One Thousand Places You Wish You Could See If You Weren’t Working So Damn Hard

It’s a curious quirk of the publishing business and Americans’ book buying tastes that the one travel book shooting up bestseller lists at the moment is 1,000 Places to See Before You Die. It’s now number four on the New York Times paperback nonfiction bestseller list.

Is it not ironic that this book, of all travel books, is such a big hit in the U.S.? According to Sunday’s San Diego Union-Tribune, Americans work so hard that the average vacation is just a few days, and one in seven Americans doesn’t even take a vacation. While most Germans get six weeks off a year, most Americans get two measly weeks. So why are Americans snapping up this book when they won’t have time to see a fraction of the places featured in it? You’d think they’d want to read a good travel narrative instead—say, one of Paul Theroux’s or Bill Bryson’s latest—to at least travel vicariously. But then again, most Americans work so hard that, after they’ve come home, made dinner and tucked in the kids, they’re understandably too tired to read at length. And unless they aren’t doing anything but reading on their three-day vacation, they probably won’t have time to finish a book then, either.

Which brings us back to “1,000 Places to See Before You Die.” Because it features descriptions of 1,000 places, the book can be read in short bursts. That means if you’re a good multi-tasker, you can probably read all about one of the must-see places between meetings at work, while you’re busy not accruing the vacation time you’d need to see the place you’re reading about. For those looking for a more realistic list, in a column in Sunday’s Los Angeles Times, Arthur Frommer proposes 50 places to see. “[One thousand] places to see before you die?” he writes. “Give me a break.”

I think seeing 1,000 places is a great idea. I’m sure most Americans do, too. But sadly, reading about them is all most will have time for.

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