An Absolutely Necessary Traveler's Companion

About the Book

This book was written to help make it easy for the traveler to prepare for a trip. This book is different from traveler's guides and language phrase books. Travel Guides give you maps, facts, history, places to see, places to stay and places to eat. Language phrase books give you common phrases in many languages.

An Absolutely Necessary Traveler's Companion gives you practical facts, figures, and information in an easy to read format. There is no need to spend hours to research information on the web or in the library. This book provides all the research you require.

The information includes general facts such as population, area, and Capital Cities. It includes long distance access codes to assist you dialing home, country codes to help you phone ahead and make reservations and internet codes to check the foreign country's web page for information before you go.

A section on flags of all countries helps you recognize flags when traveling, cruising, or boating.

A section on time zones helps you determine the time difference between home and your destination and includes a table to convert time to the 24-hour clock.

The section on calendars has a history of calendars and the most common calendars in use today. There is a table comparing the calendar years. The end of the section includes a perpetual calendar for all the years between 1850 and 2100. You always have an up to date calendar with you at all times.

A table listing countries alphabetically gives the most common languages and religions being used. There are three handy tables to convert Russian, Greek and Turkish to pronounceable words.

Before going on a trip check the section on passports and entry requirements. This section has a table listing countries alphabetically with the entry requirements.

There is a section on measurement systems such as metric, imperial and U.S. measures with convenient conversion factors. There are handy tables converting speed, temperature and distance.

Two sections give the highway distances between capital cities of each country. One section has charts for the Eastern Hemisphere and the other has charts for the Western Hemisphere.

The section on power gives you the voltage requirements and plug configurations of your destination country.

The section on worldwide weather and geological facts gives the longest rivers, highest mountains, the lowest land points, the deepest ocean depths, and sizes of major seas, oceans, lakes, islands and deserts.

Another section gives you facts on buying perfume and buying clothes. There is a table comparing clothing sizes worldwide.

There is also a section giving a short course on jewelry. It includes metals, gold, silver, platinum, diamonds, pearls, gemstones, and jade. Included in this section are a table of worldwide ring sizes, a table of birthstones, and a table of wedding stones. Another section gives you information on sun block, sunscreens and sunglasses.

The section on photography gives a short course on photography and film types as well as a brief description of digital cameras.

There are also sections giving a short course on how to appreciate, how to choose and where to find: beer, wine, coffee, tea and cigars.

To help you enjoy your trip a section on rules of major spectator games is included as well as a section on worldwide ski areas.

There is a major section on currency zones, converting money form one currency to another and the new Euro currency. This section also gives you the denomination of the coins and notes of each country. Currency conversion tables with accuracy to 4 decimal points are also included.

About the Author

I was born in Vancouver B.C. on December 1, 1951. Since that time I have lived in many areas of Greater Vancouver. I went to UBC in 1969-1971 studying Science and Computer Science. I changed to BCIT in 1972 and graduated with a Diploma of Technology in Electrical and Electronics. I have worked for BC Tel and now Telus since 1972 as an Engineering Technician designing telephone networks.

I am a Sagittarius with a lust for travel and looking forward to retirement so that I can do more. I have traveled through Canada, the U.S.A. (including Hawaii), Mexico, the Caribbean and Europe including England, France, Italy, Germany, Austria, Belgium and Greece (which included a Mediterranean cruise among the Greek Islands).

Before I travel, I like to do research in the library and on the internet for currencies, languages, power requirements, maps etc. I wrote this book to make it easier for myself and others to plan a trip.