Recently, the Beetle was asked about Guidebooks – what is out
there and can she make any recommendations? Below is a commentary on a
selection of some of the guidebooks available:
Eyewitness guides, published by Dorling Kindersley produce glossy
guidebooks with lots of pictures on cities and also countries. The city
guides are especially good although a little heavy and longer than most
of the others. The Beetle particularly recommends these for short city
breaks as they provide lots of background detail about certain sites or
attractions and exploded diagrams of the insides of churches or palaces
etc. They are not so great about telling you how to get to and from some
of the attractions, although the Istanbul guide was excellent and rated
better in a recent trip there than the corresponding LP on Istanbul. See
www.dk.com
Fodor’s used more by the North American market and for
slightly more wealthy travellers than backpackers, although they do have
shoestring guides too. They tend to be fairly slim volumes and are particularly
strong on North America, Mexico and the Caribbean. Take a look at www.fodors.com/
Footprint guides have very good guides on South American countries.
They also do Canada, (not the US), selected European and African countries,
Middle East and a good range of SE Asia. At the time the Beetle was backpacking
around South America, the Footprint individual country guides were a lot
better than the LP guides, in particular that awful huge tome LP produces
on all S American countries! For more info, see footprinttravelguides.com
Frommer’s – used more by the North American travel market
and appear to be aimed at a slightly more affluent market than backpackers
– unless anyone would like to write in and disagree! The maps are
generally good, and a lot of emphasis is placed on reviewing pubs, restaurants,
hotels, bed and breakfasts etc. A quick look at a guide on Ireland, Jury’s
Court Inn in Cork is described as inexpensive at $61 and up for a room.
Otherwise they offer slightly pared down info on LP and RG. Frommer’s
also do portable guides that you can download onto your palm pilot or
similar not to mention a magazine and an e-newsletter. They are strong
on the number of Caribbean titles. For more info on Frommer’s guides,
see www.frommers.com
Insight Guides publish over 200 titles, again quite glossy, good
photos – more of a coffee table book than a guidebook to take with you
on a trip. This kind of book may be useful for planning a trip as it has
the glossy pictures, but I would not take it on a trip to use as a guidebook.
For more info, see http://www.insightguides.com
Lonely Planet – see also the Lonely Planet Thorn Tree
website for sources of travel information. Lonely Planet, or LP is the
granddaddy of modern guidebooks. People tend to either love LP or they
hate it, and if the latter, their usual choice is Rough Guide (RG). The
Beetle prefers the LP because it usually has good maps, (some colour pictures!)
and she likes to know about every single restaurant and hostel available
at the time of writing and feels quite aggrieved when only a selection
are given (as in the RG)! Whilst prices change, you can always work out
the ratio of increase so that you still have a rough idea of potential
prices. See www.lonelyplanet.com
Moon has been going 25 years and produce guides covering Americas,
Asia, and the Pacific. They are slightly biased to the US market but do
nevertheless produce good guidebooks with good maps and lots of detailed
information. The Beetle finds that Moon Guide distinguish themselves on
regions, particularly US states rather than entire countries, for example
excellent guides on New Mexico, Kauai, Mexico City etc. If I were to visit
a US state, then this is the book I would take with me – lots of
good maps, and local info. They also have city guides called Moon Metro
and include San Francisco, New York, Paris. For more info, see www.moon.com
Rother guidebooks are about walking. They are a very handy size,
good for slipping into a pocket, they usually have around 50 walking routes
per guidebook, with fabulously detailed maps, giving you all the info
you need such as grade of walk, approximate time to take, refreshments
available en route, how to get there and return. The Beetle likes these
books very much – if you are a walker, then these are for you! Destinations
covered include many different parts of the Mediterranean, and Norway
and Iceland. For more info, see www.cordee.co.uk
Rough Guides – as discussed above, we tend to find that
people either love these or hate them. They have just as good a range
in titles as LP, and they are very popular. They are just as comprehensive
in terms of information as the LP, but in a very different format. Both
LP and RG publish language guidebooks and a newsletter. Rough Guide tends
to place hotels, hostels, restaurants etc in price brackets, but nonetheless
give you enough info to make a decision re restaurant or hotel. For more
info, see www.roughguides.com/
Trailblazers a small UK based company that do excellent guides
particularly on walking and trekking, so if this is your thing, then these
books will give you very details routes with distance, estimated times,
danger points, and a whole load of walking or hiking – even climbing
activities. For more info, see: www.trailblazerbooks.co.uk
Ulysses publish two series of travel guides and are strong on
Canada, the US and Central America. The Beetle bought Ulysses guides on
Panama, Honduras and El Salvador when there was nothing else available,
and they were really very good. They also do language guides. For more
info, see www.ulyssesguides.com
Do you have a favourite guidebook, or one that was just terrible? E-mail
the Beetle
and let us know about it!
