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General Travel Tips and Advice Have you traveled before?- Please share your tips and advice with fellow Tpunks!

View Poll Results:
Lonely Planet 49 50.52%
Let's Go 21 21.65%
Rough Guide 6 6.19%
Rick Steves 8 8.25%
Frommer's 4 4.12%
Fodor's 0 0%
Michelin 0 0%
Eyewitness 4 4.12%
Other 5 5.15%
Voters: 97. You may not vote on this poll

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Old 02-19-2004, 12:17 PM   #1
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hey everyone,

I don't know about y'all but I have a fairly extensive collection of guide books and I was curious about your opinions of the different brands. The majority of mine are LP but I like to look through all of them to get different ideas. I've noticed that Frommer's, Fodor's and Michelin don't exactly cater to the budget traveler as far as room & board are concerned, but sometimes they have good recommendations about sightseeing.

Any thoughts?
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Old 02-19-2004, 12:48 PM   #2
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I've used both Let's Go and Lonely planet in the past. I found that both had their pro;'s and con's. The biggest thing that I look at when buying a guidebook is the publication date. I've seen some really great guidebooks but I won't touch it if it;s more than a year old. What's the point of going to a country with the book when all the prices and addresses are out of date? I like lonely planet though because thru their website you can download an updated version, print it out and then stick it in your book. I really like the Moon travel guides as well. They're much more pesonal I find.
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Old 02-19-2004, 01:04 PM   #3
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Gil White is a Backpacking Legend!!!!! "Europe on 84cents A Day" is my fav travel book I gots, I always look back to it for info.

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Old 02-19-2004, 01:39 PM   #4
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sweet, I'll have to check that out! thanks CD!

Dio, I know what you mean... I won't bother with a book unless it's been published within the last year. It's amazing how quickly information gets outdated. I didn't know you could download updates from the LP site, I'll have to try that...
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Old 02-19-2004, 06:17 PM   #5
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i used lonely planet - western europe and was pretty happy with it. a travel agent once told me though that let's go is better suited for europe and that lonely planet was better than others for asia...
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Old 02-20-2004, 08:08 AM   #6
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lonley planet can kiss my ass!

L.P... :greenguy:
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Old 02-20-2004, 09:12 AM   #7
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Quote:
Originally posted by jteichgrab@Feb 20 2004, 04:08 PM
lonley planet can kiss my ass!

L.P... :greenguy:
what exactly makes you dislike LP so much? just curious.
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Old 02-20-2004, 06:34 PM   #8
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I bought both Lets Go and Frommers when I started planning my trip. The one thing I didn't like about Frommers it was just for the main cities. It didn't have any other info on the country. With Lets Go it gives info on major cities and smaller ones. Also as Space Virgin said, it didn't seem to cater towards people on a budget., where as Lets Go did.
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Old 02-20-2004, 09:25 PM   #9
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I've heard that people who use Rick Steve's tend to follow his advice religiously, down to ordering things that are no longer on the menu! But that came from a very biased source with one major bone to pick, so I don't know if the guidebook just got caught in the middle.
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Old 02-21-2004, 06:58 AM   #10
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Quote:
Originally posted by space virgin+Feb 20 2004, 05:12 PM--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(space virgin @ Feb 20 2004, 05:12 PM)</div>
Quote:
<!--QuoteBegin-jteichgrab
Quote:
@Feb 20 2004, 04:08 PM
lonley planet can kiss my ass!

L.P... :greenguy:
what exactly makes you dislike LP so much? just curious. [/b]
i bought the LP "south america on a shoestring" guide and almost everything in it is out of date or wrong in some way. many people have the same guidebook and i have heard a lot of stories about how usless they are. i dont even read mine anymore. it says it is "on a shoestring" but thats bullshit since i have stayed and eaten almost everyday for about half of what they say in the book. i think they must have a fatter shoestring than i do. i have now resorted to just ripping the maps out of the book.
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Old 02-21-2004, 08:48 PM   #11
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Quote:
I've heard that people who use Rick Steve's tend to follow his advice religiously, down to ordering things that are no longer on the menu!
Yeah i heard that people swarm the places that rick steves mentions in his book or features on his tv show. Apparently the sudden rise in popularity of cinque terre (italy) is due to the fact that rick steves was raving about it. and that it wasn't really "discovered" until recently. THat's the downfall of guidebooks the little secret towns that they mention aren't really secret anymore.
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Old 02-22-2004, 03:54 AM   #12
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I usually read two or three guidebooks. LP is my general, all around favorite. However, Fodors does a great job on the sites, and Rough Guides are a good backup to LP. If you can find a Blue Guide, then you're set for descriptions of historical sites. They're better than what you can get at the site itself, usually. Blue Guide Italy was an awesome thing to take when I saw the ruins at Pompeii, Herculanaeum, Paestum, Metapontum, etc.

Let's Go books aren't bad, but they're usually kind of weak about transportation.

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Old 02-26-2004, 09:51 AM   #13
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Frommer's/Fodor's aren't budget enough for our tastes. We use Let's Go, LP and Rough Guides regularly. I think you really have to take a good look before you buy, as some are better for certain details or even for specific countries (we chose the LP Western Europe over the LG, for instance). I

f you're travelling in Eastern Europe, the locally published "In Your Pocket" guides are awesome for in-depth coverage of major cities/regions. (Website: www.inyourpocket.com) You can go to the site and pick your city of choice. There aren't a lot of cities yet, but if you're going to Prague, Tallinn, Riga, Vilnius a couple of places in Poland and a few others, you can get everything you need to know from these guides. Not all the info is on the website, but you can order the guides on line or just buy them in country, which is cheaper than ordering, if you can wait. Published every two months, they have the current info you can't get in any guidebook.

Liked the Eyewitness Guide for DC, lots of detail and good for transit. Fun for the kids to read, and a good size for sightseeing. Don't imagine they're as good for larger areas/whole countries, maybe just for individual cities. Good as a souvenir item, though with all the colour pictures. Not much background info, maybe that's specific to the DC edition?

Personally, as we travel with kids, we try to find applicable info, and have never really found a good book dealing with that specific issue. Did pick up a copy of "Japan with Kids", but it really should have been titled "Tokyo for Kids", too specific for our purposes. Anybody had better experiences with kid-friendly texts?
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Old 03-18-2004, 12:58 AM   #14
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I was thinking of grabbing a copy of Lonely planet - Europe on a shoestring, as its the only lonely planet that covers czech republic and scandinavia...

But, still... i think the best guidebook will be the one im compiling of all the suggestions that i find relevant on this board...

Cheers


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Old 03-24-2004, 04:17 PM   #15
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I'm a Let's GO Girl myself... all over Britain the book was amazing... and a coulple times me and some other packers I met along the way were looking for something to do and Let's Go had a much better selection and detail then the LP's they had...
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Old 03-25-2004, 06:33 PM   #16
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I read recently that Lets Go is superior to the others for the budget minded as well as for overall quality, but so many people use it that all the reccommendations it gives to hostels and the like are filled up. Apparently it is written by Harvard students so it is generally more in tune with the needs of touthful backpackers. It is probably the one I will get.
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Old 03-26-2004, 10:18 PM   #17
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Ok, i hear a lot of things, but i have heard that the latest "Let's Go" is not so much aimed at the budget traveller...

All things aside, lets go also contains info on areas such as scandinavia, prague and malta that LP doesnt... And hence, that was on my list. It also seemed to list more about nightlife and alternitive things to do, rather than just the touristy things...

Either either, im still not sure if im going to buy one. A friend was going to have the latest LP, so i might just photocopy some pages out of it that may be useful.

Later
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Old 06-13-2005, 06:40 PM   #18
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I use Lonely Planet a lot for logistic data, but the books are a little "dry". So I also read the french Routard for something more inspiring. They have sensitive and almost poetic descriptions of the countries and cities. They love to travel and discover, and it shows.

So for the french speaking Tpunks...
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Old 06-14-2005, 09:42 AM   #19
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I think LP is crap...it's overpriced without enough good details. Let's Go is my fav b/c the ones I bought were all aimed for very small budgets. you get way more info for what you're paying for (which isn't pretty glossy pictures that don't do you any good when you're lost in a city).
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Old 06-14-2005, 10:50 AM   #20
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Have any of you ever stopped to think that it's not just the publishers that make for the great variety in guidebook quality, but also the individual writers/editors?

For instance, I thought the Lonely Planet guide for Costa Rica was dead on - especially for the needs of budget travelers, but that the Spain guide, while exhaustive, was pretty much on the useless side. I'm pretty partial to LP from overall experience, but I'll still look through the book from cover to cover before I buy.

I love TimeOut as far as city guides go, but I thought the Dublin one was kinda crap.

I generally don't like Rough Guides because of their design and organization (or lack thereof), but I thought their Netherlands book was stellar.

I think what I'm trying to say is take some extra time at the bookstore/library to look at all the books that cover your destination. One of the first things I do is check to see if they even have decent hostel listings compared to what I've scoped out online. If their stuff doesn't match up to the top-rated hostels you'll find on the internet, they're probably either out-of-date or simply don't care too much about the budget traveler.

Brand loyalty is fine when it comes to soft drinks and blue jeans, but when it comes to stuff that's written by a bunch of people with different tastes, caveat emptor.
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