10 Bizarre Travel Guides

This list is taken from our up and coming book The Ultimate Book of Bizarre Lists (which you can pre-order now in time for the big rush in November). Other never-before seen lists by me and some of our contributors also feature in the new book. Here we look at ten of the strangest tourist guidebooks you can imagine. Next time you are stuck for a holiday idea, consider getting one of these for an experience you will never forget. Most of these books can be found on Amazon.com but one or two are out of print.

Believe it or not, a travel book exists for those who wish to pay the millions it costs to travel to outer space. This is it. This book will teach you the ins and outs of travel to outer space. What to expect, how to prepare, and much more. A definite must-have for all those billionaires who can afford to toss twenty million dollars at a strange vacation.

As the name implies, this book is a collection of tales about misadventures relating to toilets, poop and river rafting. Written by a river rafting guide, this is actually a pretty hilarious book and while it is definitely up there in the bizarre stakes, it is an enjoyable read.

If you are planning to travel to California for a holiday or you are already there and sick of the site of celebrity homes, why not check out some celebrity final resting places? This book takes you on a who’s who tour of celebrities via the graveyard.

Have you ever wanted to bike to the Arctic circle? No? Me neither. Nevertheless, someone did and he wrote this book all about his experiences. It is definitely an odd travel guide but not sufficiently odd to make me recommend it to my friends.

So you want to travel on the cheap. Here is a book just for you. This guidebook outlines 120 itineraries of all kinds of cargo vessels that you can book passage on. It gives you the fares and descriptions of the different vessels, their facilities, and the likelihood of being murdered by Somalian Pirates. Sorry about the image quality – that is the best Amazon could come up with!

On a wager the author of this book travelled Ireland for a month with a refrigerator at his side. Perhaps more bizarre than the subject matter is the fact that this book is an international bestseller! There must be something to it.

Ah McDonalds – who else would write a travel book with the intention of luring unsuspecting readers into all of these dreadful hamburger joints of America? This book was written in the 1970s by McDonalds staff, outlining small trips you can make as a family – each involving a stop off at… you guessed it: McDonalds.

Need a tummy tuck? Fancy a face lift? Desperate to change genders? Well this is the book for you. Instead of paying out thousands at your local surgeons, this book shows you where you can travel through Asia, and the rest of the world, for plastic surgery on the cheap. If you do use this book – make sure you don’t end up with an unexpected vagina!

192 pages describing over 100 free tours of factories in Ohio. Oh, boy! Yes, please! Joking aside, this is such a dreadfully dull topic that it absolutely does need to be placed on a list of weird travel books. Obviously, everyone else thinks so, too, because it ranks as the 4.4 millionth most popular book on Amazon.

Here is the ultimate guide to the dead animals that litter the highways and streets of North America. If you love checking out the carcasses flattened to a pancake in the middle of the road, this guide is an essential for the glove compartment. If you are not all that interested you could always buy it for a loved one.