THE MONK LIST
o us, travel should be transformative. When you travel with "beginner's
mind" you are open to new ideas. You are willing to participate rather
than just passively view. Many items chosen for our guides will show you
something you may have never considered before. Each of the following
cities has a brief review of The Monk List. You will find an abbrieviated
version of our carefully conceived tour of a city's "must-see" attractions.
If
you are interested in having the full Monk List of a particular city please
CONTACT US for
more
information about our customized
MONK POCKET
GUIDES to the featured
cities.
Our Monk List won't tell you every possible accommodation, restaurant,
museum, in every possible price range, category, and location. At Monk,
we cut to the chase. Like you, we want to know what are the
quintessential, the authentic, the extraordinary attractions in town,
whatever the cost and wherever the location.
Every guidebook publisher puts together a list of favorites. The Monk
List
is vastly superior. First, we go the extra mile. We ask whether a place
passes the sniff test on repeated visits. As a result of our stringent
testing, we've had to leave out many excellent attractions. But that's the
beauty of the Monk List - we leave you with no doubt that what you are
getting is beyond compare. Secondly, The Monk List represents an
egalitarian zeitgeist that stretches far beyond any remotely similar
destination guide. We are not servicing a demographic or an income
bracket, but, rather, a psychographic, a sensibility. The Monk traveler is
well-rounded, culturally courageous, with a keen eye for the esoteric as
well as the perennial.
The Monk List isn't for lightweights. It's for true travelers, not tourists.
Which means, unlike the conventional "Best Of's" offered by
newspapers,
weeklies and magazines, The Monk List doesn't deliver cheery
consumerist drivel designed to get you to impulsively spend money. The
Monk List is about community, culture, and consciousness, not crass
commercialism. It's about the full gamut of travel--from dark passages to
enlightened oases, roadside Americana to toxic tourism, the bizarre to
the stunningly beautiful.
The Monk List directly reflects the spirit of each city. A Monk List
attraction must have that special something--atmosphere, cachet, history,
character, compelling design, or a fanatical following that transcends
mere trendiness. To make it onto the Monk List a place must have
leaped from being merely good to being undeniably, unshakably, and at
times perversely, great.
The Monk List is constantly evolving. It is organic and open to change. In
fact, we encourage you to debate our choices and offer alternative
options of your own. But we do hope we provide an essential service to
the bona fide Monk traveler--that rare person who seeks out the
cultural gems, the living treasures of a place, who stretches body, mind
and spirit in the quest for personal truth and cultural awareness.
Serving the highest and deepest needs of your travel experience, we
remain, your allies, the Monks.
