Nov. 10, 2009 at 3:01pm Armchair Traveling - The Pacific Northwest

Videos of regional and statewide travel destinations

The first of the travel videos I am reviewing in this series is Pacific Northwest USA, a 2005 production. Although the coverage is a bit superficial, it is an interesting overview of locations in Washington and Oregon, some of which you may not yet know about. The major tourist destinations of Seattle, Portland and Mount St. Helens are reviewed, but also included are a random sampling of small cities and parks. Hoqium's lumberjack competition, Pendleton's roundup and the Oregon Sand Dunes are some of the less known places and events pitched in this film.

The next two videos were done by the same production company, and have many similar characteristics. Washington the beautiful and Over Washington were both produced by KCTS Television of Seattle, and the film quality is excellent. These two videos are less informational than the first but they are more inspirational and show the beauty and grandeur of the cities as well as the natural resources of our great state.

Washington the beautiful combines street level views of Washington life with aerial videos and overlays this with an appropriate styles of music for each segment and commentary on the views. Over Washington is entirely aerial filming with appropriate music, and has only very limited commentary that is entirely quotations from politicians, naturalists and citizens on the location being viewed in each segment. The videography in these two films is of high enough quality that I wouldn't mind leaving on my television on a loop in the background continuously, even without the audio portion. Also, despite the fact that these two films were done by the same production company, I saw no evidence that they used the same images for both films.

The last video for today is Washington State, a scenic tour. This is very much an advertising and marketing tool to convince you to visit the locations shown. But it works very well, and I was motivated to jot down the names of parks, towns and festivals to research further. This video was more fast-paced than Pacific Northwest USA, covered a great deal more locations than the others, and generally showed more maps and signs to help trigger your visual memory.  This was an excellent review of some fun facts and interesting locales for weekend outings that may appeal to newer residents or even long-time locals that may have forgotten about a place they had always meant to visit.

If you are interested in any of these DVDs below is a list with links that will take you directly to our catalog entries so that you may place a request for them. Next week I will be reviewing three more DVDs that cover more detail on Seattle, Mt. Rainier and the San Juan Islands.

DVD 917.904 PACIFIC
Pacific Northwest USA / Pilot Film and TV Productions Ltd.  2005

DVD 917.979 Washington
Washington the beautiful / KCTS Television  1997

DVD 917.979 OVER WA
Over Washington / KCTS Television  1989

DVD 917.9704 WASHING
Washington State, a scenic tour / Hatzoff Productions  2009