travel

William B. Helmreich on The Manhattan Nobody Knows

June 25, 2018 by PUP Author

Bill Helmreich walked every block of New York City—six-thousand miles in all—to write the award-winning The New York Nobody Knows. Now he has re-walked most of Manhattan—721 miles—to write this new, one-of-a-kind walking guide to the heart of one of the world’s greatest cities. Drawing on hundreds of conversations he had with residents during his block-by-block journey, The Manhattan Nobody Knows captures the unique magic and excitement of the island and highlights hundreds of facts, places, and points of interest that you won’t find in any other guide.

What is this book about?

It’s a detailed guide book to exploring Manhattan, block-by-block.

There are many guide books on Manhattan. How is this one different?

This book is unique two ways. First it focuses on the unknown places in Manhattan. NYC attracts over 65 million tourists a year, many of who have been there several times. But if you’re looking for something really new, then this is the book for you. Second, this book is based on hundreds of conversation I had with people who actually live in these neighborhoods. Their stories are fascinating. Of course, the book has lots of intriguing photos and a map for each of Manhattan’s 27 neighborhoods, each of which I’ve walked through.

Four years ago, you came out with The New York Nobody Knows: Walking 6,000 Miles In the City. That book covered every borough, including Manhattan. Is this all new material?

I’d say about 98% of it is brand new. If I had simply taken material from the first book, then why should people read it? And reviewers would have written it off as just a rehash of that book. I re-walked Manhattan, covering 775 miles.

And how were you able to find new material?

Because the city is always changing and because I now had the chance to cover it in much greater detail. This is the second in a five book series on each borough and all of them are based on fresh material. The Brooklyn Nobody Knows came out last year and the Manhattan book well be followed by volumes on Queens, the Bronx, and Staten Island.

What are some of the most interesting things you discovered?

In Inwood Hill Park I met an 84 year old man who has lived in a cave for about twenty years. Very articulate and committed to being at one with nature, he’s a modern-day Thoreau. In Washington Heights, I came across a block of old wooden frame house hidden away, east of St. Nicholas Avenue. On the Upper East Side, I spoke with a woman who had made a secret visit to her church in 2003. On the Lower East Side, I discovered the city’s smallest shoe repair shop, 5 feet high and 5 feet wide, run by a Chinese immigrant. In Midtown Manhattan I stumbled across the only bookstore in the world devoted to the life and works of Winston Churchill; some of these books go for more than $100,000.

William B. Helmreich is the author of many books, including The Brooklyn Nobody Knows: An Urban Walking Guide and The New York Nobody Knows, which won the Guides Association of New York Award for Outstanding Achievement in Book Writing. He is Distinguished Professor of Sociology at the City College of New York’s Colin Powell School for Civic and Global Leadership and at CUNY Graduate Center.

Filed Under: Author Interviews, Sociology Tagged With: manhattan, new york, new york city, travel, travel guide

Weekly Wanderlust: Cruises

August 24, 2015 by Carly Hall

Cruises are the perfect getaway, combining the allure of the vast open sea with a boat full of activities and nightlife, while offering the unique opportunity to experience the ocean in a way that would never be possible from the shore. Before your ocean adventure, check out some of the sea life you could encounter!

Two-thirds of our planet lies out of sight of land, just offshore beyond the horizon. What wildlife might you see out there? This handy guide, designed for quick use on day trips off the East Coast, helps you put a name to what you find, from whales and dolphins to shearwaters, turtles, and even flying fish. Carefully crafted color plates show species as they typically appear at sea, and expert text highlights identification features. Essential for anyone heading out on a whale-watching or birding trip, this guidebook provides a handy gateway to the wonders of the ocean.

If your ocean adventure takes you off the west coast, this Offshore Sea Life ID Guide, designed for quick use on day trips off the West Coast, helps you identify whales and dolphins, albatrosses, turtles, and even flyingfish. Carefully crafted color plates show species as they typically appear at sea, and expert text highlights identification features. This user-friendly field guide is essential for anyone going out on a whale-watching or birding trip, and provides a handy gateway to the wonders of the ocean.

If you travel the open ocean anywhere in the tropics, you are very likely to see flyingfish. These beautifully colored “ocean butterflies” shoot out of the water and sail on majestic, winglike pectoral fins to escape from predators such as dolphins, swordfish, and tuna. Some can travel for more than six hundred feet per flight. The ideal gift for fish lovers, seasoned travelers, and armchair naturalists alike, The Amazing World of Flyingfish provides a rare and incomparable look at these spectacular marine creatures.

This is the first field guide to identify, illustrate, and describe the world’s 501 shark species. Its compact format makes it handy for many situations, including recognizing living species, fishery catches, or parts sold at markets. The book also contains useful sections on identifying shark teeth and the shark fins most commonly encountered in the fin trade. A Pocket Guide to Sharks of the World is an essential resource for fisheries management, international trade regulation, and shark conservation.

The ocean teems with life that thrives under difficult situations in unusual environments. The Extreme Life of the Sea takes readers to the absolute limits of the ocean world—the fastest and deepest, the hottest and oldest creatures of the oceans. It dives into the icy Arctic and boiling hydrothermal vents—and exposes the eternal darkness of the deepest undersea trenches—to show how marine life thrives against the odds.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Boat, Cruise, cruises, getaway, ocean, Offshore Sea Life ID Guide, sea life, travel, Vacation

Weekly Wanderlust: Yellowstone

August 17, 2015 by Carly Hall

Yellowstone is the world’s first national park, and home to some of the oldest and most awe inspiring sites in the United States. Commonly known for tourist attractions such as the geyser Old Faithful, Yellowstone is a complex geothermal area containing half the world’s natural geysers. It is also a highly valued protected ecosystem, home to some of the most amazing wildlife, from grizzly bears and wolves, to herds of bison and elk. The human story of Yellowstone spans more than 11,000 years, making the area an important archaeological site as well.

Grand Canyon of Yellowstone

Grand Prismatic Spring

Excelsior geyser

Whether you plan to camp, hike, fly-fish, or immerse yourself in the region’s history, you may want to check out Justin Farrell’s new book, The Battle for Yellowstone for some background on the park’s moral, cultural, and spiritual roots.

Yellowstone is globally recognized as the crown jewel of modern environmental preservation. But the park and its surrounding regions have recently become a lightning rod for environmental conflict, plagued by intense and intractable political struggles among the federal government, National Park Service, environmentalists, industry, local residents, and elected officials. The Battle for Yellowstone asks why it is that, with the flood of expert scientific, economic, and legal efforts to resolve disagreements over Yellowstone, there is no improvement?

Justin Farrell argues that the battle for Yellowstone has deep moral, cultural, and spiritual roots that until now have been obscured by the supposedly rational and technical nature of the conflict. Tracing the moral causes and consequences of large-scale social change in the American West, he describes how a “new-west” social order has emerged that has devalued traditional American beliefs about manifest destiny and rugged individualism.

Justin Farrell is assistant professor of sociology in the School of Forestry and Environmental Studies at Yale University. You can read a Q&A with him here.

Photos of Yellowstone courtesy of Claudia Classon

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: cultural studies, Landmark, natural history, political science, travel, united states, Vacation, Yellowstone

Weekly Wanderlust: The Caribbean

August 10, 2015 by Carly Hall

Southeast of the Gulf of Mexico, the Caribbean (taken from Caribs, an ethnic group native to the Lesser Antilles and parts of South America at the time of the Spanish conquest) is home to over 700 islands and reefs. With its warm water, proximity to ports, and easy accessibility from the mainland US, the islands have long been a popular vacation destination. Whether you enjoy swimming with the dolphins in the islands of Aruba or taking advantage of the Bahamas’ extensive nightlife scene, the Caribbean offers enough variety in activities, climate, and geography for everyone. Make sure to make time during your trip for plenty of snorkeling with the migratory schools of fish, and exploring the wildlife that can only be found in these islands. If you’re lucky, you’ll even catching a glimpse of some of the unusual animals inhabiting the area.

Perhaps these books will help you familiarize yourself with the Caribbean’s natural offerings.

Wildlife of the Caribbean is the first comprehensive illustrated guide to the natural world of the Caribbean islands. It contains 600 vivid color images featuring 451 species of plants, birds, mammals, fish, seashells, and much more. While the guide primarily looks at the most conspicuous and widespread species among the islands, it also includes rarely seen creatures—such as the Rhinoceros Iguana and Cuban Solenodon—giving readers a special sense of the region’s diverse wildlife.

Conus is the largest genus of animals in the sea, occurring throughout the world’s tropical and subtropical oceans and contributing significantly to marine biodiversity. The shells of these marine mollusks are prized for their amazing variety and extraordinary beauty. This beautifully illustrated book identifies 53 valid species of the southeastern United States and the Caribbean, a region that supports a diverse but taxonomically challenging group of Conus.

Expanded and updated to include an additional 44 species, Coral Reef Fishes is a handy guide to those fishes that are likely to be observed by anybody visiting or diving on the coral reefs of the Caribbean, the Indian Ocean, and the Pacific to a depth of sixty meters. Accessible to amateur marine life enthusiasts, this book is the first comprehensive guide of its kind. It enables the reader to quickly identify 2,118 species of fish and includes over 2,500 color illustrations depicting the major forms of each species–male, female, immature, or geographical varieties.

Filed Under: Birds and Natural History Tagged With: birds, caribbean, Conus, Explore, fish, getaway, Island, natural history, sea life, travel, Vacation, Wildlife

Weekly Wanderlust: Africa

August 3, 2015 by Eoghan Barry

Africa has long been an object of fascination for travelers. When Herodotus wrote his Histories, the Pyramids and burial complex at Giza were already ancient, extraordinary monuments to the power and engineering capabilities of Egypt in the age of the Pharaohs. The natural wonders of the continent are no less impressive: thousands travel every year to attempt the challenging ascent of snow-capped, volcanic Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania, at nearly 6000 meters in elevation the highest in Africa. Separating Zambia and Zimbabwe, the magnificent Victoria Falls are the largest in the world, more than double the height of Niagara, and over a mile in width. But perhaps the greatest natural wonder of Africa is its wildlife, which includes many rare and endangered species. The name Africa conjures visions of lions, giraffes, gorillas, rhinoceros, elephants and countless other beautiful animals known to most only through the world’s zoos. For many, a safari through the Serengeti in Tanzania is the vacation of their dreams.

	The Kingdon Field Guide to African Mammals is the essential companion for anyone going on safari or interested in African mammals—no other field guide covers the whole continent in a portable format. Now fully revised and updated, it covers all known species of African land mammals and features 780 stunning color illustrations. Detailed species accounts describe key identification features, distribution, habitat, food, behavior, adaptations, and conservation status. This new edition includes many newly recognized species, and classification has been fully updated.
	Covering all 597 species recorded to date, Birds of Botswana features more than 1,200 superb color illustrations, detailed species accounts, seasonality and breeding bars, and a color distribution map for each species. Drawing on the latest regional and national data, the book highlights the best birding areas in Botswana, provides helpful tips on where and when to see key species, and depicts special races and morphs specific to Botswana. This is the first birding guide written by a Botswana-based ornithologist and the only one dedicated specifically to Botswana.
	Containing 146 stunning color photos, Animals of the Serengeti is a remarkable look at the mammals and reptiles most likely to be encountered in the world-famous Serengeti National Park and Ngorongoro Crater. With an eye-catching layout, accessible text, and easy-to-use format, this detailed photographic guide includes 89 species of mammal and reptile. Useful “Top Tips”—shared by local Tanzanian guides that work in the region—provide visitors with insights into behavioral habits and how to locate specific animals. Filled with vivid anecdotes, Animals of the Serengeti will enable any safari traveler to identify the area’s wildlife with ease.

Filed Under: Biological Sciences, Birds and Natural History Tagged With: Africa, travel, wanderlust

William Helmreich is back on the streets of NYC with The New Yorker

July 31, 2015 by Debra Liese

Bill Helmreich walks every street in New York City

How well do many seasoned New Yorkers really know New York City? Chances are, few can claim the knowledge of all 6,000 miles quite like Professor of Sociology William Helmreich can. Inspired by childhood explorations with his father, Helmreich walked every block of New York City’s five boroughs, a mission that resulted in The New York Nobody Knows. This week, The New Yorker ran a fun video featuring Bill Helmreich and his walks. His unconventional portrait of New York City is due out in paperback this Fall.

From Joshua Rothman’s New Yorker piece accompanying the video:

Many New Yorkers daydream about exploring the areas of the city they don’t know. But actually doing it is incredibly difficult. Ten years ago, Ben McGrath wrote a Talk of the Town story about a man who walked all of Manhattan; that’s an impressive achievement, but even the dreariest Manhattan blocks are more interesting than the service road alongside the B.Q.E. Moreover, to walk all of New York within a reasonable time frame, you have to do it all year round; most likely, as Helmreich did, you’d also have to walk after dark. Helmreich wasn’t just game, in other words. He was dedicated. He allowed neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night to stop him from his appointed rounds.

Read the rest here, and the earlier New Yorker feature where Joshua Rothman walked the Bronx with Helmreich.

You can sample chapter one of The New York Nobody Knows here.

William B. Helmreich is professor of sociology at the City University Graduate Center (CUNY) and the Colin Powell School for Civic and Global Leadership at the City College of New York.

Filed Under: Sociology Tagged With: #NewBooks, NYC, Sociology, travel

Weekly Wanderlust: Australia

July 27, 2015 by Eoghan Barry

Cairns Esplanade Swimming Lagoon

The only country which is also a continent, Australia is a nature-lover’s paradise. Ranging from the tropical swamps of northern Queensland to the arid deserts of the center of the continent, the diversity of Australia’s climate is extraordinary. Millions of years of isolation have allowed the evolution of countless animals, birds and plants found nowhere else in the world, including the emu, the koala, the kangaroo, and perhaps the oddest of all, the platypus: a mammal that lays eggs rather than giving birth. The biggest challenge facing visitors to Australia is the impossibility of seeing everything. Will you take in the Great Barrier Reef, the largest coral reef system in the world? The monumental red sandstone rock formations of Uluru? The 110 million year old Daintree Rainforest? Or would you prefer to spend your evenings sitting on the quays of Sydney, the Opera House glowing in the setting sun, sipping a Barossa Valley Shiraz?

The Koala

	Ideal for the nature-loving traveler, Wildlife of Australia is a handy photographic pocket guide to the most widely seen birds, mammals, reptiles, amphibians, and habitats of Australia. The guide features more than 400 stunning color photographs, and coverage includes 350 birds, 70 mammals, 30 reptiles, and 16 frogs likely to be encountered in Australia’s major tourist destinations.
	Birds of Australia covers all 714 species of resident birds and regularly occurring migrants and features more than 1,100 stunning color photographs, including many photos of subspecies and plumage variations never before seen in a field guide. Detailed facing-page species accounts describe key identification features such as size, plumage, distribution, behavior, and voice. This one-of-a-kind guide also provides extensive habitat descriptions with a large number of accompanying photos.
	One of the most amazing and accessible wildlife-watching destinations on earth, the “Top End” of Australia’s Northern Territory is home to incredible birds and animals—from gaudy Red-collared Lorikeets to sinister Estuarine Crocodiles and raucous Black Flying-foxes. With this lavishly illustrated photographic field guide, Birds and Animals of Australia’s Top End, you will be able to identify the most common creatures and learn about their fascinating biology—from how Agile Wallaby mothers can pause their pregnancies to why Giant Frogs spend half the year buried underground in waterproof cocoons.
	Why Australia Prospered is the first comprehensive account of how Australia attained the world’s highest living standards within a few decades of European settlement, and how the nation has sustained an enviable level of income to the present.

Filed Under: Birds and Natural History Tagged With: Animals, Australia, birdwatching, Destination, travel, Vacation, Wildlife

Weekly Wanderlust: New York City

July 20, 2015 by Debra Liese

Home to Basquiat, micro-apartments, and some of the best rooftop bars and restaurants, New York City is the melting pot of America, a city whose attractions will continue to unfold for as much time as you have to spend there. You may already plan to visit Rockefeller Center and Top of the Rock Observation Deck, with its iconic skating rink and opportunity to peer into NBC Studios; spend a day browsing the renowned Greek, Roman, Egyptian, and Islamic exhibits at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, or get your Alice in Wonderland fix at Alice’s Tea Cup. But be sure to leave plenty of unscheduled time for off-the-beaten-track destinations and neighborhoods as well.

One World Trade Center

Whether your interests lean artsy, sociological, or completely open-ended, you can get a taste of the Big Apple before your visit with books that chronicle everything from the city’s rich past, to the idiosyncratic art scene and hidden neighborhoods.

Brooklyn-born Jean-Michel Basquiat (1960-88) was one of the most important artists of the 1980s. A key figure in the New York art scene, he inventively explored the interplay between words and images throughout his career, first as a member of SAMO, a graffiti group active on the Lower East Side in the late 1970s, and then as a painter acclaimed for his unmistakable Neoexpressionist style. From 1980 to 1987, he filled numerous working notebooks with drawings and handwritten texts. This facsimile edition reproduces the pages of eight of these fascinating and rarely seen notebooks for the first time.

Which is more important to New York City’s economy, the gleaming corporate office–or the grungy rock club that launches the best new bands? If you said “office,” think again. In The Warhol Economy, Elizabeth Currid argues that creative industries like fashion, art, and music drive the economy of New York as much as–if not more than–finance, real estate, and law. And these creative industries are fueled by the social life that whirls around the clubs, galleries, music venues, and fashion shows where creative people meet, network, exchange ideas, pass judgments, and set the trends that shape popular culture.

Once known for slum-like conditions in its immigrant and working-class neighborhoods, New York City’s downtown now features luxury housing, chic boutiques and hotels, and, most notably, a vibrant nightlife culture. While a burgeoning bar scene can be viewed as a positive sign of urban transformation, tensions lurk beneath, reflecting the social conflicts within postindustrial cities. Upscaling Downtown examines the perspectives and actions of disparate social groups who have been affected by or played a role in the nightlife of the Lower East Side, East Village, and Bowery. Using the social world of bars as windows into understanding urban development, Richard Ocejo argues that the gentrifying neighborhoods of postindustrial cities are increasingly influenced by upscale commercial projects, causing significant conflicts for the people involved.

As a child growing up in Manhattan, William Helmreich played a game with his father called “Last Stop.” They would pick a subway line, ride it to its final destination, and explore the neighborhood. Decades later, his love for exploring the city is as strong as ever. Putting his feet to the test, he decided that the only way to truly understand New York was to walk virtually every block of all five boroughs—an astonishing 6,000 miles. His journey took him to every corner of Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx, and Staten Island. Helmreich spoke with hundreds of New Yorkers from every part of the globe and all walks of life. He finds that to be a New Yorker is to struggle to understand the place and to make a life that is as highly local as it is dynamically cosmopolitan.

Filed Under: History Tagged With: art, basquiat, history, new york city, NYC, travel, Vacation

Weekly Wanderlust: Cape Cod

July 13, 2015 by Debra Liese

Over the next month, we’ll be highlighting various vacation destinations and the books that can assist in your planning or make your experience a little bit richer. Cape Cod, the first destination on our list, is also among the first places in North America to be settled by the pilgrims. Once a haven for artists like E.E. Cummings and Eugene O’Neill, who inhabited the spartan ‘dune shacks’ reputedly built from the timber of wrecked ships, Cape Cod with its 40 miles of protected seashore remains a national treasure. In describing the great Outer Beach in 1800, Henry Thoreau called it “another world”, and it’s still easy to see why.

Sunken Meadow Beach

Jetty in Falmouth

Whether you’re watching a glassblowing presentation at the enchanting Sandwich Glass Museum, going whale watching off Provincetown, or planning a day of birding at the Welfleet Bay Wildlife Sanctuary, where nature trails wind through salt marsh, pine woods, heathland, and freshwater ponds, Cape Cod is an unforgettable trip. While dreaming up your agenda, check out these books.

The tides of the North Atlantic are the world’s highest, and they reveal a world of amazing seashore life–from jellies and sea anemones, to clams and crabs, to seaweeds and lichens. With some 300 crisp, vibrant color photographs and brief, precise descriptions, A Photographic Guide to Seashore Life in the North Atlantic: Canada to Cape Cod makes it easier than ever to identify Atlantic seashore life from Canada to Cape Cod.

Encounters with the ocean dominate Cape Cod, from the fatal shipwreck of the opening chapter to his later reflections on the Pilgrims’ landing and reconnaissance. Along the way, Thoreau relates the experiences of fishermen and oystermen, farmers and salvagers, lighthouse-keepers and ship captains, as well as his own intense confrontations with the sea as he travels the land’s outermost margins. Chronicles of exploration, settlement, and survival on the Cape lead Thoreau to reconceive the history of New England—and to recognize the parochialism of history itself.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Cape Cod, sea, Seashore Life, Thoreau, travel

A note from Thane K. Pratt and Bruce M. Beehler on the landmark publication of the 2nd edition of Birds of New Guinea

September 30, 2014 by Jessica Pellien

BIRDS OF PARADISE, ASTRAPIAS. Copyrighted material from Birds of New Guinea: Second Edition by Thane K. Pratt and Bruce M. Beehler (Princeton University Press)

Twenty-eight years have passed since publication of the first edition of Birds of New Guinea. In that time, big changes have taken place in this important bird region. The human population has more than doubled, economic development—particularly mining and logging—has accelerated, and the loss of habitat has increased proportionately. On the brighter side, vast tracts of wilderness remain, several international conservation organizations have joined forces with local governments to protect the forest, birding as a form of ecotourism has blossomed, and a new generation of field researchers has taken to the bush. Exciting new information on bird distribution and biology has poured in. And as if to heighten appreciation for New Guinea’s avifauna, modern molecular systematic research has revolutionized the classification of birds and pinpointed New Guinea and Australia as the motherland of the world’s most prominent bird lineage, the songbirds (oscine passerines). In light of these changes, a new edition of Birds of New Guinea is timely.

A book must suit the purposes of the people using it. In many parts of the world—Australia, Europe, North America—field guides to birds are written mainly for birders (bird-watchers). These books focus solely on how to identify birds to species, how to tell the age and sex of a bird, and how and where to find it. Readers wishing to learn more about birds can turn to other books for information on bird natural history, ecology, reproduction, evolution, geographic variation, classification, and conservation. Unfortunately, much of this information on New Guinea birds can be found only in technical literature that is not readily available.

DOLLARBIRD, BEE-EATERS, AND LARGE KINGFISHERS. Copyrighted material from Birds of New Guinea: Second Edition by Thane K. Pratt and Bruce M. Beehler (Princeton University Press)

It is our wish that readers in the field have more basic information at their fingertips. In the new edition of Birds of New Guinea, we have expanded the content of the species accounts to include more biological details—behavior, diet, nesting—than are typically covered in a field guide. As for the identification purpose of the book, we have also expanded the species accounts in this second edition to explain how to determine the sex and age of a bird, and how geographic variation is partitioned into subspecies (races). To accomplish all this, we have adopted a “handbook-style” format for the book. Rather than fitting all the information opposite the painted plates—the format typical of most recent field guides—our book presents detailed species accounts in the body of the book separate from the illustrations in the front, with abridged species accounts and maps facing the plates. We hope this additional information will be of use to birders, tour guides, biologists, and conservationists who enjoy New Guinea birds and strive to learn more about them.

Expanding the scope of the book demanded new artwork, and for that we drew up a plate plan that more than doubled the number of figures and resulted in replacing nearly all original artwork. The resulting book is as beautiful as it is informative, and we hope readers are as delighted with it as we are.

This text has been adapted from the preface of Birds of New Guinea: Second Edition by Thane K. Pratt and Bruce M. Beehler.

Filed Under: Birds and Natural History Tagged With: birds, birds and natural history, new guinea, travel

Book trailer for Atlas of Cities edited by Paul Knox

September 25, 2014 by Casey LaVela

Princeton University Press senior designer Jason Alejandro created this book trailer for Atlas of Cities edited by Paul Knox. (The catchy song in the background is the aptly named “Weekend in the City” by Silent Partner.)

Atlas of Cities
Edited by Paul Knox

Filed Under: Art and Architecture, Business, Comparative History, Design, Economic History, Humanities, Public Policy, Reference, Sociology, Technology, World History Tagged With: architecture, Book Trailers, comparative history, economics, Reference, Sociology, travel, urban studies, World History

Fun Facts about Caribbean Wildlife

August 6, 2014 by Jessica Pellien

Did you know…

Residents of colonial Cuba could be punished for insulting the Cuban Trogon, a red-breasted bird whose plumage was seen as representing the red sash worn by Spanish kings.

Ackee with salt fish is Jamaica’s national dish, but the fruit can be highly poisonous if harvested or cooked incorrectly

The earliest attempt to import breadfruit into the Caribbean was thwarted by a famous mutiny — the one on the H.M.S. Bounty, which was carrying the seedlings among its cargo.

You can tell which way the wind blows on a given island by looking at the coconut palm trees, which often leans in the direction of the prevailing breeze.

The Caribbean is home to dozens of species of bats, about half of which are endemic to the islands.

The Red Junglefowl found in the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico and the Grenadines is actually the feral offspring of formerly domesticated roosters and chickens.

Crocodiles are native to Cuba, Jamaica, the Dominican Republic, and Haiti.

Barracudas have been known to attack divers wearing sparkly clothing, which they can mistake for prey.

The black grouper can grow to four feet long and change its sex from female to male.

The Caribbean spiny lobster can swim backwards by flipping its tail.

Whether you are traveling to the Caribbean by plane or by cruise ship, make sure you pack a copy of Wildlife of the Caribbean by Herbert A. Raffaele and James W. Wiley so you can learn more about the birds, fish, mammals, and plants you might see.

Credit — these fun facts were included in About.com Caribbean Travel’s review of Wildlife of the Caribbean.

Filed Under: Birds and Natural History Tagged With: caribbean, cruises, travel