Take a journey into the unknown and discover the planets wildest and most wonderful sights. Paddle through the eerie glowworm caves of New Zealand, ride with the wild horses of the Namib desert, swing off the end of the world in Ecuador, and be amazed at hundreds more wonders you never knew existed!
This travel companion for the incurably curious is your guide to finding the worlds most amazing secret places. So grab your compass and lets get started as you explore the far corners of our world. Start your adventure in the west at Hawaiis Pineapple Garden Maze, before travelling along the line of longitude to Vanuatus underwater post office.
Get ready to bungee jump off a road to nowhere in the Brazilian jungle, or lose yourself in the worlds largest maze. Whether deep underwater in a prehistoric grotto or high on a cliff at the tip of a rock trolls tongue, afloat on waters as pink as a rose or swimming with pigs on a sandy beach, adventure awaits around every corner.
About Lonely Planet Kids: Lonely Planet Kids an imprint of the worlds leading travel authority Lonely Planet published its first book in 2011. Over the past 45 years, Lonely Planet has grown a dedicated global community of travellers, many of whom are now sharing a passion for exploration with their children. Lonely Planet Kids educates and encourages young readers at home and in school to learn about the world with engaging books on culture, sociology, geography, nature, history, space and more. We want to inspire the next generation of global citizens and help kids and their parents to approach life in a way that makes every day an adventure. Come explore!
Nicole was born in the suburban farm country of upstate New York, and began writing at a very early age. Of course, her early works consisted mainly of poems about rainbows and unicorns, although one of them was good enough to win honorable mention in a national poetry contest! (Perhaps one of the judges was a ten-year-old girl.) Throughout high school, her creative writing was always nurtured and encouraged.
Nicole attended Emerson College as an acting major, and graduated cum laude with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree. Post-college, she worked as an actress in New York City for over a decade, focusing mainly on Shakespeare and the classics.
Now living in Los Angeles, Nicole balances writing full-time with motherhood. WINTER FALLS, the first in her TWIN WILLOWS TRILOGY (Medallion Press, 2014) is her debut novel. She has a stand-alone novel, HEARTLINES, coming out in February 2015 with SourceBooks Fire, as well as the second and third novels in the TWIN WILLOWS TRILOGY in 2015 and 2016.
You know how sometimes you want to look for the places that are out of the way and off the beaten path? This book doubles (for me at least) as a handy travel guide to all those places you wish you’d heard of before — AND — it’s an introduction for young readers (aged 9-12) that the world is so much bigger, weirder and wonderful than they thought.
The book is divided into different longitudes, so right next to learning about the Waitavala Water Slide in Taveuni, Fiji young readers will learn about the Aniakchak National Monument and Preserve, Alaska.
Or right next to a page on Tank Town, USA (yes, it’s famous for allowing you to drive tanks and crush cars), you’ll find that Hell does exist — on Grand Cayman in the Cayman Islands. It contains a group of ancient limestone formation that are spiky black rocks that look like they’re rising out of hell.
Honestly, seeing the beauty of these places just brings home how big our world is, and really, we’re all just one very, very small part of it. It’s a gorgeous, out of left field introduction to the world, customs and people and if you like travelling, whatever your age, you’re going to adore this.
Although this book is aimed at the 9-12 years age range, I really enjoyed reading this book myself. There are over 150 different places to discover. Hidden Wonders takes us through them starting with most west and travels east. There are some really pretty amazing places that I have never heard of before and some that I wouldn't mind visiting one day.
My youngest son, Aaron (9), loved this book! He was fascinated with all the strange and wonderful places. The photo are really great too. This is a book that you can come back to again and again.
This “Guide to the Planet’s Wildest, Weirdest Places” will take you on a ride, uncovering sights you never knew existed. This book offers over 200 of the world’s most weirdly wonderful places including a cave of giant crystals, a grove of singing trees, and a cave illuminated by glowworms.
From the beautiful raised cover to the hidden secrets found within, this informative and engaging book is likely to infect everyone with the travel bug, including parents—consider yourselves warned!
It's marketed to kids but it's a fascinating read for adults too. The book features so-called "hidden wonders" from around the world. Granted, quite a lot of them I'd never heard of, but those were pretty unimpressive. As for the rest, I'd seen or read about them before, so wouldn't exactly call them "hidden". Many of them are man-made things like sculptures, artworks, etc. The rest are archaeological sites or natural formations. None of the locations featured that I didn't already know about really stood out to me as a "must-see", but they were still interesting to read about I guess. Every featured place is accompanied by at least one eye-catching photo. The book layout is attractive and practical.
Yes the imaginary worlds are wonderful, but this year (2020) there is another world that feels imaginary as well. This one. I want to visit our earth, please. All the hidden wonders of it.
I will note, however, that this is very clearly written by a white person, in ways that are at times cringy. Lots of holy sites described as one might describe a quaint oddity, Burma labeled as Myanmar, and "Egungun Voodoo Ceremony" listed among the attractions, as if this religious ceremony were a landmark. Still, on the whole I found it to be a great way to thumb through the world, especially while sitting at home in lockdown.
Question some of the accuracy (esp historical and scientific), and the photos could be better, but pretty good repackaging of some of the guidebook writeups.
Will see if we use any of these to inspire vacations (maybe New Zealand? :) ).
Seems like there’s over representation of Colombia in here...guess maybe that’s a good sign that the Colombia/South America guidebook might be fairly adventure-oriented?
Beautiful but uneven collecting of interesting and offbeat places around the world. Most entries contain beautiful photographs, though the description may make you wish they had chosen a different angle to match up better. Some places are not around anymore, as described. Fun to browse, though not good for serious research beyond picking a topic.
Absolutely beautiful book! This one takes pride and place on our bookcase with the front on show. Everybody comments on it when they visit and it has certainly got our minds racing about the next big adventure!
This book opens up your mind to so many incredible places. Alot are not accessible to normal hikers, but this book shows you many beautiful treasures. Great pictures, and a must for your little explorer.
A lovely collection of truly hidden wonders - most of which I've never heard about. Photos accompanying were now and then underwhelming but overall an intriguing and fun read.