With the baseball season in full swing, fans who love to travel can plan their vacation around the national sport with “Ballpark Vacations: Great Family Trips to Minor League and Classic Major League Baseball Parks” by Bruce Adams and Margaret Engel (Fodor’s; $16.50).
The guide describes the best of the minor league ballparks and classic major league parks in 75 cities and towns in the U.S. and Canada. The authors, accompanied by their two children, crisscrossed North America many times to take in major and minor league games, searching for the kind of places that many people believe don’t exist anymore, where hot dogs still cost a buck and baseball players still sign autographs.
Festivals and capitals
They say you are what you eat. Barbara Carlson has apparently taken that adage to heart for in “Food Festivals: Eating Your Way From Coast to Coast” (Visible Ink; $14.95) she explores the diversity of American culture through its cuisine. “Food Festivals” is a fun guide to more than 400 of the biggest and, sometimes, oddest food festivals in the U.S.
Carlson has a kindred spirit in Laura Bergheim, a nationally syndicated columnist and now author of “An American Festival of World Capitals From Garlic Queens to Cherry Parades” (John Wiley & Sons; $14.95), wherein she honors 350 American communities that dare to celebrate their differences. This unique guide is a refreshing change from the generic strip malls and homogeneous retail chains that increasingly clog America’s roads and highways.
Organized thematically, each chapter includes information on dozens of “world” capitals around the country from Cape Ann, Mass., the Whale Watching Capital of the World, to South Haven, Mich., the Blueberry Capital of the World. There’s also Mattoon, Ill., the Bagel Capital of the World (home to the huge Lender’s bagel factory), and Bardstown, Ky., the Bourbon Capital of the World.
Museums, L.A.-style
Everyone knows Los Angeles as the entertainment capital of the world, but few probably know that it is also, according to Borislav Stanic, the world’s museum capital. Stanic, author of “The Museum Companion to Los Angeles” (Museon Publishing, P.O. Box, 17095, Dept. CT, Beverly Hills, Calif. 90209; $19.95 plus $3 shipping and handling), claims Los Angeles has more museums than any other city in the world.
This handsome and comprehensive guidebook describes virtually all the cultural treasures of Los Angeles, featuring detailed descriptions of nearly 300 art museums, historic buildings, libraries, special museums and collections, botanical gardens and zoos in Los Angeles County. It also includes 17 city and area maps, detailed museum and garden plans, and more than 800 photographs.
