It’s never too soon to start planning your next great travel experience.  If you plan on traveling this summer, winter is a wonderful time to check out travel books and trawl through websites looking for a new favorite destination.  I like to travel and I think I come by my travel DNA honestly.  My parents took me along as a kid on summer vacations to places such as the Grand Canyon, Disneyland (before there was a Disney World), Glacier National Park, the New York World’s Fair, and many more locations around the U.S. and Canada.  We camped with a tent-trailer—usually one my dad built himself—and drove everywhere there were roads and a few places there weren’t.  Believe it or not, gas was actually cheaper than it is today as I write this.

I still travel, but now I usually let Delta do the driving, and book a hotel room well in advance instead of watching for campground signs; less time traveling, more time enjoying the destination.  Besides, I saw most of the landscape in between from the back seat of our Nash Rambler when I was a kid.

Not so long ago, a AAA TripTik and a Mobil Travel Guide were the cutting edge of planning resources.   Today there are a plethora of resources; and yes, even books, many of which are available as downloadable e-books from Overdrive or Freading.  One of my favorite series of books are the Rick Steves travel guides.  You can’t turn on a PBS station (especially during pledge drives) without the ubiquitous Rick showing up.  What I like about his information is that is practical and can apply to almost any budget, for example, how to pack everything you need for a week in Europe into your carry-on luggage (hint #1: only take the shoes you wear to the airport).

The library has a number of other good guidebooks, including Fodor’s, Frommer’s, DK Eyewitness, and Lonely Planet, all of which cover just about every destination on the globe, many available as e-books as well.  If your trip takes you to a country where English is not the primary language, learn a new language or brush up on one you haven’t used in a while with our newest language learning service, Pronunciator.

I’ve got Paris and Hawaii on my bucket list, but I’m open to suggestion.  What great destinations and travel tips would you like to share?