Following on Liz’s post about great bookstores worldwide, and on the seemingly collective obsession we PT bloggers have with books (especially, of course, those related to travel), I’m happy to be able to point readers in the direction of an article on ABEBooks that combines travel and booklust.

I’m always happy to tout ABE anyway, since you can find almost any book on the planet on it and support over 13,000 independent booksellers at the same time. But if you’re a lover of old travel guides you’ll really want to read an article they’ve posted about collecting rare, antique, or simply old out-of-print travel guides. Not only does it give fun little snippets from the humble beginnings of Fodor’s and Frommer’s, and snippy responses to Baedeker’s like “guidebooks for the common American,” it also gives links to some of the most collectible (and expensive) old travel guides around. I like the Baedeker with a Biedermeier cover for $4400, but real treats are the Emigrant guides that were published for farmers and pioneers and gold diggers (of both varieties) looking to settle in the American West. You could pay over $500 for a guide to the “backwoods and prairie,” also known as the Western States. Tempting, but I bet my ancestors didn’t pay that much for it when settling a Montana homestead in the 1880s.

There is an attraction in old travel guides. Something about the language or lyricism or simply the enjoyment of a world that, pre-Internet and cheap air travel, was more mysterious and fascinating viewed from the comfy perspective of those secure in their country’s preeminence. Personally, I like ones that are even harder to find, written by natives with a love for their city of culture. I’ve got a few: a Soviet-era publication called “Around the Golden Ring of Russia,” whose elegant language reminds me of the kind of letters written by my great-grandmother; Henriette Mandl’s “In Search of Vienna: Walking Tours of the City;” and “Florence:an appreciation of her beauty,” a 1960 guide by then-mayor of the city Piero Bargellini, complete with colored plates and a foldout map.

Using old guides to traverse a place is a unique experience. Compare traveling through Italy guided by an old Baedeker with doing the same with a modern Let’s Go or Lonely Planet — by switching volumes you could be in an entirely different country without moving a step.

Belgium is famous for great beer, mussels and Belgian chocolate (amongst many other delights) but which chocolate is the best?

Never mind the rather recent obsession over dark chocolate….I’m not really a connoisseur, apparently, since I prefer milk chocolate.

I’m not crazy enough to make any definitive brand declarations — as visitors stroll through Brussels, Ghent, Antwerp or Bruges, there are plenty of choices.

Goodness knows, you shouldn’t miss the chance for a chocolate tour, demonstration or tasting.

Godiva and Leonidas are easy to find across most of Europe; I’d rather try something lesser-known.

Neuhaus, Pierre Marcolini, Moeder Babelutte, Wittamer and Manon have their aficionados, and their shop displays are gorgeously imaginative, but for a less-expensive box “to go,” I like Guylian, particularly their sea shell-shaped milk chocolates.

Imagine my delight as I found a box last week at Central Market here in Austin. Obviously, the chocolates that are shipped for export won’t be as fresh as those purchased next to a Bruges canal, but I don’t care; I was just delighted to find one of my favorite Belgian indulgences only a few miles from my house.

Aren’t you proud of me? I didn’t eat any until I had time to take a photo for this post. :)

One of the things I always do when traveling is check out the local bookstores. Not just the local Borders or Barnes and Noble but also whatever independent bookstores might be around. Last year I discovered the Fieria de Libros - Madrid’s Open Air Book Market and New York City’s Strand Bookstore.

This year I’m looking to discover more bookstores around the world. But because I’m not traveling at the moment, it will have to be via the internet. And so far, I’ve discovered some new and interesting places to add to my ‘bookstore’ list.

The Guardian’s Sean Dobson list of 10 bookshops from around the world has introduced me to Boekhandel Selexyz Dominicanen in Maastricht, a 800-year-old church converted into a bookstore and El Ateneo in Buenos Aires, another convert, this time from movie theater to bookstore.

The Boston Traveler’s Ten Great Places to Browse Books in Boston includes Brattle Book Shop, a antiquarian bookstore that’s been around since 1825.

Rolf Potts put together a Very Subjective Guide to Bookstores praising Powell’s Books in Portland, Oregon and Shakespeare & Company in Paris, France.

The Bookstore Guide, an amateur guide to book shopping throughout Europe, lists Livraria Lello in Porto, Portugal and The Bookàbar Bookshop in Rome as top impressive appearance bookstores.

USAToday’s Nine destination bookstores worth putting on a tourist’s itinerary highlights the Elliott Bay Book Co in Seattle, Washington and the Tattered Cover Book Store in Denver, Colorado.

With recommendations like these, my bookstore list is growing.

Want to add to it?

What’s your favorite non-chain bookstore?

We had a lively Web 2.0 discussion last fall about 6 ways that travelers can use social media, and a few of you follow me on the microblogging and worldwide chat room called Twitter.

I’m even teaching an entry-level workshop here in Austin on June 20, Learn Five Web 2.0 Tools in One Day, so yeah, I guess you could say I’m really into this stuff.

Geek!

A lot of travel bloggers are also on Twitter, including World Hum, Pam from Nerd’s Eye View, Glennia at The Silent I, Leif Pettersen from Killing Batteries/This is Why I Love Minneapolis & Sometimes St. Paul, Debbie from Delicious Baby, Darren from Travel Rants, Kevin from Travolution and the Happy Hotelier. What can I say; we’re a chatty bunch.

Yesterday, as I dipped my toes/browser into the Twitter stream, I saw that Elliot Ng from the excellent Uptake travel site was asking about good but inexpensive lodging in Hong Kong. I know about the fabulously-located Hong Kong YMCA, but wondered what other sorts of suggestions he’d get….

Later, he sent out a “tweet” (Twitter message) thanking some folks for their inputs, so I thought I’d share them with you:

• Sage Brennan said, “I have had ok stays at the Cosmo/Cosmopolitan and the Charterhouse of the HK ‘budget’ options.”
• Bruce Wang said, “Try this [the Yes Inn,] my wife stayed there once.”
• Thijs Jacobs said, “Try the Holiday Inn Express.” (Really? Yes, there is one, in Causeway Bay.)
• Suave_su said, “Youth hotel ;-) ” (I think he meant Youth Hostel.)

As far as I can tell, these are all people currently located in China (one of whom is Dutch, one is originally from North Carolina) who quickly sent a guy in northern California some advice about Hong Kong.

I looked at the Web sites for each lodging, and barring any really damning reports from elsewhere, they all looked just fine.

Ahh, the kindness of Web 2.0 strangers.

Related posts:

• 10 terrific museums that you’ve never heard of
• An Olympic sized gag!
• Blow up your brain: drive on the left (or right)

This week’s reading included two articles that featured some of my favorite things - coffee, walking, and writing.

USAToday’s article on 10 great places to take a literary hike had me wishing I could just put on my walking shoes and hit the trail. Created by Joni Rendon, author of Novel Destinations, the list highlighted literary places such as Bronte’s Yorkshire Moors, Thoreau’s Walden Pond, and Jack London’s Beauty Ranch Trail.

And then I came across a post at TripHow that focused on current day literary cafes in Los Angeles and San Francisco, as well as a brief look at the tradition of literary cafes in Europe. Turns out you can get a book, The Grand Literary Cafés of Europe by Noel Riley Fitch, profiling 40 historic literary cafes in Europe (all of which are still in business). Cafes such as Le Procope in Paris that first opened it’s doors in 1686. And Café De Oriente in Madrid where Salvador Dali and Federico Garcia Lorca would meet.

Coffee, walking, and writing - sounds like a perfect way to travel.