The first time we went to Bermuda (circa 1999) we took an island tour, and the guide talked about several ghost stories. He mentioned a locally-published book about the ghosts of Bermuda which I and my friend were very interested in. Of course, they were sold out!

When we got home I contacted the bookstore and arranged to purchase two copies when they were back in stock. I ended up paying customs and international shipping fees, so these thin paperback books ended up costing about $30 each.

Turns out it was the most boring ghost book ever! LOL But I still have it, and it reminds me of our time in Bermuda.

Donna

I bought a copy of Great Black Kanba, a short book recommended here and kept it for reading on my trip to the North of Western Australia. I read it one evening but had to read it again when by mistake my phone alarm woke me at 3am instead of 5am when I had to get ready to be collected to go on a tiny plane to overfly the Bungle Bungles, a rock formation which I had only one chance of seeing on the trip.

I was so scared of oversleeping that I stayed awake, fully dressed, reading the book again and then yet again from the beginning until it was time to go to the pick up point.

Whenever I see the book in my bookcase, I can recall the whole morning, fighting to stay awake after a shortened sleep and the glory of the views from the tiny plane.

Years ago, I had a long summer tour of 14 countries, including the USSR. We were constantly riding trains and constantly bored. I recall reading "1984" while on a long train ride through Russia.

While in France (I lived there a year), I bought a bunch of cheap paperback Penguin novels. I discovered Francoise Sagan and Albert Moravia at that time, and dark English romances. I still have these little books. They do not take up very much space. I can't bear to get rid of them, since they remind me of my youthful travels abroad.

I grew up in Atlanta with a woods behind my house. There was a unique dogwood tree that had a "seat". I used to perch there and read. I think that was where I discovered "Tom Sawyer" and "Little Women." You can imagine my chagrin when my father cut down that tree....

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn will always be associated in my mind with my family's yearly car trips to central Florida (from northern Iowa, a long tedious journey in those days before interstate highways). The first time I read Huck Finn, I leaned over the front seat (I was seated in the back between my brothers and we didn't have seatbelts in those days) to regale my parents with excerpts, such as those of "Moses and the Bullrushers" and "the Hairball Oracle." I was so taken with Twain's wry humor that I had to share my delight. I was nine or ten years old.

I have many, many memento books from my travels -- perhaps as many as half of the books I own.

I'm another who read in a backyard tree as a child -- well, actually my tree was in the side yard. It was a mulberry tree and I munched on the mulberries until I noticed that between the lobes were thousands of tiny larvae. The berry juice also stained my fingers, bare feet, and my clothes -- and sometimes the pages of the books I read. I still have the books and the stains are there as evidence. Indeed, the traveling those books have done from then in Iowa, with several years in Europe and Asian islands where I read them for comfort when I was homesick, to now on Oahu have made them probably the most evocative souvenirs I've collected.

Frieda, where in central FL? I was born & raised in Lakeland then moved all the way to Orlando (LOL) when I got married.

Donna

Donna, it was Orlando. These trips were vacations for my mother, brothers, and me, but for my father they were partially business trips having to do with pharmaceuticals.

In 1959 we had to stay for several weeks longer than expected, so my brother and I had to enroll in school which we attended for about a month (my other brother left early to get himself to college on time). The school was called Grand Avenue Elementary probably because it was located on Grand Avenue (I'm not sure). The house we rented was just a few blocks away so we walked to school, having to skirt a couple of perfectly round lakes that fascinated us. I also got my first umbrella there -- a bright royal blue, child-sized one -- that was a piece of completely exotic equipment that I never needed again after we went back home to Iowa. :-)

Small world, Frieda! Get this...my husband's cousin Emily had a college roommate named Lynne, whose husband John is the principal of Grand Ave. Elementary! Lynne and her husband also attend the same church as DH and me. How weird is that?!

Donna

Donna, it could be part of the "six degrees of separation."

We were going to Orlando before Disney World was there. I think the land had been acquired and it was in the planning stages, but we stopped traveling there before it was built. The last year I went down with my parents was in 1962. Instead, we visited Silver Springs, Cypress Gardens, Cape Canaveral, and the Bok Singing Tower, plus quite a number of rinky-dink attractions such as alligator farms. I still have a one-year diary with a flamingo on the cover that I bought in Florida. Unfortunately I wasn't much of a diarist -- I filled it with adolescent inanities. But just seeing that cover, from time to time when I dig through all the stuff I have collected, makes me smile.

It was 2007 before I finally made it to Disney World . . . in Paris. That's okay, though, since I'm not really a theme park enthusiast. :-)

I remember being in a quintessential used book shop. Dusty, dim, slightly crooked shelving, an eccentric but lovely and knowledgeable owner, in Lyme Regis, England back in 1997. For some reason, I reached to the barren top of a bookcase and found a book. It was a biography of George Gissing. I was already a Gissing fan, and was interested in learning more about his life. So this find was almost too good to be true. I remember just staring at the title for what seemed like forever, waiting for the realization to sink in that I truly was holding a book about George's life. (This was before the internet was as comprehensive as it is today.) It was covered with a thick coating of grimy dust, and the owner said he had not seen that book for years. I still have it. My only regret is that I did not have my camera with me to get a photo of the owner, with me, in front of the dusty shelf.

PAM

Frieda, when I was around 8-10 years old we went on a trip from Lakeland to the preview center for WDW. It was exciting to see! On the way home the car overheated and we were picked up and chauffeured home by a Florida Highway Patrol officer. That was way more exciting than the WDW plan!

You may have heard they closed the Silver Springs theme park last year. My DH and I had gone there about a year before it closed and it was very sad - run down, extremely cheesy shows, nearly empty. The state has taken over the property and it's now part of Silver Springs State Park. I wonder what happened to the zoo animals?

Donna

When I am traveling far from my home I often look for a book on the local plant life. It can be very difficult to find such books back home.

I remember lending the one on Peruvian plants to a traveling companion and never getting it back. That was just about the last time I lent out a book (with one exception).

I just read the references to Lakeland. I've been there to a heritage rose conference. One of the world's foremost experts on old roses and rose genetics is a professor there, a kind, knowledgeable man and an inspired teacher. He has created wonderful rose gardens at the university.

Rosefolly, does he teach at Florida Southern College? That's where I went to school.

Donna

The books I pick up while traveling usually describe the place I'm visiting, and once home, tend to go unread ... sigh. But when I buy cookbooks as travel souvenirs, they usually get more attention once home. Two of those are Julia's Kitchen Wisdom, which I picked after viewing Julia Child's Kitchen at the Smithsonian's Museum of American History - such a delight! Another is Southwest Slow Cooking, obtained during a tour of the national parks in Utah.

I bought a copy of The Iliad in Greece. I studied The Odyssey three different times during school years but had never read The Iliad, and it seemed so appropriate. To my dismay, it was not the complete work and to this day I have never read the original.

I have a paperback copy of a mystery, the name of which I cannot remember, that I bought in Waterstone's in London while waiting to meet Martin and Anyanka for lunch., It turned out not to be a very good book, but the cover had a very evocative Victorian scene. The company, however, was delightful, and I wouldn't get rid of the book for anything.

A couple of years ago I traded a paperback I had read for another on the bookshelf at our B&B in Cornwall. That was my introduction to Martin Edwards' Lake District series, which I have enjoyed tremendously and which always make me think of that delightful area.

Other books, other memories. I had several Anne Siddons Rivers books along on an Amtrak trip to the West Coast and back, and I once read all the Charlie Chan books riding across Missouri, Kansas, and Nebraska, speaking of long boring drives.

Donna, yes he does. Roses and citrus are his specialties. I've met him at a number of rose conferences, a wonderful man.

We had a tour of the campus, too. I'm not a particular fan of Frank Lloyd Wright, but I thought Lakeland was a pretty town.

Small world, Rosefolly! Since I went to school at FSC (gee, can it really be 33 years since I graduated? EEK!) they have invested tons of money into restoring the original buildings and constructing new ones to blend in. There was a huge to-do several years ago about restoring the dome fountain, then they had trouble keeping it working. I think they've got it now.

Donna

Oh, no, to learn about this rose garden now, to know I missed it in my last visit to Lakeland last month.... I knew about the Frank Lloyd Wright building though I never bothered to check it out when visiting relatives there (their house a mere 10 minutes away). That probably will be my last visit to Lakeland, if not ever, for a very long time, since my relatives just moved to NC at the end of March.

I should mention that books are often the impetus for my travel. I belong to a book club that travels to meet authors. We select a city we'd like to visit, then find a local author who has written about his town, who would be willing to meet us. We read his (or her) book, then travel to that town and take the author to lunch or dinner for a book discussion. We've had some wonderful visits! And of course, we also do all the typical tourist things. I have not always gone in the past, but I have made a resolution to go as often as I can in the future. It is a great way to see the country, and there is a lot of the country I have not yet visited.

Next month we will be in Louisville to meet the author of A White Wind Blew. It is sitting on my nightstand to be read next. So once a year I have a souvenir travel book, often autographed by the author!

That's wonderful, Rosefolly!

I've not heard of this author, Rose, and will look for a book by him. I see on line that his latest is called The Angels' Share, which is what the fumes from whiskey barrels is called. Have you read him before?

No, I have not. This book was recommended to us by the book club one of my Louisville sisters belongs to. They read it a year ago and enjoyed it very much. It is a historical novel set in the Waverly Hills tuberculosis sanitorium, which we will be touring at some point.

I understand it is a ghost tour nowadays. Good luck!

f you have any extra time (as if), give me a call for lunch.

I will, but it looks as though every moment is booked! I'll come back another trip when my time is more my own.