Best Washington, D.C. Travel Guides

"Our Washington, D.C." is a pictorial celebration showcasing the areas stunning monuments and scenes, offering a glimpse into what makes this city so unique--from the historic homes, trendy neighborhoods, and diverse special events and festivals to the people who live and work in the capital city. Paul Franklin is a travel photographer and writer whose work has appeared in numerous national publications, including Yankee, WoodenBoat, Travel America, Coast to Coast, Harrowsmith, and others.

Alexander Hamilton’s story reminds you of a “classic rags to riches” story that has his childhood in the British West Indies and how he left West Indies and immigrated to North America to receive a first class education; and later become a hero in the Revolutionary War and General George Washington’s right-hand man.

2010 Washington, DC/Baltimore Restaurants covers over 1,100 restaurants in Washington, Baltimore, Annapolis, the Eastern Shore and Northern Virginia.

Inspired by the frugality and philosophy of Henry David Thoreau, Ilgunas undertook a 3-year transcontinental jour¬ney, working in Alaska as a tour guide, garbage picker, and night cook to pay off his student loans before hitchhiking home to New York. For recent University of Buffalo liberal-arts graduate Ilgunas, however, the sight of $32,000 printed in black and white on a Sallie Mae loan statement yielded a life-changing epiphany. Instead of remaining shackled to his low-wage job at a Niagara Falls Home Depot and rooming with his parents to better whittle away his debt, Ilgunas struck off to remote Coldfoot, Alaska, to get a taste of wilderness living while working as a cook and sometime nature guide. Many years, odd jobs, and escapades later, including hitchhiking across the U.S., paddling a canoe as a “voyageur” across Northern Canada, and joining a cleanup crew in Katrina-ravaged rural Mississippi, Ilgunas was finally debt-free. Inspired by Thoreau’s example of low-impact living, and determined to minimize housing expenses to avoid another mountain of debt, Ilgunas spent the last of his savings on a used vehicle he variously dubs the titular “Walden on wheels” or “a creepy red van.” Replete with colorful anecdotes and disarming wit, Ilgunas’ account is both a goad for chronic debtors and an irresistibly engrossing true-life adventure tale. --Carl Hays " Walden on Wheels [is] a remarkable memoir that manages to stay light on its feet while saying a great deal about the state of modern American society. "Replete with colorful anecdotes and disarming wit, Ilgunas’ account is both a goad for chronic debtors and an irresistibly engrossing true-life adventure tale." " Walden on Wheels , a remarkable memoir that manages to stay light on its feet while saying a great deal about the state of modern American society. Thoughtful and well-crafted, [and] inspiring to read, Walden on Wheels , reminds one that life is made up of the little things, the experiences gained, the adventures survived, rather than the consumables acquired." "Wrapped in a powerfully told, often self-deprecating travel memoir, Walden on Wheels delivers important, even life-changing, insights into navigating your way to a saner life in a sometimes insane, debt-driven, consumer culture." "Among many other delights, Ken Ilgunas offers a fresh, provocative perspective on the student debt debate in his rollicking coming-of-age memoir—a funny and inspirational debut."

Living in a tent even through brutal winters, he had survived by his wits and courage, developing ingenious ways to store edibles and water, and to avoid freezing to death. It is a gripping story of survival that asks fundamental questions about solitude, community, and what makes a good life, and a deeply moving portrait of a man who was determined to live his own way, and succeeded. Though the ‘stranger’ in the title is Knight, one closes the book with the sense that Knight, like all seers, is the only sane person in a world gone insane—that modern civilization has made us strangers to ourselves." —Jennifer Senior, The New York Times "Michael Finkel has done something magical with this profound book… [His] investigation runs deep, summoning…the human history of our own attempts to find meaning in a noisy world."