Best of the Midwest: Rediscovering America's Heartland (Insiders ' Guide)

Join Midwest Living's founding editor Dan Kaercher as he travels through twelve states in America's heartland, visiting the hidden corners and vibrant cities that make this region great. Beautiful photographs and an engaging text are supplemented by practical information, allowing readers to turn their armchairs' reading into a memorable vacation of their own.

 (2 customer reviews)

Great writing, aritcles and beautiful pictures. I love Midwest Living Magazine, but sometimes wonder if I'm paying more for the ads than the acutal articles that appear. This book features great writing (the article on the Spring Green Wisconsin't House On The Rock) and destinations that sometimes get overlooked. (Good test: Read the articles on places that you've already visited. In some cases, they make you want to go back for some little detail you missed.) Well worth it just for reading pleasure, and planning those odd, offbeat vacations that are memorable.

Perhaps it just the essay form that doesn't appeal to me or maybe its the rather bland photography, but this book doesn't inspire me to leave my chair and head into the hinterlands.

I expected more of a tour guide, something that would lead me to nooks and crannies of the Midwest best known to locals or adventurous travellers. Nothing like that to be found here. This book covers the well-known and the already well-described.

Overall rhe book is disappointing. Frommer's or similar guides generally tell you much more about the areas. I admit, though, that I may not get the point of this book. It may be nothing more than a journal of a single traveller , not particularly intended to inform, but more to record the individual's experience. In that case, it is simply boring.

Jerry