Travel guides: Whats your favorite?

[gophish Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close gophish]

Rick Steves and Lonely Planet. Both will give you lots of ideas on eating and shopping in the less touristy(sp) areas. Rick Steves books really concentrate on the more local and less touristy stuff and as someone else said sometimes miss some stuff that I would not want to miss, but all in all they are really good.

[Laurie Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Laurie]

While I like Rick Steves' philosophy of travel, I have never particularly liked his guidebooks. Too many times when I go to Barnes and Noble and pick up his guidebooks and look in the index for places I want to go in a country they are simply not there in Steves' guide, but they are in Lonely Planet, Rough Guides, and Let's Go. That is a fundamental weakness in Steves' guidebooks.

Carolinian, do you mean for repeat trips to a country, or a first-time trip? For repeat trips, you've probably already seen most of what's in Rick Steves books, because he really narrows down the choices to a best-of, and does skip entire regions. So for a first-time visitor with limited time, IMO they're great. But I wouldn't go without a second guidebook to supplement.

He also gives recommendations based on how many days you have, prioritizing destinations within a country, which can be helpful. I will say that he emphasizes the sights in big cities too much for my personal taste, so I'd make different decisions about how many days to spend where. Also his background is art history, so he recommends more museum time, and places that classical art is found, than I might choose.

dancingfish, Rick Steves has a public television show that's broadcast in lots of areas, see if you get that locally and tune in sometimes to see whether you like his philosophy and travel/tourism style. He is funnier in his books than on TV though.

[Carolinian Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close Carolinian]

Carolinian, do you mean for repeat trips to a country, or a first-time trip? For repeat trips, you've probably already seen most of what's in Rick Steves books, because he really narrows down the choices to a best-of, and does skip entire regions. So for a first-time visitor with limited time, IMO they're great. But I wouldn't go without a second guidebook to supplement.

I guess my problem with Steves' books is that one person's ''best of'' does not necessarily correpond with another person's. I like a guidebook that lays out all of the possibilities so I can make up my own mind. That is true even for first trips.

[wombat Member Find all posts View Profile Close wombat]

I agree with Carolinian on Rick Steves. I find his books are very much like "guided tours". They tell you the best of what to see in each place, which is good if it is your first visit or if you're short of time. But once you have seen the main sights, you're better off with Lonely Planet or Rough Guides to see the rest, or sights that are off the beaten track.