Featured Article in Travel Weekly October 27 2008 issue...

http://www.travelweekly.com/Article.aspx?id=181474&terms=sharri+moore

Alameda author pens guide to 'Politically Incorrect Travel"

The phrase "family friendly" has a way of shooing away vacationers in search of a place where an adult can be an adult. Good, clean, wholesome fun is great for a road trip with the kiddies, but what about those travelers in search of something a bit more grown up, debaucherous and altogether kid-free?

Blueberry picking, video arcades and water parks all have a place, but in the book, "The Guide to Politically Incorrect Travel," writer Sharri Moore roots around the seamy underbelly of sightseeing. She's in the business of finding places where folks can go for something a bit different, places out of the jurisdiction of the morality police and places that generally put the "lust" back into "wanderlust."

Places like seedy, grimy casinos, drive-through strip clubs and restaurants that tend to serve more prime rib and beer than fish sticks and juice boxes.

As a corporate travel agent in Alameda at her home-based agency, Fly Me to the Moon Travel, Moore has quite a few credentials to her name. She's a member of the American Society of Travel Agents, the Cruise Lines International Association and the International Airlines Travel Agent Network, to name a few, as well as a fully bonded Certified Travel Associate and Destination Specialist.

Her bread and butter is planning plane, ship and rail trips for business executives, but the inspiration for the book comes from her passion for the obscure, weird and occasionally ribald. She says the idea came to her while talking with clients about what they saw as a distinct lack of fun stuff for grownups to do on vacation.

"We would have these regular conversations about how things have changed," she says. "We'd talk about how you can't have any fun anymore or they'd ask me if there was someplace they could go where there's not a lot of kids. I started finding places to tell them about and somebody said, 'Maybe you should write it all down.' "

Moore began listing all the places she'd come across in her travels. Places where vacationers could engage in adult activities and not be subjected to the gasps, stares and clucking tongues of disapproving parents.

"It should be OK to ask where you can go to smoke," she says. "Where are the really cool places for adults? You should be able to ask that."

But the book isn't just about finding a place where enjoying a top-shelf bourbon and a couple of Winstons while eating a big, bloody t-bone steak is allowed. It also embraces those places that, though once socially acceptable, are now considered ugly remnants of a bigoted past.

Places like a giant Mexican restaurant, theme park, truck stop and hotel straddling the North Carolina-South Carolina border, which she says, are the epitome of "politically incorrect" travel.

"South of the Border," she says. "It's stereotypical, but not offensive. It's just fun. You can get your picture taken under the giant Pedro in the giant sombrero. The food is horrible, the rides are all half broken down. But it's something you always remember."

Un-PC roadside oddities like South of the Border, she says, have a way of preserving a part of the past, as wincingly out-of-touch as it may be, and bringing it to the foreground.

Places like the Wigwam Hotel, with rooms shaped like teepees, Climax, the gleefully tacky drive-through strip club in Pennsylvania and the statue of Romeo the killer elephant about to stomp a clown to death in Wisconsin all add a touch of moral ambiguity to any road trip. The thrill of experiencing those oddball roadside stops is the reason Moore wrote the book.

"I just want people to read it and have fun," she says. "If they have fun, that works for me and we'll do it some more."

"The Guide to Politically Incorrect Travel" by Sharri Moore and published by PublishAmerica is not yet available in stores, but can be purchased online at Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble.com, Borders and Waldenbooks, as well as other online retailers.

INDUSTRY REVIEWS

By	Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA)