BootsnAll Travel Community

As I draw nearer to my departure date I find myself becoming overly concerned about some of the less important decisions. Please feel free to make fun of me as much as you want, but only if you give me your opinion as well.

The Let's Go 2008 Europe guidebooks came out today. I've settled on Let's Go, but I don't know which one to buy. Just so you know I will be spending about 10 months in Europe on my RTW.

Here are my options:

All Europe Book (15.99)- This has it all, including Scandinavia, but not the Balkans (Let's Go doesn't cover them). This book is 6 pages longer than the Western Europe only book.

Or I could get separate Western and Eastern European books, each about $24.95. There seems to be more detail in the hostels and day trip sections. Scandinavia and the Balkans would not be covered. I would be able to send the Eastern book to my German Friend Markus for him to hold on to. My mom will be sending me a care package anyway.

So, what would you do? That is, besides laugh at me and tell me that this type of problem is really no problem at all.

I choose my books based upon which is the newest.

Sometimes it turns out that Let's Go! is the newest.
While not as comprehensive as, say, a Rough Guide, I find their writing to be refreshingly breezy and their guides to be different enough from Lonely Planet to make them very worthwhile.
There will always be other travelers in hostels to share and compare travel guides with.

Can I laugh??? Pleeeeease??

Just kidding. Its a kinda something and nothing problem all at the same time but guidebooks aleays throw up debate and understanably so. They're useful tools to have i your armery...That said here's my take on it...

Get the All Europe book. Why? Well its just teh one thing to worry about, costs less than half the price and you can choose to discard sections once you've covered a certain country.

I think a guidebook serves as a nice little overview of a place, gives you some nice ideas and so on but most of teh stuff I end up doing comes from what otehrs recommend when I'm on the road, wether its fellow travellers, locals or hostel staff. If you ever want more info on a place, there's the internet, the local tourist Info Centre and, well, us guys.

Dont get me wrong, I love having a guidebook to refernce and bought my fare share on teh road that were either traded, given away or discarded to know just how useful they are but I rarely used them for hostels, eating/drinking and enetertainment. Mostly to get an overview of what x place has to offer.

My advice? Take as little as possible guidebook wise, you can always buy if you need to when on the road and like I said, I think the best info comes from others, rather than guidebooks.

SO you guys are basically in agreement, any holes that my guidebook might have can easily be filled in by other traveler's. I was thinking that as well. Only having one will make my life easier.

To be honest, that's the one I was in line to buy today, but it was taking too long and my lunch hour was just about up.

And Dave, laugh as much as you would like now. Just don't make fun of me for not being able to decide which pants I should wear, or whether or not I should bring enough chapstick to last me the entire trip or just buy along the way.

It depends on your style, but for me, when I've got an over-condensed guidebook, I find that I'm frustrated a lot of the time. I know there's interesting things to do and see nearby, but I have no idea what they are and how to get there. This is less of a problem in major destinations, since there are other travellers to help you out, and you've usually got a good idea of what you want to see. But when you visit out of the way spots, you may have only a vague idea of what's there, or are just there because it's in between two points, there's not always anyone around to provide suggestions, nor will you necessarily know exactly what you want to do.

And bring enough chapstick for the whole trip. You won't be able to get your favourite type once you're overseas.

Get the "all Europe" book, and cut out the chapters (aka: countries) that you won't be using. Sure, you won't be able to re-sell the book, but you also won't be carring all those extra pounds on your back.

I actually plan on visiting every country in Europe. My main concern is mostly lack of information vs. the pain of carrying multiple books as well as the cost.

Here's what I do with guidebooks (don't worry, it's not rude )

I always buy one, wherever I'm going. Which one doesn't matter - any good, popular one will do. Then I carefully check out their proposed route around a country. Say they suggest you start in Geneva and end up in St Gallen on your trip through Switzerland. I'll try it the other way around, and start first in St Gallen.

What I will do is use the guidebook for hostels that first night, when I arrive in St Gallen. Since most travelers will have taken the more popular route from Geneva, this will be the end of the 'Swiss Road' for many backpackers. Then I start asking about their route and favorites. What's a good hostel in Zurich? Where can you eat cheaply in Geneva? Can I camp along the lake or will I get arrested?

At least half the backpackers in the hostel will have something to contribute. And I'll keep traveling the 'wrong' way, getting advice from other backpackers as I go.

So yes, a guidebook is useful, but there's more than one way to use it.

quote:

Originally posted by Kathryn M:
I actually plan on visiting every country in Europe.

Really? There's a lot of 'em.

Even Andora, Luxemborg, etc ???

Pretty much all of them, maybe missing one or two of the small ones.

I'm sure that I'll miss a few of them, the small ones, or maybe some of the breakout regions in Eastern Europe, but I will be hitting most of them.