BootsnAll Travel Community

I know, this is a strange question, but when you're planning for a trip abroad, how many different guide books do you buy? If you're going to Prague, say, do you buy a book on the Czech Republic and a book on Prague and, say, a Czech-languge phrase book?

Just curious....

DawnSev
SPANISH CYCLEPATHS

This really depends on how much of a planning mood I'm in. If I really feel like going crazy I will buy both book and then return one before I leave. Often for short trips I will buy several books, copy the pages I need and then return them all to save the money. Wikitravel is a really good source as well.

I tend to just buy the lonely planet guide to a country - i have only ever bought one city guide. I tend to read it quite thoroughly and then rip out pages to take travelling with me.

Mich

I rarely buy a guidebook. I'll check out several from the library, look through all of them to get a broad sense of the places where I am going, xerox what I need, and then return them to said library.

I usually just make my own guide book with the pages that I have photocopied. It includes:

Little maps of the city/bus line/subway route

Key phrases in a language

Locations of what I hope to see

Any other hints that I may have gathered from other places, like BnA.

The nice thing about doing it this way is that it is inexpensive, has just what I need, and is very light weight.

I use the "cut & paste from the BNA and LP forums, then print it out" method as well as the "buy a new guidebook" method.

I will always try to buy one guidebook for a country, usually the LP. On the rare occasion where I've arrived without one, I found myself at a total loss for what to do and where to go. Since I like planning, I'll usually borrow a rough guide from the library as well before heading off.

Like everyone else, I'll also consult the boards, though I usually just email the advice to myself, or make a note in the front cover of my journal.

I, unfortunately, have the bad habit of buying and selling books every week, so I have tons of LP, rough guides, "places to see before you die", "mysteries of the world"...really anything that looks like it has some connection to traveling the world. I think(because i have not yet done this) that on the road, there's no better guide than experience and just doin it.

I usually buy a Lonely Planet book on where I'm going...depends really on how long I'm going for, sometimes I just want to go and explore...

Lonely Planet also do City Guides so if you're going for a short break to some cities (like me) they are quite useful rather than buying, for example, a huge book on Morocco when I'm only going to Marrakech.

Usually, I will travel with one guide book and my own notes from various sites.

I keep trying to get away from Lonely Planet, but they keep reeling me back. I even undertook my own experiment about a year and a half ago on a three week trip to SPAM (that's Spain, Portugal and Morocco). On that trip I took a Rough Guide, LP, and a Blue Guide. To cut this reply short, let me just say that I ended up refering to LP the most.

To critique LP however, I don't like their guides have become an "all things to all people" experience. I'd rather have a guide that is more tailored to the way I travel. By following the generic angle, LP skimps on some of the meat of travel that is useful to me. Also, I will no longer try to save a buck by buying a regional book (LP Central Europe, for example). Sure it's less to carry, but it is also much less informative on the lesser traveled regions that it covers. Finally, let me gripe about LP maps. They are nice graphically, but I have found several inaccuracies.

I wish that the Berkeley Guides were still around. They carried just enough attitude and local lore to make them the most insightful guides I have ever used. I think that they were discontinued in the late 1990s.

This may be blasphemy for many people on this site, but I normally use Rick Steves. I prefer his books over LP. If I'm travelling in a region (e.g. Hungary, CZ and Austria) I will use his book for the region and may buy a separate book for cities I'm particularly interested in getting "help" exploring. If my trip is limited to one country, I simply use the book for that country and normally do not buy books for particular cities unless I'm going to be in that city for more than a week.

Not blasphemy at all. A lot of really like Rick Steves and his guide book series but especially the causes that he has supported in his private life.

I had never appreciated Rick Steve's style and travel coverage...until earlier this week. An article about village pubs in the Czech Republic, on CNN/Travel, of all places, peaked my interest. I was surprised to see, after finishing the article, that it was written by Mr. Steves. Cheers Rick! I promise to no long poo-poo your writing.

Crap, did I just use "poo-poo" in a sentence.

A lot of the guidebooks have pretty much everything online that they have in their books. Lonely Planet online tells me just what I am looking for from the book - and its free - just hit print to take the bits you want with you. Same with Rick Steves and some others Much cheaper than buying all the books and you can take the best of each one!

Hey, I'm brand new at this and about to head out on my first big trip (booked Croatia one-way today!!)...so of course like a new traveller I went to the store and bought LP books on the first four places I'm planning to hit (Croatia, Greece, Thailand, Vietnam).

Since I am TERRIFIED of this trip, (terrified!), I can't imagine showing up in any of these places without these books surgically attached to my fingers. Yet, I think they weigh about 10 lbs total? And I haven't even gotten the Aussie or NZ ones yet....any tips on how to manage this heavy dilemma would be greatly appreciated.

I know people did this for decades before us with no travel guides and survived just fine...still, can't imagine it just yet. I'm not that brave.

quote:

Originally posted by PACKINGITIN:
I can't imagine showing up in any of these places without these books surgically attached to my fingers. Yet, I think they weigh about 10 lbs total? And I haven't even gotten the Aussie or NZ ones yet....any tips on how to manage this heavy dilemma would be greatly appreciated.

I know people did this for decades before us with no travel guides and survived just fine...still, can't imagine it just yet. I'm not that brave.

Congratulations on booking the ticket!! You have already passed through one of the scariest parts of any trip -- just deciding to go!



Are you planning on keeping your guidebooks as travel souvenirs? If not, dump them as you travel. Many big cities have used book stores that would be happy to trade your very new LP guide for something else, or just cash. If that seems like too much trouble, if you are staying in a hostel or other place with many other travelers with whom you become chatty -- and trust me, over time, you will become very chatty, you could trade your guide for another or some other good read.

Here is what I have noticed about travel: It becomes much less scary and intimidating with experience. The more times that you wander through a particularly foreign feeling city and find the hidden spot for which you were searching, the more courage you will have the next time you are out on your own, trying to find some place that has captured your attention. You will notice that you feel less attached to those guide books and start to see them more as reference material and less as life-saving buoys in a sea of strangeness.

The other thing that you could do, though, is take the parts of the book that you need. Will you be seeing all of Greece? If not, take only the parts of the book that have to do with where you will be traveling.

Good luck -- I look forward to hearing stories from your trip!

lonely planet is good for basics but never go to their places...they are always crowded...

i use them for historical overview but whereever i go, i just ask other people...never use guides for recommendations

buy the guidebook that fits you
if you're only going to Prague, i'd look for a Prague book. If you're going elsewhere in the Czech universe, look for a country book.

I like Rick Steves. My last 2 trips i bought Rick Steves books. Well worth the money. There is a lot of practical info that isn't as organized on the internet, maps and stuff, handy phone numbers. I find guidebooks save me lots of time and often money too. The other guidebook that i liked was Let's Go which i used for France.

happy travels

I have to say I'm a guidebook junkie. I even buy them for places I am only just thinking about going to maybe in the next 2-5 years. That said, I also like the info on the internet and of course that is greener to use.

I noticed you were using Prague as an example in previous posts. I just went there for 4 days as a side trip before a business trip I was taking to Heidelberg, Germany.

I bought a Frommer's guide to Prague and the Czech Republic plus a DK guide to Prague. I tend to buy those heavy DK guides first because they are full of pictures. Then I get more serious and look around for something that talks about places to stay, eat and transportation. Usually I get a map too because that can helpful both for planning where to stay and for navigating around a place.

I was tempted by Rick Steeves but for some reason Frommer's spoke to me this time. I think it was the section on getting out of the airport and mentioning the 120 crown bus that caught my attention this time. I also like Lonely Planet but they're much better for out of the way spots than for urban adventures.

I also spent hours just combing the internet reading about Prague and writing friends who had been there, etc. Here I go, the info junkie again, but it gets me so excited about traveling to a place.

Anyway when I travel, sometimes I take a guide or two with me and sometimes I leave them at home. Sometimes I photocopy the pages I like and then toss them as I travel. This time since it was a business trip and I wasn't traveling around much, just fly into Prague, fly to Frankfurt/Heidelberg. I took both guides with me and read them on the plane.

I ended up spending a day in France after business, but didn't take a guidebook for that. I just pulled stuff off the internet on the town I was headed too and that worked fine too.

I think I really like the guidebooks best for entertainment value and lists of cool walks. Even if I'm not headed there yet.

My travel budget does not allow me to use a Rick Steves or a Frommers, especially a Frommers. It is essentially an expensive hotel and restaurant guide with frills. If you drive, a Frommers might actually be more useful. I have never had the money to go to the restaurants they recommend. Oh well. The museums are covered in other books.

The DK eyewitness guides are great, but I've never actually sprung for one AND the LP for europe, asia. For the Americas it's footprints all the way. If I see an eyewitness book, I take a look at it when I arrive.

I've used a Let's go, but my general reaction to them is
"Let's go buy another guidebook. They're better than nothing, by the way. This I HAVE found to be true.

The Berkeley guides? Very cheeky and not as useful as one would like. Don't miss them.

The americas.. all you need is a Mexico Footprint, and a Central and South America Footprint. The entries per country on the big book are better than the entire country guides for LP, in that continent area.

The net is my friend. After I'm done researching I take a decision. I'm going to buy the Vienna Card now which gives us discounts plus map plus guide book. The good part is that English IS spoken in Vienna so don't have to worry abt that.

When we went to Budapest, I printed out several phrases to use.