MOON HANDBOOKS ILLINOIS

Local author Christine des Garennes knows the best ways to explore the heart of America, from small-town historic landmarks to the Windy City. Her firsthand experience and honest insight will show you the difference between visiting Illinois and knowing it.

"America's finest travel guidebook series. . .extensively researched, engagingly written, intelligently indexed, and packed with helpful maps and sidebars." —Money magazine

Moon Handbooks Illinois
1st Edition
Christine des Garennes
ISBN 1-56691-703-4
$17.95
Purchase here through Amazon.com or visit Booksense.com to find your local independent bookseller.

Christine des Garennes grew up in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Missouri, but has been calling Illinois home since
1993. She started contributing to travel publications in 2000 while in graduate school and in need of a reprieve from penning essays on composition theory. The career move seemed to make sense, combining two life-long loves: writing and traveling.
   When she was 10 years old, she declared herself a travel agent and offered her services to family members, who, to her disappointment, preferred sedentary vacations, such as lounging on a beach all day. During these annual family vacations, she pestered her parents to take her on trips to local museums and flea markets, horseback riding, and on as many bike and canoe rides as they could stand.
   During her college years and shortly thereafter, she spent much of her free time on road trips throughout the Midwest and backpacking through Europe, always armed with ambitious itineraries. In recent years, she has learned to whittle down her itineraries when traveling with her husband and son, and grown to appreciate a lazy afternoon on a lakeshore.
She is a list maker, chocolate lover, and sometimes absent-minded traveler. She has left behind eyeglasses, T-shirts, and countless toothbrushes in hotel rooms, and without fail, locks the keys in her car once a year.
   She loves watching a silent film in an old movie palace, dining on french fries and a milkshake at a vintage roadside eatery, and rowing a boat into the middle of a quiet lake. (All of these things are possible in Illinois.)
   In addition to books, Christine also writes about agriculture and consumer issues for a daily newspaper in Illinois.