Rating: 
Summary: Travel the South during roadside tourism's golden age
Review: During the period between the advent of paved highways and the development of the Interstate highway system, tourism blossomed beside the road across the country. This book focuses on the attractions that sprang up in the southeastern U.S.Filled with images of postcards and brochures (mostly from the author's personal collection, I would guess from the introduction), this book takes the reader to fairylands, western shootouts, candy stores, motels, and other former staples of the road. The text gives the colorful history of many of these places. While most of these attractions are just memories, Dixie Before Disney makes them fresher, more vivid memories.
Rating: 
Summary: A fun, nostalgic trip into the past
Review: This book will be of greatest interest to those who traveled south on the old US or state roads before the advent of the Interstate system. It was a period of divergence that existed before the cloning process began to evolve that has made every town look like every other town with chain after chain of look-alike stores and restaurants. Mr. Hollis lovingly recreates those fun stops along the way that remain in the memory years after. The last point he offers is perhaps the most important. He notes we have become a bit jadded with the overabundance of things and things to do and have forgotten the thrill it used to be just to be able to take a long trip somewhere, not to mention the sheer excitement of stopping at one of the roadside fun-sites mentioned in his book. I enjoyed taking the tour and waxing nostalgic for a couple of hours.
Rating:
Summary: A fun, nostalgic trip into the past
Review: This book will be of greatest interest to those who traveled south on the old US or state roads before the advent of the Interstate system. It was a period of divergence that existed before the cloning process began to evolve that has made every town look like every other town with chain after chain of look-alike stores and restaurants. Mr. Hollis lovingly recreates those fun stops along the way that remain in the memory years after. The last point he offers is perhaps the most important. He notes we have become a bit jadded with the overabundance of things and things to do and have forgotten the thrill it used to be just to be able to take a long trip somewhere, not to mention the sheer excitement of stopping at one of the roadside fun-sites mentioned in his book. I enjoyed taking the tour and waxing nostalgic for a couple of hours.
Rating: 
Summary: Why all the black and white?
Review: This is an excellent resource of information on old roadside attractions but what a disappointment the visuals are. Half of the fun is seeing these places in color yet except for an 8 page section in the center all the rest of the book is small b/w photos of things you know had to be from color sources. It spoils an otherwise excellent resource.
Rating:
Summary: Why all the black and white?
Review: This is an excellent resource of information on old roadside attractions but what a disappointment the visuals are. Half of the fun is seeing these places in color yet except for an 8 page section in the center all the rest of the book is small b/w photos of things you know had to be from color sources. It spoils an otherwise excellent resource.
Rating:
Summary: Fun Read filled with Memories
Review: Tim Hollis has done a great job of showcasing the unique, quirky, and sometimes down right bizarre, attractions of the South. I, too, am a Southerner and I miss the days when Gulf Shores was not more than a few cottages on the beach. I enjoyed reading about the places I remember and the ones I never knew. This writer has done a wonderful service by perserving the memories of a bygone era.
Rating:
Summary: Fun Read filled with Memories
Review: Tim Hollis has done a great job of showcasing the unique, quirky, and sometimes down right bizarre, attractions of the South. I, too, am a Southerner and I miss the days when Gulf Shores was not more than a few cottages on the beach. I enjoyed reading about the places I remember and the ones I never knew. This writer has done a wonderful service by perserving the memories of a bygone era.
Rating:
Summary: Nostalgia without irony
Review: Tim Hollis' book is an entertaining, informative, and evocative tour of the glory days of tourism in the South -- mostly before the arrival of the interstate highway system, but certainly, as the title suggests, before the opening of Walt Disney World in 1965 changed the nature of vacations. A veteran of many of the roads and roadside stops pictured here, Hollis has a real feel ... and a real affection ... for his topic. In these hip days, when so many writers feel the need to ridicule or treat with arched eyebrow anything less sophisticated and post-modern than *right now,* it's very pleasant to read a book about popular culture and "commercial archaeology" that's not encrusted in irony. This book is also a celebration of Southern culture, especially that part of Southern culture that developed in order to separate visiting Yankees from their money. For, as Hollis notes, it was the arrival in the South of northern vacationers seeking warmer weather that prompted the birth and growth of the attractions listed here. It also promoted a number of important, and lasting, businesses. Among the companies born in the South to capitalize on the tourist trade, KFC (of course), Popeye's Chicken, Long John Silver, Red Lobster, Burger King, Hardee's, and Holiday Inn are just some of the more recognizable names. From water parks to Wild West shows, Cypress Gardens to Stone Mountain, Dogpatch USA and the Grand Ole Opry to Stuckey's and countless attractions now nearly forgotten, this book is a great nostalgia ride through a largely vanished time. If you were fortunate enough to have seen that time, this book may bring back some happy memories. And if this is your first time through you may find yourself wondering what you're missing as you cruise in air-conditioned comfort on the soulless interstate.
Rating:
Summary: Next Stuckeys 15,000 miles!
Review: To those of us unfortunate enough not to have been alive during the period this book encapsulates, Hollis brings it to life with this thoroughly well researched tome regarding the roadside attractions that littered the South before the Disney Corp came to central Florida. Pre Disney, pre interstate, pre most things, some of the attractions are cute, some look awful and other just downright bizarre. I wholeheartedly recommed this book for adult readers of any age.
Rating:
Summary: Dixie Before Disney
Review: What a refreshing look at family travel! Even though many of the places mentioned are either greatly altered, torn down (or should be), Mr. Hollis's delightful peep into the past provides insight as to why we Southerner's are so eccentric and also makes many wonder about the eccentricity of those Yankees who were flocking to our aquarium-ski-lodge-Indian-reservation-botanical-gardens complete with wild-west-shoot-outs-in-the-sky! Mr. Hollis's humorous descriptions of the many 'um... "interesting" things the South had to offer families was like traveling with my brother!
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