Rating: 
Summary: Good but not great
Review:
I bought this book expecting to find something other than what it is. Instead of the subtitle "How to travel around the world" maybe it should have been subtitled "What you need to know before you travel around the world." The author is very knowledgable and the book offers a lot of valuable insight. It's been helpful for me planning my own global crossing. But not helpful in a pragmatic "here's what you need to do" kind of way. It was helpful in educating me about travel industry practices, paperwork preparation, and conditions in certain areas of the world.
However, I'm a bit dismayed by two aspects of the book. Hasbrouck seems to tout train travel on almost every page. He has a real love of trains I guess. He even said on one page that given the same distance (up to about 600 miles) he'd take the train over flying because, he says, they're more comfortable, the food is better, and you meet interesting people. Maybe my travel experience is vastly different than his, but I don't hold the same romantic fondness of trains. My experience has been they're a crowded, hot, time-consuming confinement with people that looked a bit sketchy. And I consider myself an adventurous traveler. I'm not one to watch the world from the bay window of a luxury cruise liner.
It also becomes annoying how the author seems to inject his political opinion into every page, almost every paragraph. He seems to editorialize on everything - capitalism, socialism, class bias, feminism, health and disease, food distribution, etc. I happen to agree with a lot of his opinion but to have it be so ubiquitous is droning.
Overall, this is a helpful book, probably one of the better ones out there for general around-the-world information. But if you're looking for the nuts and bolts "how to" information, find something else.
Rating:
Summary: Good but not great
Review:
I bought this book expecting to find something other than what it is. Instead of the subtitle "How to travel around the world" maybe it should have been subtitled "What you need to know before you travel around the world." The author is very knowledgable and the book offers a lot of valuable insight. It's been helpful for me planning my own global crossing. But not helpful in a pragmatic "here's what you need to do" kind of way. It was helpful in educating me about travel industry practices, paperwork preparation, and conditions in certain areas of the world.
However, I'm a bit dismayed by two aspects of the book. Hasbrouck seems to tout train travel on almost every page. He has a real love of trains I guess. He even said on one page that given the same distance (up to about 600 miles) he'd take the train over flying because, he says, they're more comfortable, the food is better, and you meet interesting people. Maybe my travel experience is vastly different than his, but I don't hold the same romantic fondness of trains. My experience has been they're a crowded, hot, time-consuming confinement with people that looked a bit sketchy. And I consider myself an adventurous traveler. I'm not one to watch the world from the bay window of a luxury cruise liner.
It also becomes annoying how the author seems to inject his political opinion into every page, almost every paragraph. He seems to editorialize on everything - capitalism, socialism, class bias, feminism, health and disease, food distribution, etc. I happen to agree with a lot of his opinion but to have it be so ubiquitous is droning.
Overall, this is a helpful book, probably one of the better ones out there for general around-the-world information. But if you're looking for the nuts and bolts "how to" information, find something else.
Rating: 
Summary: "Must Have" for serious travellers
Review: As I began planning my RTW travels two years ago I kept hearing the refrain from family and friends, "buy the nomad book!" So, being an open minded sort of gal, I decided to try it on for size. Much to my disappointment this book was less about helpful travel tips and tales and more of Mr. Hasbrouck's long-winded but short-sited opinions. Like a previous reader said, I'd buy this book maybe for the airfare info--which is a bit outdated--and that's all. On second thought, you can get most of the airfare info from the Lonely Planet or Rough Guide books. I bought the nomad book... and was glad I left home without it.
Rating: 
Summary: Just didn't live up to its legend
Review: As I began planning my RTW travels two years ago I kept hearing the refrain from family and friends, "buy the nomad book!" So, being an open minded sort of gal, I decided to try it on for size. Much to my disappointment this book was less about helpful travel tips and tales and more of Mr. Hasbrouck's long-winded but short-sited opinions. Like a previous reader said, I'd buy this book maybe for the airfare info--which is a bit outdated--and that's all. On second thought, you can get most of the airfare info from the Lonely Planet or Rough Guide books. I bought the nomad book... and was glad I left home without it.
Rating:
Summary: take it with a grain of salt...
Review: Edward Hasbrouck is into details. I approve of that, and suspect that the details would be very useful for someone who has just acquired a passport and is nervous about travel to the "South" (the phrase Hasbrouck uses to refer to the developing world-- others may know it as the "Third" or "Fourth" World). I picked up a bit of info here and there from reading this-- for example, the Roth IRA tip makes this book worth the cover price. BUT, I found the writer to be too judgmental. Flexibility is the key to world travel, and blanket statements need to be considered in context. When the writer states that he does not like group tours, ecotours or overland tours, the reader may carry away the idea that such tours are not cool-- never mind that the reader may have a limited amount of time, be terribly shy, or never before have been away from home and be terrified (the dismissal, "this book is not for them" is too cavalier). Likewise, the anti-AOL stance is perplexing, as the AOL Netmail service is similar to Hotmail or Yahoomail, both of which have proven infinitely more useful and popular with travelers than configuring unfamiliar software to check home e-mail accounts. And the firm warning about online banking strikes me as excessively paranoid. I think it should be accompanied by a disclaimer about the author's opinion, followed by a "if you must online bank, do it from a reputable hotel's business center." I have used online banking in dozens of countries, including Pakistan, Vietnam, Turkey, Laos, and Guatemala and have never encountered a single problem. Mind you, if the internet cafe I walked into was full of kids playing a pirated copy of a game over a LAN, I'd walk right back out. One last thing: the holy grail of travel, according to this book (and others), is to meet locals and see how they live. While this is a laudable (and often impossible) goal, some people may be in a country to see famous ruins or sites. Perhaps they are there to see art, or perhaps someone is interested in see a geographical phenomenon. I didn't see much room in this book for travelers whose goals are different than the author's.
Rating:
Summary: too wordy
Review: Good information, but way too wordy. I mean, how many times can you say the same thing in so many words without being redundant? I prefer the other similar travel book "World Stompers". Fun, like travel.
Rating: 
Summary: Not for the chemically sensitive.
Review: I am only 10% of the way through this book, but I can tell you, don't buy it if you are likely to get a headache from the smell of cheap, stinky, shiny paper. I wish it were in the same format as other Moon Pubs. I have used, but alas, the printing job greatly detracts from what otherwise appears to be an excellent book.
Rating:
Summary: don't waste your money!!! spend it traveling instead!
Review: I bought this book hoping to pick up some good tips. Honestly, I'm not a world traveller (yet) and I'm not that good at finding things on line. Imagine my disapointment, when this book offered nothing that the average person doesn't already know. The Practical Nomad takes way too many pages to tell you practically nothing. Yet, Hasbrouck is quick to congratulate himself on how smart he is. He seems more smug than informed. I can only recommend this book if you just crawled out from under a rock.
Rating:
Summary: Mixed Feelings
Review: I had read some essays by Hasbrouck before and I enjoyed them. So I thought I'd read his book. The information he provides is helpful and fascinating...and fairly well organized considering the details that go into planning a trip. However, he fails to address about a quarter of his target audience, "Women traveling alone made up 24 percent of all our customers." He states this at the beginning of the book, but ignores the needs of that 24%. I even checked the index and table of contents for advice for women travelers, only to find three, brief resources, about which he says, "On the whole, most of these resources are more oriented toward tours..." In the preface, Hasbrouck says he collected all of his information from "experiences of thousands of travelers..." Were they all men? Even if he can't address issue that female travelers might face, at least he could have drawn on those "experiences of thousands of travelers."
Rating:
Summary: Mixed Feelings
Review: I had read some essays by Hasbrouck before and I enjoyed them. So I thought I'd read his book. The information he provides is helpful and fascinating...and fairly well organized considering the details that go into planning a trip. However, he fails to address about a quarter of his target audience, "Women traveling alone made up 24 percent of all our customers." He states this at the beginning of the book, but ignores the needs of that 24%. I even checked the index and table of contents for advice for women travelers, only to find three, brief resources, about which he says, "On the whole, most of these resources are more oriented toward tours..." In the preface, Hasbrouck says he collected all of his information from "experiences of thousands of travelers..." Were they all men? Even if he can't address issue that female travelers might face, at least he could have drawn on those "experiences of thousands of travelers."
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