NEW YORK-
Sometimes you don’t need a comprehensive 400-page guide telling you the history of a place with a description of every museum, hotel and restaurant around.
Sometimes you just need a list of the very best–and that’s especially true if you’re only there for a weekend, or if you’re fitting in a few hours of sightseeing while traveling on business.
A new series of guidebooks called “10 Best” offers top recommendations for Atlanta, Dallas, Miami, San Francisco and Washington. The paperbacks, published by Synergy Books, are $9.95 and small enough to fit in your pocket.
The Miami guide, for example, lists best restaurants, best sights and activities, best nightlife, and some ideas for day trips from Miami or as additions to your itinerary. These include deep-sea fishing, Everglades National Park and John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park in Key Largo.
Miami’s 10 best restaurants, as identified by the “10 Best” guide, are Chef Allen’s, Norman’s, Azul, Cacao, The Capital Grille, Prime One Twelve, Shibui, Nobu Miami Beach, Ortanique on the Mile, and Romeo’s Cafe.
Best Latin restaurants, according to the guide, are Mark’s South Beach, Carmen the Restaurant, Francesco, SushiSamba dromo, OLA Miami, Graziano’s Parrilla Argentina, Las Culebrinas, Lila’s, Tambo and Versailles.
The book’s nightlife list is, naturally, all about South Beach, starting with the Rose Bar at the famed Delano Hotel on Collins Avenue; the Skybar Miami Beach at the Shore Club, also on Collins; the Pearl Restaurant and Champagne Lounge, and Nikki Beach Miami, both on Ocean Drive at Penrod’s Entertainment Complex; Tantra on Pennsylvania Avenue; Opium Garden on Collins; B.E.D., on Washington Avenue; Mynt Lounge on Collins; Crobar on Washington, and Van Dyke Cafe on Lincoln Road.
The 10 most highly recommended sights and activities are the Vizcaya Museum and Gardens, the Art Deco Historic District with its distinctive pastel-colored buildings; the Venetian Pool in Coral Gables; the Holocaust Museum; the Historical Museum of Southern Florida; the Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden; the Deering Estate; the Miami Metrozoo; the eclectic Wolfsonian museum in South Beach; and Parrot Jungle Island, where you can feed baby goats and watch a bird pedal a bicycle.
Although the book series only covers five cities, the Web site offers online guides to 400 cities around the world. The site includes a “Virtual Concierge” through which you can book hotel rooms, vacation packages and car rentals. The company also offers a wireless application that provides destination information from cell phones and PDAs at .
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