Are you planning a trip to Salt Lake City? Do you know the best restaurants in the city? How do you find the best hamburger in Salt Lake City? How about the best Mexican food? You can find all that and more in the free 22-page booklet entitled, The Chart Chick's Quick Insider's Guide to Salt Lake City.
For those of you who are not familiar with the "Chart Chick," that is a pseudonym used by Janet Hovorka. She and her husband Kim run Family ChartMasters, the company that produces the beautiful wall charts for genealogists. If you are not familiar with Family ChartMasters, you need to look at https://familychartmasters.com. Even though the web site shows numerous examples, you cannot appreciate these charts until you see them in person. The small image on your computer's screen doesn't do justice to these large charts.
Janet lives in the Salt Lake City suburbs and knows the city well. In her travels to genealogy meetings and conferences, she found many people asking her about places to eat and the various other attractions of Salt Lake City. Consequently, Janet decided to put her thoughts and experiences together in a free ebook. You can also purchase a printed version of the same book for a modest fee. As she wrote in the book's introduction, "... the purpose of this work is to make sure you have a good time and give you some hints about genealogically enjoying this city I love."
The Insider's Guide starts with descriptions of several web sites that introduce the city to the first-time visitor. These include the Salt Lake Downtown Alliance, the Salt Lake Visitor's Bureau, the Local Salt Lake City Government Site, the Utah Travel Center, and others.
She also has a chapter on "Getting Around" that describes the various methods of transportation. The city is built on a grid system, so navigating is easy once you learn the somewhat confusing street numbering system. Don't forget that Salt Lake City's blocks are big blocks. Walking two or three blocks is a lot longer distance than in most other cities!
Travel itself is a good news/bad news situation. The good news is that Salt Lake City has an excellent trolley system called the Trax Light Rail Route. It is clean, reliable, and inexpensive. In fact, riding around the downtown section on Trax is free of charge although fees are charged as you travel further from downtown.
The "bad news" is that Salt Lake City is in an almost constant cycle of construction. You will find lots of orange cones and covered sidewalks. However, these do seem to be minor inconveniences most of the time.
Of course, you do have to eat. Janet gives information about many of the restaurants in the area, ranging from diners to five-star eateries. She even explains the differences between the Red Iguana and Blue Iguana Mexican restaurants. (Both of them are excellent, informal places.) I also noted her recommendation of the best barbecue restaurant in the downtown area. Janet even gives her recommendation for the best place to get a good burger.
The Chart Chick's Quick Insider's Guide to Salt Lake City goes on and on to describe libraries and archives (yes, there are others besides the Family History Library), historical sites, religious services available (not everyone in the city is a member of the LDS Church), shopping, parks, entertainment, and attractions for the entire family.
If you have an automobile available, you will also be interested in the chapter entitled, "Day Trips."
I did make one mistake when reading this book: I did so just before dinnertime. Janet's descriptions made me so hungry that I had to interrupt my reading and cook dinner. Unfortunately, I was not in Salt Lake City at the time.
On my next trip to Salt Lake City, I will be "packing" this book in my laptop, cell phone, and tablet computers.
This is a great guide! Best of all, it is available free of charge as an ebook. You can also purchase a printed version for $14.95 plus shipping. That price is charged to cover the printing expenses.
For more information, or to download or purchase The Chart Chick's Quick Insider's Guide to Salt Lake City, go to The Chart Chick Blog at http://thechartchick.blogspot.com/2012/01/chart-chicks-quick-insiders-guide-to.html.
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