Do you love color? Do you love to travel?
I bought the book The Rainbow Atlas: a Guide to the World's 500 Most Colorful Places, in the hopeful belief that someday we will be able to leave our homes and once again travel.
Since moving to Mexico I have a whole new relationship with color. I love having it all around me. The Rainbow Atlas feeds that craving. It does not disappoint. Seven bloggers contribute stories of their most colorful travel experiences.
"The entries in this book are arranged by longitude, starting in Alaska and traveling around the globe to New Zealand." Each entry includes a colorful photograph and recommends the best time of the year to visit for the best weather and the most color. The bloggers cover what's most colorful in the world in nature, urban art, festivals, built environments, leisure and culture and places of worship.
The entries are brief, (there are 500 after all) but contain just enough information to pique your interest and inspire you to once again want to get on an airplane.
So what's on my wishlist from this book? There's a lot, but here are my top ten.
#8 BLOOM, The Abbotsford Tulip Festival in Abbotsford Canada, where you can meander through 2.5 million tulips.
#10 Chihuly Garden and Glass in Seattle Washington, U.S. This has been on my travel list for awhile now. This is the 1 ½ acre indoor/outdoor exhibition of glass-artist Dale Chihuly.
#35 Guanajuato, Mexico where colorful homes cover the hills.
#36 Balloon Fiesta in Albuquerque New Mexico, U.S. This is the largest hot air balloon festival in the world.
#40 Trajineras, Xochimilco, Mexico CIty, Mexico. Xochimilco is a borough south of Mexico City with an extensive canal system. The trajineras are colorful flat bottom boats that travel the canals.
#61 Isla Mujeres, Quintana Roo Mexico. This is a 4.3 mile, quiet island filled with colorful homes and shops.
#62 Northern Lights, Nunavut Canada. Seeing the northern lights has been on my wish list for a long time.
#172 Kelburn Castle, Glasgow Scotland. An old castle nestled in the Scottish woods painted by four Brazilian graffiti artists.
#173 Hidden Lane, Glasgow Scotland. A "charming little lane painted in every color of the rainbow" and home to artists, designers and musicians' studios.
#178 Victoria Street, Edinburgh, Scotland - the inspiration for the Harry Potter novels.
The Rainbow Atlas is a wonderful gift for yourself, for your mom for Mothers Day, for a recent graduate or just for a friend that is sheltering at home and is missing being out and about in the world.
Available on iBooks $14.99