Landscape, Society and Meaning
Tourism and Tourist Guides
Develop a 3-5 page (minimum), double-spaced paper on one of the following questions.
Your paper should cite and discuss an relevant assigned readings from class.
1. Create a mashup of a print or web-based tourist guide of a major US or foreign city
you have visited or would like to visit. Use the same methodology we employed with
the Green Guide for the Negro Motorist to map the tourist sites on Google Maps.
Analyze the patterns that you find. For what type of tourist is your guide written?
What elements of the environment are singled out for attention and for what reasons?
For larger cities, you may have to restrict the sites you map to a single district or area.
2. Create a mashup of a contemporary print or web-based guide designed for tourists
with very specific interests in sports, foods, history, art or other topics. I have listed a
few guides below not to recommend them, but to suggest the range of types. You
need to find a guide which is of interest to you. Analyze the patterns that you find.
For what type of tourist is your guide written? What elements of the environment are
singled out for attention and for what reasons? What is left out?
Donald Q. Cannon, Keith W. Perkins and LaMar C. Berrett, Sacred places: A
comprehensive guide to Latter Day Saint historical sites Ohio and Illinois (2001).
There are five other volumes in this series on Mormon historical sites.
Andrew Collins, Fodor's gay guide to San Francisco and the bay area (1997).
Townsend Davis, Weary feet, rested souls: A guided history of the civil rights movement
(1998).
Ben Frank, A travel guide to the Jewish Caribbean and South America (2004).
George Fuller, California golf (2004)
Polly Welts Kaufman, Jean Gibran, Sylvia McDowell and Mary Howland Smoyer,
Boston women's heritage trail: Seven self-guided walks through four centuries of
Boston women's history (2006)
Jim Leff, The eclectic gourmet guide to greater New York City: The Undiscovered world
of hyperdelicious offbeat eating in all five burroughs (1998).
Judith Paine McBrien, Pocket guide to Chicago architecture (2004)
Dave Muller, The Colorado year round outdoor guide: Hikes, snowshoe trips, ski tours
for every week of the year (2003).
Lynn Sherr and Jurate Kazickas, Susan B. Anthony slept here: A guide to American
women's landmarks (1994).
Robert Sylvester, Appalachian Trail thru-hikers' companion (2011).
Judith Testa, An art lover's guide to Florence (2012)
Katherine Widing, Bicycle touring Holland: With excursions into neighboring Belgium
And Germany (2005).
Christian Williams, The rough guide to Berlin (2011)
ZAGAT restaurant guides http://www.zagat.com/shop/restaurant-guides
Here I have mostly listed printed tourist guides, but many are available in the web.