Book review of "Healthy Travel: Central and South America" by Isabelle Young, Lonely Planet Publications, Melbourne, Australia

Abstract

[Extract] This compact soft cover book (14x9x2cm; 200g, 456 pages) consists of 23 chapters, appendices, some WHO maps, many useful addresses/websites/contacts, and a number of drawings to illustrate the text. It is part of a series with three other volumes dealing with Africa, Asia & India, and Australia, NZ & the Pacific (these titles are not covered in this current review). The book fits easily in the tightest luggage. Due to the small size, the font size consequently is at a just acceptable level. A pretty green colour is used to highlight and decorate. Particularly important paragraphs are typed in this colour as well. Unfortunately, poor lighting such as from as a small bedside table lamp makes it very difficult to read these paragraphs, a lone 40 Watt bulb dangling from the ceiling of an Andean budget accommodation will wipe out this part completely, a shame considering that these are usually paragraphs of particular importance. The boxed texts have this colour as a background which may make then equally difficult to read (a >light-test= with the other titles revealed a similar problem, particularly the sandy beige of the volume on Africa).