Chicago Tribune - July 8, 2007 <http://www.chicagotribune.com/travel/ chi-0708resourcefuljul08,1,7005601.story>
The Resourceful Traveler By June Sawyers
"Cheap Motels and a Hot Plate: An Economist's Travelogue" (Monthly Review Press, $15.95)
It isn't often that you come across a travel guide whose main theme is inequality. But, then again, it isn't too often that travel guides are written by economists. Thus, author Michael D. Yates visits some of the most beautiful spots in the United States—Estes Park, Colo.; Jackson, Wyo.; Moab, Utah—but with a different perspective in mind. His book is a commentary on work and inequality, race and class in both small towns and big cities. In 2001, Yates took early retirement from his teaching position and, along with his wife, moved around the country on what became a five-year journey, working at Yellowstone one summer as a hotel desk clerk, before moving to Manhattan, then on to Miami Beach, Portland, Ore., and then embarking on a four-month road trip that took them to California, Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, Utah, Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, Washington and back to Oregon. On their road trips, they stayed at cheap motels and cooked their own meals on a hot plate (hence the title). Another theme is what Yates calls the destruction of the natural world. "Two of the most noticeable features of the American landscape," he writes, "are its growing uniformity and our disregard for beauty. With few exceptions, one small or medium-sized town could be substituted for another: highways leading into and out of town clogged with traffic and crawling with strip malls, the same fast-food restaurants and stores everywhere." This is an endlessly fascinating and provocative book—certainly a unique one—that is passionate and often quite angry. You will learn things here that you didn't know and probably don't want to know, as Yates, filtered through his own experiences, describes a country of paupers and millionaires living side by side and yet complete strangers to one another. A veritable eye opener. (ISBN: 978-1-58367-143-6)