Three Christian Travel Guides

Review by Susan Jeffers

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The Christian Traveler’s Companion: Western Europe 

Amy S. Eckert and William J. Petersen

Fleming H. Revell Co., 2001, 361 pages

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The Christian Traveler’s Companion: The USA and Canada

Amy S. Eckert and William J. Petersen

Fleming H. Revell Co., 2000, 415 pages

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The Christian Travelers Guide to Great Britain

By Irving Hexham

(Zondervan, 2001, 247 pages)

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These are the sorts of book you wish had been around forever. Anyone planning a trip should check to see whether there is  a Christian travel guide for the area, and take it along. Even if you’re going on a business trip and don’t think you’ll have time for side excursions, or on a group tour with no "free days," opportunities to connect your travel with your faith are sure to present themselves and any of these books can be a big help.

The fact of the matter is that the U.S., Britain and Western Europe are full of Christian history and sites of interest to Christians, and conventional guidebooks treat them briefly and from a secular standpoint, if at all. Without books like these you can either do a lot of research before the trip or miss a lot of opportunities (or both!).

Having said all that, the series to which these representative sample belong are quite different from one another. The Zondervan series advertises one book each for Great Britain, France, Italy, and Germany, whereas the Baker series covers much larger areas.

The Zondervan books are smaller and weigh less (a big advantage on a long trip), have smaller (but easily readable) print and less white space. They also give excellent introductory material on history and culture seldom found in guide books, particularly with such explicit relevance to Christianity.

The Revell series, on the other hand, is oriented around lists: cities, things to see, the authors’ respective favorites in many categories. Because of their very large geographical scope, the treatment or each destination is skimpy; I envision a busy young family quickly trying to work some religion into their all-too-short vacation trip.

If I were traveling to Europe, I would want to get one of the Zondervan books for each country, rather than the single  edition for the whole area. But I’m a middle-aged woman with a keen interest in Christian history and culture and plenty of time to read.

For more information, see www.christiantraveler.com (Fleming H. Revell, Co. series) and www.christian-travelers-guides.com (Zondervan series).

Susan Jeffers is an adjunct faculty member at Bethany Theological Seminary and Earlham School of Religion. Her extensive travels have taken her across North America, England, continental Europe and beyond. Susan is also a faithful volunteer for Spirit Restoration Ministries.

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