Almost every tourist destination has a graveyard. You go to Yosemite National Park: there’s a graveyard. You go to Maui: graveyards everywhere you look. The Arizona Memorial in Pearl Harbor and the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park: both graveyards. The #1 tourist destination in Michigan has three cemeteries. America’s best-preserved Gold Rush ghost town has five. Gettysburg is a National Park because it has a graveyard. Some graveyards are even tourist destinations in themselves: the Old Jewish Cemetery of Prague, the colonial burying grounds of Boston, and Kennedy’s eternal flame in Arlington National Cemetery. Jim Morrison’s grave in Père Lachaise Cemetery ranks in the top five tourist sites of Paris.
Wish You Were Here: Adventures in Cemetery Travel contains 35 graveyard travel essays, which visit more than 50 cemeteries, churchyards, and gravesites across the globe.
The book trailer for Wish You Were Here:
Praise for Wish You Were Here:
“Lovingly researched and lushly described, Loren’s essays transport you to the graveyard, where she is quite a tour guide. Curiosity and compassion burn at the heart of these essays.”—Paula Guran, editor of Dark Echo magazine
“Rhoads is particularly adept at finding deeper meanings in what she sees, and the questions she puts to the reader about the places she visits can gently guide us in our own search for meaning in the places we encounter. If you’ve struggled to explain your love of burial grounds to others, this may be a great way to help them understand.”—LisaMary Wichowski, The Association of Graveyard Rabbits Online Journal
“Loren Rhoads started visiting cemeteries by accident. It was the start of a love affair with cemeteries that continues to this day. In Wish You Were Here, Rhoads blends history with storytelling and her photos accompany each essay.”—American Cemetery magazine
“Wish You Were Here captures well why many of us find cemeteries fascinating: because of the history and stories of so many interesting people buried there!”—Richard Waterhouse, Waterhouse Symbolism Newsletter
“‘It’s good to be a card-carrying member of the Association for Gravestone Studies,’ Loren writes. I agree. After half a lifetime of guided and self-guided tours, Loren observes, ‘What I’ve learned from cemeteries is that limestone melts, marble breaks, slate slivers, and sandstone cracks.’ That is what draws some of us to graveyards.”—Christine Quigley,Quigley’s Cabinet
Ordering information:
Wish You Were Here: Adventures in Cemetery Travel was published by Western Legends Press in May 2013. It is available directly from Amazon or CreateSpace.
Autographed and inscribed copies can be ordered directly from Loren Rhoads via PayPal. For details or to request inscriptions, use the Contact Me form above.
Wish You Were Here guest posts:
Adventures in Cemetery Travel on the Western Legends Publishing’s blog
Island of the Dead on the Western Legends Publishing’s blog
Bela Lugosi’s grave (excerpted by Wish You Were Here) on Cemetery Travel.
Curiosity and the Cat essay from Wish You Were Here on Cemetery Travel.
Permanent Florentines essay from Wish You Were Here on Wicked World
You made it to the bottom of the post! You can enter to win a paperback copy of Wish You Were Here by leaving me a comment below. Stumped for a subject? Tell me about your favorite graveyard.
My favorite cemetery? This is a good but tough question. Living in Southern California we’re surrounded by fame and fortune, Hollywood and sorts stars, all of which are in our cemeteries. But for me it’s the history f the cemeteries not who occupy them. Between Mountain View Cemetery in Altadena, Ca. with it scenic beauty and being there oldest cemetery in Los Angeles. Los Angeles National Cemetery – it’s pure history in itself with war heroes from the Mexican American War up to Afghanistan and Ravi Wars. Then you have Hollywood Forever Cemetery and the Forest Lawns where you can’t take a step without stumbling upon Hollywood royalty… Picky one cemetery I just can’t do. But, from a photographic stand point I would chose Hollywood Forever. So many picturesque and unique memorials that scream Take My Picture!! you can spend a day there and shoot hundreds of photos and not take the same photo twice. Plus being right in the heart of Hollywood the cemetery is overlooked byThe Hollywood Sign, Griffith Observatory (keeping a watchful eye on its namesake who rests at HFC) to the north and guarded by Stamping Studios to the south it’s the perfect cemetery to visit and love.
Thanks so much, Terry! Hollywood Forever is one of my favorites, too.