100 Places to Go Before They Disappear by Patrick Drew

100 Places to Go Before They Disappear by Patrick Drew
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

What would our world look like if the planet's average temperature were to rise by only a few degrees? Cities including Venice, Bangkok, London, Chicago, and New York would experience severe flooding. The tea fields of Sri Lanka and the vineyards of France would suffer under heat and drought. Beijing and Timbuktu would be transformed into deserts, and the Great Barrier Reef's coral colonies would die. The entire nation of Tuvalu would sink into the Pacific Ocean as water levels rise. As plants and animals vital to local ecosystems continue to perish due to climate change, the face of our planet is already being transformed. 100 Places to Go Before They Disappear features locations on all seven continents that are in the greatest danger of disappearing within our lifetime. With an essay by Desmond Tutu, this stunning book will inspire travellers and environmentalists to help save the gorgeous places that might soon be only a memory.



I love travel and visiting interesting places that are off the beaten track. I spend hours browsing travel photography and information books looking for inspiration on my next adventures. This is what I was expecting from this, a little gem, hopefully that would become one of my favourites in my collection. I was, however very disappointed in it.

When reading it, it turned into a nag basically at how the human race has damaged the world we live in and things like Global Warming and other things are making the world change and as a consequence a lot of wonderful places will soon no longer exist. I found the book was a little heavy at times and not really what I was looking forward to at all.

The photography is hit and miss also in the book I found, some of the photographs are beautiful, while others look like they could have been taken by an amateur and didn't really feel that they 'fit' in the book.

Some of the places highlighted in the book were unexpected such as 'Chicago' that perhaps initially you wouldn't have thought would be vulnerable. So the book did have an element of surprise for me, but unfortunately I found most of it was just a moan at how awful people are.

There are many very good 'coffee table' books out there and this is not one of them. It is smaller than expected and for me too deep. This will sit on my bookshelves, but I don't think I will be picking it up for some time. Perhaps I misinterpreted the book before I started reading it, but it was not what I expected at all and was just so disappointed it didn't live up to my expectations. Saying this, this book might be exactly what someone is looking for and love it. Don't get me wrong, this is very well researched and includes some background information on places. But it's not for me.

I would like to thank the publisher for sending this in exchange for an honest review.