The trouble with books about the Internet is that as soon as they're published, they're often out of date.
As the Internet gradually and somewhat painfully matures, too much happens too fast for a printed book to keep abreast. In the last few months, for example, dozens of new sites have appeared on the World Wide Web, claiming to help tailor vacations to travelers' needs. Meanwhile, sites of airlines, hotels, auto rental companies and on-line travel agencies have undergone substantial revision.
The Internet, however, has proved to be a valuable ally in helping to keep travel books current. For example, a 39-year-old elder statesman of cyberspace, Marcus L. Endicott, has posted two of his books on-line and updates them electronically. At www.infotec-travel.com/tetwarn.htm you'll find an updated version of his "The Electronic Traveler," a guide to tourism information sources on the Internet, originally published in 1994.
Endicott is gradually updating his other book, "Vagabond Globetrotting," a primer to foreign independent travel, originally published in 1984 and revised in 1989. You'll find it at www.green-travel.com/vgwarn.htm. He also built comprehensive Web sites about travel in the Czech Republic (www.czech-tourism.com) and Russia (www.russia-tourism.com). He created excellent on-line bulletin boards about travel and tourism generally (www.infotec-travel.com) and to encourage discussion about ecotourism (www.green-travel.com).
Several current print books are devoted to using the Internet for travel information and planning. One of the best was published recently in England. It is "Travel and Holiday Siteseeing," by Irene Krechowiecka, published by How To Books of Oxford and Plymouth. It's available in the United States for $19.95 plus shipping from Trans-Atlantic Publications Inc., 311 Bainbridge St., Philadelphia, PA 19147 (215-925-5083; e-mail order@transatlanticpub.com).
The book aims primarily at readers in Britain, but most of the information and advice are valid for Americans too. In fact, because the Internet is universal -- available to anyone, anywhere, with access to a cable line or telephone -- it leads to valuable foreign sources of information as easily as to those close to home. For some American travelers, learning how to buy discounted air tickets in London, for example, can be a distinct plus.
Krechowiecka places more emphasis on Internet techniques than on particular sites. This enhances her book's durability. In covering such subjects as active vacations, home exchanges, getting there and researching a destination, she emphasizes how to use the Internet and keeps suggested sites to a minimum.
- "Travel Planning Online for Dummies," by Noah Vadnai (Dummies Press division of IDG Books Worldwide, 919 E. Hillsdale Blvd., Foster City, CA 94404, and available at www.amazon.com and www.barnesandnoble.com for $19.99). Vadnai, a young former backpacker who's traipsed through the Middle East, Asia and most of North America, is a tremendous human warehouse of Internet travel detail. His up-to-the-minute knowledge of travel sites was a great asset when he headed the travel section of CMP Publications' on-line NetGuide (www.netguide.com). He brought much of that knowledge to his book.
It tells in detail -- from first mouse click to the last -- how to deal with many programs, but much of this information is perishable. Overall, you'll doubtless learn a lot, but don't be surprised if things don't always work as Vadnai says.
- "Net Travel: How Travelers Use the Internet," by Michael Shapiro (O'Reilly & Associates, 101 Morris St., Sebastopol, CA 95472, and available at www.amazon.com and www.barnesandnoble.com for $19.96). Excellent when it was published in April 1997 and still largely valid, but a lot has changed and developed since then.
- "Fodor's Net Travel," by Mary Goodwin, Kristin Miller and Shaun Witten (Michael Wolff and Company, distributed by Random House, 201 E. 50th St., New York, NY 10022, and available at www.amazon.com for $17.60). It's an extensive directory of travel Web sites with assessments of their usefulness. It was fine when published in 1996, but hardly authoritative today. On-line updates were supposed to be available at the Wolff Web site at www.ypn.com, but today that site belongs to a technology marketing group.
- "1998 Rough Guide to the Internet and World Wide Web," by Angus J. Kennedy (Rough Guides, 375 Hudson Street, New York, NY 10014, and available at www.amazon.com and www.barnesandnoble.com for $7.16). This thick 4- by 5 1/2-inch volume, published in November 1997 by a major British guidebook publisher, is a primer to using the Internet generally but includes a lot about travel sites. You'll get a good idea of what appeals to Brits.
A comprehensive directory of just about all the books in the field published in English since 1994 -- some of them now out of print -- is available in what Marcus Endicott calls his "Internet Travel Book Hall of Fame." You'll find it at www.infotec-travel.com/ittravbk.htm.
The Internet, incidentally, is a handy place to read guidebooks free, if you don't mind scrolling down a computer screen. Unabridged versions of all 100-plus Rough Guides are at www.roughguides.com where, in electronic version, they can be updated easily. Substantial material from Fodor's print guidebooks, including restaurant and lodging recommendations, and destination information from the Lonely Planet series are available on many Web sites plus the publishers' own.
The Fodor's site (www.fodors.com) helps visitors to put together their own personal guidebooks to 99 destinations. At www.lonelyplanet.com, the publisher offers so-called "upgrades" containing information gathered since printed publication. "You can print them out and stick them in the back of your current guide," the company says.