What is it about audiobooks that makes them such good holiday companions?



The thing is, the most modern audiobooks of today have developed to an interesting stage.

The current state of the art is audiobooks that are minute and lightweight that come complete with a battery and earpieces.

But although they’re small, each one can hold many hours of sound recording.

When you’re sunbathing, the priority is exposing your skin to the sun while protecting it with sufficient sun-block, and your eyes with sunglasses.

These priorities actually fight against the requirements for reading, where your eyes need to focus on fine print and your hands need to hold the book, magazine or newspaper so you can read it.

Sometimes sunbathers use the reading material as a kind of sunshade over their face and try and read that way, lying on their back with their sunglasses off, holding the book aloft.

Your eyes will be squinting and under strain. Also the sun won’t be getting to your face as it should be if you’re aiming to get an even tan.

Your arms will get tired from holding the book, and the sunscreen from your hands will stain the book cover and pages.

After a while your arms get so tired that you have to turn over on your stomach.

But in this position your eyes will get strained looking at a white page which is reflecting the sun’s rays. And you’ll have to prop yourself up on your elbows to read, which will again tire your arms after a while.

Audiobooks completely eliminate these problems. Listening through light earpieces, there’s nothing to hold and nothing to read. The player itself can lie next to you or tucked under the wristband of your shorts, trunks or bikini bottoms, leaving your hands free.

You can close your eyes, really relax your whole body completely, and focus one hundred percent on the story you’re listening to.

You can turn over without interrupting the story. Rub more sun-block in, sip a drink, nibble a snack, write a postcard, all while carrying on listening. If you need to get up and walk around, that’s fine too.

When you feel you’d like to take a break from listening, all you have to do is touch a button on the audiobook player and it will stop, marking the exact place where you need to pick up the story again.

The current breed of up to date audiobooks incorporate a clever bookmarking function which enables you to go back to the exact place that you left the story.

This will even happen if the battery stops working. This is a huge advantage over reading materials where, if someone talks to you, the chances are that you lose our place and find it quite hard to get back to where you stopped reading.

Today’s audiobooks are so small and unobtrusive. One of them can hold dozens of CDs worth of material or what is equal to a very large conventional book.

Soon, audiobooks will be on every holidaymaker’s check-list. A must-have, essential item just like your swimming costume, sunglasses and sun-block, but a whole lot more interesting and entertaining.