Book Review: Hidden Places: From Secret Shores to Sacred Shrines by Claudia Martin

Hidden Places: From Secret Shores to Sacred Shrines by Claudia Martin roams across the globe in search of hidden treasures and secret places off the beaten track. Explore the Silfra Deep Trench in Iceland, where the North American and Eurasian tectonic plates meet to create a remarkable rift and freshwater dive site; experience the weirdest of woodland walks through the Crooked Forest in Pomerania, Poland, where a grove of 400 pines are uniformly curved; marvel at the colorful, gold-plated temple of Doi Suthep in northern Thailand; or visit the world’s highest sand dune, Grande Dune du Pilat, on the Bordeaux coast. Each location is accompanied by a caption explaining the geography and history of the place. Illustrated with 180 color photographs, Hidden Places ranges from the sparse landscape of the Arctic Circle to the rich rainforests of the Amazon basin. Read this book and discover the special, hidden places that will come to define your bucket list – many of which are much closer to home than you think.

Hidden Places was a wonderful book to look through and enjoy. As someone that has travelled little, but often thinks about going to the less travelled places in the world, I really enjoyed getting a good look at the quiet places that I am likely never going to see. The photographs are wonderful, and for the most part show locations with few to zero people taking advantage of the locations (just how I'd like to see them). I liked the variety of locations and climates included. There were snow and ice covered locations, lush forests, deserts, as well as man made or altered locations from all over the world. The colors in each image are so vibrant and perfect that it feels almost like you are looking out a window rather than at a picture on a screen, or page in the case of a print version. Some of the colors and wonders included looked so perfect that I was squinted to make sure the image really was a photograph rather than a painting since they looked so fantastic.   I think this book offers readers exactly what they will be hoping for by the title and cover, weather they are regular travelers or those that prefer staying home and enjoying from afar.