| Space-Available Travel Guidebooks | | There are a number of good books with phone numbers to call and tips on planning a trip. Most are issued annually, and the cover shots included here are not necessarily the most current version. The prices listed here are mail order. When you can find these books in a military exchange store, the prices will usually be lower.
- Military Living Publications has the most complete and widely available set of guidebooks and related information. Ordering information can be found on their web page. Ann and Roy Crawford, the publishers, can also be reached by email at
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. Military Living also produces a collection of maps that show the location of military facilities and depict the more heavily traveled space-available travel routes.
- "Military Space-A Air Basic Training & Reader Trip Reports" ORDER NOW from Amazon.com is the best guide I have found on how to plan a trip. It's full of tips and ideas.
- "Military Space-A Air Opportunities Around the World" ORDER NOW from Amazon.com is a fairly thick book which contains phone numbers for passenger terminals and some other useful base facilities and a fairly detailed listing of typical flights that was current at the time of publication. It is available in almost every military exchange store.
- "Temporary Military Lodging Around the World" ORDER NOW from Amazon.com is a comprehensive guidebook listing relatively inexpensive accommodations. More detailed than the lodging listings in "Military Space-A Air Opportunities Around the World", it also lists accommodations at bases which have no associated space-available travel opportunities.
- "U.S. Forces Travel Guide to U.S. Military Installations" ORDER NOW from Amazon.com by Ann Caddell Crawford, William Roy Crawford, Nicole Clark is another excellent resource.
- My personal favorite guidebook to pack when traveling is Worldwide Space-A Travel Handbook ORDER NOW from Amazon.com Much more compact than "Military Space-A Air Opportunities Around the World", it also provides comprehensive lodging information on bases without space-available flights and helpful information on ground transportation. This may not be a good choice for the first-time traveler, however, since I have found that many first-timer's find it hard to extract much useful information from the codes that are used to save space.
- The Society of Military Travelers produces a guidebook called "The Space Available Handbook" that sells for $22.50 including shipping. I have never seen this guidebook, but their wab page suggests that it is targeted at retirees. You can contact the publisher by calling (800)638-8784.
Because policies and phone numbers change from time to time, there is also a small cottage industry writing newsletters to keep avid travelers up to date. - Military Living publishes 6 issues per year of the "R&R Space-A Report". This includes updates to the material in all of their books, as well as occasional trip reports sent in by readers. Prices and ordering information are available on their web page.
- The publishers of "Worldwide Space-A Travel Handbook" publish a newsletter called "Space-A Travel Update" 6 times a year - a one-year subscription is included with the book.
Doug Oard
Last modified: Sat Apr 1 14:32:09 2000 |
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Space A Travel 
