Pilot's Guide to the USA
 

Anyone know of a good private pilot's reference book to touring the US? I'm looking for a kind of Rough Guide To...but aimed at people hiring spamcans. I'll be flying coast to coast so a USA-wide book would be preferable to any regional guides.

Thanks in advance...

I'm a talking book if you want to take me! :D Apart from that, it's a good idea to have a read through FAR AIMS which is the official guide to US flying. Don't leave it to the last minute though, it's comparable to the book War and Peace! It's really not that difficult to fly in the USA and ATC are really ace people who are really patient with foreign pilots - yes that's you and me!. It's also an idea to have a transciever with you so that you can listen to the tower and ATC in general before flying. The RT is a bit different and GA and commercial fly in the same airspace.

There is a book called Western US Pilots Guide which has lots of colourful photos of some of the more worthwhile airports to visit, including airport diagrams, area photos and a little bit of information on why you might want to go there. The journalism is not the highest quality but its good enough. I even agreed with some of their choices of which airports to include. I've seen something similar for the Bahamas and I'm sure there will be a Florida/Eastern US one out there.

Personally, I used a combination of the Rough Guide USA, sectionals and AFDs and the Best Western Hotels catalogue.

I've done pretty well with the A/FD, sectionals, and Fodor's guides.

DO read the FAR/AIM first, so you know the rules (you only need to read some of it, not all of it - the index will make it clear which chapters, based on the flying privileges you will be exercising).

Don't forget to arrange your FAA PPL well in advance if you don't already have one.

A little book that helped me is "VFR radio proceedures in the USA" available over here from Transair etc and written in a colloquial sort of way.