Fjord, in Alaska) have three each. While debate might rage over what has not been included, there’s a nice mix of the familiar (say Venice, Machu Picchu) and the out of the way (Taman Negara rainforest in Malaysia, Lake Titicaca), urban (Rio, Dubrovnik) and wildly scenic, the most striking of the latter being a lake pan in Namibia, the Dead Vlei, where it appears not to have rained forever, and, by way of contrast, College Fjord in Alaska, fed by sixteen glaciers.

The photographs, taken by Davey and associate Mark Schlossman, over a short span of time, are fresh and immediate, often capturing the flavour of the place: animal life on the Galapagos Islands; classic American automobiles in Havana; skyscrapers in Manhattan and daily life in Jaisalmer Fort in Rajasthan, India.

Particularly arresting is the Islamic architecture of the Alhambra in Granada, Spain and Samarkand, Uzbekistan, on the old Silk Road.

[Kim]

A short description of forty places to visit that are supposedly "unforgettable". The photos are beautiful and I love that they added a PostScript on how to get there and where to stay.

[boredroom]

The book gives a brief history and the reasons why the places are unforgettable to provide an overall insight. It is worth a read if you like to travel and connect with the world.

[Alayne]

A nice picture book with some basic descriptions. A little disappointing really :(

[Max DT]

pretty pictures!

[Agnese Jurģele]

Nice “photo album”. Unfortunately with very basic info about places without personal stories and adventures.

[Andrew Charters]

This book is more satisfying than similar collections because of the greater depth and the individual collection with some quite unusual choices.

[Destiny]

Loved!

[Poppy Marlowe]

NO mention of Niagara Falls??? Beesh, please.

[Ayşe Naz]

kütüpchallenge #3
ders çalışmamak için kütüpte random gezerken bulup aldım ve tek oturuşta bitirdim
😭😭😭ben de gitmek istiyorum bu yerlereee

[Heather Larcombe]

Both inspiring and depressing.

[Melissa]

I like this book because it has a potentially doable list of really incredible places to visit. I've seen so many lists of "must see" places that drive me crazy because it is so many that it'd be impossible to see them all in your lifetime unless your job IS traveling to these places. 55 places is still a lot, but maybe I could do it before I die. I'd like to try! This book is also cool because it has practical directions on how to get to these places (for example, to Cuba for Americans, or to see the Ngorongoro crater in Africa). It also explains why they pick these places, also, they got realistic "current" photos of each place before publishing the book.

[Vicki]

This book is a collection of different places around the world, such as the Bund in Shanghai, Machu Pichu in Peru, etc. to visit.
Each place is described briefly with highlights, is accompanied by pictures - that unfortunately do not necessarily follow the description of the place, and provides information on how to get to that place - but many are already out of date.
Almost all the descriptions of the places include "visit this place at sunrise or early in the morning to avoid the tourist crowd and to have great views of the area".
The pictures provided are clear and tasteful.

[Ninja Neko]

Skimmed through to see the pictures, these places have been covered in many of the travel guides I own so no need to read info again. But it did remind me that I should try to make a trip out to Giverny next month, It's a 4,5 hour drive from my home and I feel I should just take a random day off work and go for it.

[Ruth Soz]

I have travelled extensively in the U.S., but my international voyages have begun and ended in Canada. After reading this, I want to pack my bags and become a world traveller!

The format is like a coffee table book, and offers fantastic photos as well as advice for visiting each place.

[Kalle Wescott]

Life is short, and shared experiences are one of the things that can make life special.

So, reading a few books like this to plan some future trips is well worth the corresponding tiny investment of time.

Steve Davy's offering is a super-easy read and filled with colorful photos.

[Cherie]

B While the photos are lovely, the text is quite crap, and it brings it down. Still, most of the photos are inspiring.

[Sarah Butcher]

this is w great book given to me by fiance for places we NEED TOO SEE! Its a on-going book!

[Joanne]

Beautiful book with wonderful pictures of great places - it is nice to dream of visiting them. Most were well known but a few were more obscure.

[Melissa]

[2007.07]

[Peter]

beautiful: A beutiful book, which allows you to tick off the places you'd never normally venture too. I loved it.

[Julie]

Great book very nicely put together great advice and pictures really enjoyed it

[Girish Nayyar]

A simple easy way to travel some astounding places in the world...

[Robot Cat]

A great reference to checklist where to travel next. Out of 40 places recommended, I have done only 7, so much more to go!

[Jeanie]

What a beautiful world we're in. North America is a good place to start.

[Joanna Reed]

easy to read, not overloaded with info just enough to peak your interest. wasn't wowed by the selection of places to see but have me more than a few ideas for places I'd like to visit.