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Ingredients:
• 1 Internet connection
• 1 printer
• paper clips, one small box
• 1 yellow highlighter (you can substitute pink or blue or green, according to just how fruity you are)
• 1 box cutter
• 1 pen or marker
• 1 glass of wine
• Envelopes (approximately 1 per country/region)
• Guidebooks, assorted
1. Using your highlighter, sift your guidebook(s) well, to figure out where you are interested in going. This is a great way to cut down the entire world into more manageable bites. Highlight what interests you, be it a city, an activity, or a tourist site.
2. With your box cutter (or just your hands), carefully slice (or rip) out the pages of your guidebook that you will be needing. You do not want any excess weight, and unless you’re going to absolutely every place in the book, then you don’t need it.* It is very important that you go easy on the wine at this point, unless you are really good at drinking and slicing.
3. Turn on your computer and get online. Go to travel web sites. Go to blogs that cover the regions you are interested in. Go to local city councils’ and tourist offices’ sites. Find transit
The Process
It can get a little messy maps, tips, advice, and other general information. Get more information on the place you want to go. Branch out and look for what wasn’t in the guidebook. Especially read the forums (I suggest Lonely Planet thorn tree -
http://www.lonelyplanet.com/thorntree/index.jspa), as they will have the most up-to-date information.
4. Print out the information that you want to have with you. Let’s not go nuts, now - try to save a few trees.
5. Mix together information from the guidebooks and the Internet, dividing portions by city, region, and country. Decide how macro you want to get: I suggest by country.
6. Remove paper clips from box and use to clip items from each city (or region or country) that need to stay together. Put them in an envelope which you have labeled. For example, you could staple together information on Bangkok into a packet, do the same for Chiang Mai and Sukothai, and then place both packets into an envelope labeled “Thailand.”**
7. Sit back, enjoy the rest of your wine, and admire your work.
*The beauty of this is that you eliminate unwanted weight and space, so that you can stash more Immodium in your
Final Product
I have boiled down two huge guidebooks into several slim packets! backpack. When you leave a place, donate your packets to a traveler just arriving, throw them away, or use them as emergency toilet paper. Also, if you pick up any small souvenirs that you want to keep (money, postcards, phone numbers from the bar), you can put them in the envelope and that way you'll remember where you got them.
**An added benefit to this method is that when you visit countries like China, you will not have your guidebook confiscated. The Chinese, for example, have been known to confiscate guidebooks because they do not show Taiwan as part of the country, or because they criticize their treatment of Tibet. Other similarly repressive countries could very well do the same if they disapprove of the publisher.
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**New readers: Get the quick and dirty at
. You can start at the beginning or pick anywhere you like to start living vicariously (or laughing vicariously, as it will most likely turn out)
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non-member comment
Speed reader
The fact that you did that in one evening over one glass of wine is impressive...or an art form.