Best Travel Guidebook

[Wayner]

I thought I saw this topic somewhere on here but I've been unable to find it through the search feature so here goes.

What's the best guidebook for a trip to Western Europe? Rick Steves, Let's Go, Lonely Planet or something else?

[bekkle]

It depends on your personal tastes-- Rick Steves is a family man, Let's Go loves poor students, and so on.

I find merits in each of them. Personally, if I could only get one guide book for a trip (never!), I'd go with Let's Go. I feel I get the most information out of their books and it's all relevant to me. But I also find, for instance, great tips in Rick Steves, and Lonely Planet includes sights, restaurants & bars that Let's Go might neglect. You get the idea.

Of course, I haven't actually gone on my trip yet, so I might have a different perspective after a few months!

[patchouli Lover]

I don't ever pick just one. I try to spread my research all over the place. Guide books, the interenet, friend's and associate's experinces and other travel books that tell about stories or experinces.

I guess it really does matter what you want. Are you on a budget? What do u want out of your trip? I've been reading Let's Go Guide for Europe. I will probably take that with me (or at least some photocopied pages) so if I need a reference to something i can find it. But really I've heard the best way to know the locals is to toss the guide books. Now I don't know if I can completely do that myself cause I'm one who likes to know what she is getting into, but some people can.

As for Rick Steven's his recomendations and his budgets are a little too high for me, but I have noticed in his books he makes refernces to Let's Go and hostels if you are on a budget. I really did enjoy his Backdoor thru Europe book. I also found this awesome book called "Classic Walks of Western Europe."

Great for hiking around the countryside. I hope this helps.

[joe7f]

My Lonely Planet book on Spain proved its worth when I missed the last bus of the evening from Luz de Tajo mall in to old Toledo.

I thought I had a 10 mile walk in front of me when I plucked out the number for the taxi dispatch

--Joey

[HEWSINATOR]

This may seem like a silly question, but when "backpacking" all over Europe for a few months some of you bring guidebooks for specific countries, or are there consolidated say, western Europe books with bare bones basic info?

Never crossed my mind to even buy one for my 80 day trip, just reading online and looking forward to hearing first hadn accounts of what to see on the road. What other value is there in these books?

[HEWSINATOR]

Is anybody able to answer my above question?

Cheers.

[DC_Jessica]

Hey Hewsinator:

This is an opinion answer for me, but what I do is I pick a hub or two for my travels, and those are the cities I obsess about. I love traveling alone initially, but meeting people to fool around with. I have found that these people usually influence where I go to a certain degree, but also have those "unexpected" city guide books that I am lacking.

So if you plan on being damn near 100% solo and spontaneous, I would definitely invest in an all-inclusive guide to have as a handy reference. (But do some strength training to build the endurance to carry it around for 80 days!!) If you have some "hot spots" that you're going to stick to, most country or city guides have day trip sections that are super useful.

I haven't looked, but have you posted your itinerary yet? We all (well, all the *other* people besides myself who travel like pros) might be able to answer your "best guide" question better if we know exactly where you plan on going...

[DC_Jessica]

Originally Posted by DC_Jessica

We all (well, all the *other* people besides myself who travel like pros)

Just noticed this was mad confusing - it was meant to be humble. I bumble around when I travel, and am not a "pro." See the regular posters/recognized members for the true "pros" to whom I was referring.

[BelfastFlyer]

I usually go on amazon and look at the reviews of the books before I'd buy one.

[Brookers13]

I swear by Let's Go...It's definitely got the most affordable options and great eats and such...I used lonely planet in Morocco just because it's all we had that was current (we also used the old 2004 Let's Go which took us to the greatest hotel ever for soooooooooo dirt cheap)

Anyways, I bought both Let's Go Western Europe and Let's Go Spain/Portugal...THe only place I was outside of spain and portugal that I felt I needed a guidebook for was Amsterdam, so I just ripped those pages out of my other book and brought them along...I'm a big believer in ripping things out.

I lost that guidebook somewhere in Valencia, so I was mad, but really I had read it so many times, I already had the info in my head that I needed.

So after all that rambling, I recommend Let's Go

[HEWSINATOR]

DC Jessica, you can see my itinerary here:

http://www.travelpunk.com/boards/showthread.php?t=12459

Post #10 is a pretty current idea.

[Travel_girl81]

I love Let's Go. I used Let's Go Western Europe, and kept it with me for all of my 5 months in Europe. It was great for cheap hostels. I also liked that it would tell you where you needed to meet a certain bus to get to some sight. The maps it has are great. You do look like a tourist when you pull out your big guide book from your pack, but it saved my ass a few times when I was walking in the wrong direction.
I met other travellers that were using Lonely Planet and their main complaint was that a lot of the hostels listed were HI hostels and not independant ones.
My one word of advise is not to rip out countries before you go to make it lighter, especially if you are moving around a bit. I took out the small section on eastern europe before I left because I was not planning on going there. I was definatley wishing I hadn't done that when I went to Prauge. There is nothing worse than getting off a train and not knowing which direction you need to walk in to get to your hostel.

[indierock05]

I am one of those weird people who don't like guide books at all, I just prefer word of mouth and to fly by the seat of my pants, random I know but it's worked great so far!!

[HEWSINATOR]

So because of this thread I went out and spent a mint on guidebooks:

Let's Go- Western Europe (20 bucks)
Let's Go- Eastern (32. why???)
MTV Europe (Don't laugh, 30 Bucks)

Initial thoughts are that the Let's Go books are very informative if not laid out all that great for easy reading. I can appreciate this as they do not want to have to make it 3000 pages. A little bonus of the Western Europe book is the additional section titled "Heading East". In this section there is basic info on Czech, Hungary and Croatia. I did not realize this and as such am going to return the Eastern book as this is all the info I needed.

I was very hesitant to pick up the MTV book for I think obvious reasons. I like to distance myself from things associated with Britney Spears. However, it seems to be very good for basic planning. It is laid out to include only major cities and day trips from them. It is a very easy read and laid out quite well. I can not attest to the accuracy of the info, but assuming that is alright, it will be very easy to use and has some great looking destinations.

It is simply a travel book branded by them, and skewed towards a younger demographic, it is not all about what I thought it would be.

Enough Rambling, take a look at MTV Europe if you can get past the stigma.

Matt

[Wayner]

Thanks for all your input guys. I got a copy of Lets Go - Western Europe and I like it a lot. It's freaking huge (1500 pages) and has lots of info on a lot of places. I'm kinda a cheapass too and it definitely does cater to that.

If anyone knows a good one for Malta - let me know. I couldn't find anything when I bought my copy of Lets Go.

I finally got my passport and I'm leaving in a little over a month