Early Spring Armchair Travel

The only thing better than lazing away afternoons with a good book is being on a trip and lazing away afternoons with a good book. Our internal GPS systems always take us to the local bookstore or book section of a local gift shop. When we leave home there's always enough room in the bag to tuck in one or two new books. While in Santa Barbara I visited both Barnes & Noble and Borders - even though we have both stores near our home. They each had great local book sections.

[Yes, we know Kindle would simplify the packing and the selection, but it would seriously hamper our ability to browse local stores and we are old fashioned: we love books printed on paper.]

Even when we are home, our books take us on trips to new and old-favorite destinations. We've been updating a list of our 'armchair travel favorites' in the right-hand column. And we recently added a carousel book display because it shows the covers of 10 of our current recommendations. By simply clicking on the book, you will go to the Amazon web site where you can flip through the book, read a few pages, and read reviews of zillions of others, not just us.

[Disclaimer: if you purchased a book using this link, we earn about 40-cents, so it isn't a money-making venture. We just liked the ability to show the book and make looking at it a simple one-click process. We hate finding a title, writing it down and then losing it before getting to the right web site or forgetting to bring the note when we get to a bookstore.]

We've had several books recommended recently by readers of our blog and we will be reading them soon. We also plan -- when we aren't on the road -- to change the books on the carousel every couple of weeks. If you've got a recommendation for armchair travel we encourage you to write a comment about it so other readers can see your recommendations as well.