A guide book is a book for tourists or travelers that provides details about a geographic location, tourist destination, or itinerary. It is the written equivalent of a tour guide. Many travel guides now take the form of travel websites rather than printed books.
It will usually include details such as phone numbers, addresses, prices and reviews of hotels and other lodgings, restaurants, and activities. Maps of varying detail are often included. Sometimes historical and cultural information is also provided. Different guide books may focus on different aspects of travel, from adventure travel to relaxation, or be aimed at travelers with larger or smaller travel budgets, or focus on the particular interests and concerns of certain groups such as sexual orientation or dietary restrictions. Guide books are generally intended to be used in conjunction with actual travel, although simply enjoying a guide book with little or no intention of visiting may be referred to as "armchair tourism".
The periplus was an itinerary from landmark to landmark of the ports along a coast, a forerunner of the guide. A periplus such as the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea was a manuscript document that listed, in order, the ports and coastal landmarks, with approximate intervening distances, that the captain of a vessel could expect to find along a shore. It served the same purpose as the later Roman itinerarium of road stops.
Travel is the movement of people or objects (such as airplanes, boats, trains and other conveyances) between relatively distant geographical locations.
The term "travel" originates from the Old French word travail. The term also covers all the activities performed during a travel (movement). A person who travels is spelled "traveler" in the United States, and "traveller" in the United Kingdom.[citation needed]
"The World is a book, and those who do not travel read only a page."
Reasons for traveling include recreation,tourism or vacationing,research travel for the gathering of information, for holiday to visit people, volunteer travel for charity, migration to begin life somewhere else, religious pilgrimages and mission trips, business travel,trade,commuting, and other reasons, such as to obtain health care or fleeing war or for the enjoyment of traveling. Travel may occur by human-powered transport such as walking or bicycling, or with vehicles, such as public transport, automobiles, trains and airplanes.