Tay

Any suggestions/comments on travel books? I'm looking at Lonely Planet and
Rough Guide. Would you bring more than one per region?

We are budget backpacking students, so not frommers or anything.

Bob Fusillo

One suggestion -- it you are in city, there are many shops that specialize
in out-of-print books. They have lots of travel books, very cheap. The
information about things to see never really changes, and some hotels and
reastaurants are updated, but most of them stay the same as well. Such books
are fine for travel.
One book is enough. Unless you are fanatic, you don't want to go from sight
to sight and stand there reading page after page. Every book has basically
the same stuff -- the same churches, museums, etc, and the same things are,
from book to book, descibed in pretty much the same way. " On your right,
as you enter. .. "

"Tay" <> wrote in message
news:0ugQb.239422$JQ1.45540@pd7tw1no...
    > Any suggestions/comments on travel books? I'm looking at Lonely Planet
and
    > Rough Guide. Would you bring more than one per region?
    > We are budget backpacking students, so not frommers or anything.

Juliana L Holm

Tay <> wrote:
    > Any suggestions/comments on travel books? I'm looking at Lonely Planet and
    > Rough Guide. Would you bring more than one per region?

    > We are budget backpacking students, so not frommers or anything.

For Budget folks, Let's Go.
Eitehr Lonely Planet or Rough Guide.

I cut pages out that I will think I need, normally bring just one full book.

Juliana L Holm

Bob Fusillo <> wrote:
    > One suggestion -- it you are in city, there are many shops that specialize
    > in out-of-print books. They have lots of travel books, very cheap. The
    > information about things to see never really changes, and some hotels and
    > reastaurants are updated, but most of them stay the same as well. Such books
    > are fine for travel.
    > One book is enough. Unless you are fanatic, you don't want to go from sight
    > to sight and stand there reading page after page. Every book has basically
    > the same stuff -- the same churches, museums, etc, and the same things are,
    > from book to book, descibed in pretty much the same way. " On your right,
    > as you enter. .. "


More than one book is good for planning. I'd rather spend an extra $20 or
so on a book then miss some little thing that woudl ahve been rich for me.
But only carry one with; and possibly stuff torn out of others.



    > "Tay" <> wrote in message
    > news:0ugQb.239422$JQ1.45540@pd7tw1no...
    >> Any suggestions/comments on travel books? I'm looking at Lonely Planet
    > and
    >> Rough Guide. Would you bring more than one per region?
    >> We are budget backpacking students, so not frommers or anything.

Padraig Breathnach

Juliana L Holm <> wrote:

    >More than one book is good for planning. I'd rather spend an extra $20 or
    >so on a book then miss some little thing that woudl ahve been rich for me.
    >But only carry one with; and possibly stuff torn out of others.
Don't spoil the books! Photocopy.

Freeda

    > Any suggestions/comments on travel books? I'm looking at Lonely Planet
and
    > Rough Guide. Would you bring more than one per region?
    > We are budget backpacking students, so not frommers or anything.

Lonely planet are very good for practical information (accoms, transport
etc) and I like time out guides for listings and things to do.

Me

In article <0ugQb.239422$JQ1.45540@pd7tw1no>,
"Tay" <> wrote:

    > Any suggestions/comments on travel books? I'm looking at Lonely Planet and
    > Rough Guide. Would you bring more than one per region?
    >
    > We are budget backpacking students, so not frommers or anything.

For students on a budget, its hard to beat the "Let's Go" series of
travel books for Europe. These books are written by students for
students. I find them very informative.

Mimi

"Tay" <> wrote in message
news:0ugQb.239422$JQ1.45540@pd7tw1no...
    > Any suggestions/comments on travel books? I'm looking at Lonely Planet
and
    > Rough Guide. Would you bring more than one per region?
    > We are budget backpacking students, so not frommers or anything.

Yeah, Frommer's is a long way from $5 a day now--or even from whatever
amount that $5 is worth now. Just been looking at his recommendations for
England. He's got a lot of hotels with double rooms starting at $350 or so.

Marianne

B Vaughan

On Fri, 23 Jan 2004 21:37:00 GMT, "Tay" <> wrote:

    >Any suggestions/comments on travel books? I'm looking at Lonely Planet and
    >Rough Guide. Would you bring more than one per region?

I have had bad experiences with lodging recommended by the Rough
Guide. I swear whoever wrote the Spain Guide got most of his
information over the phone. I live in Italy, and I was also not
particularly enthusiastic about their Italy guide. However, they cover
places off the beaten track that some other guides don't cover.
(However, in Spain, some of the places they said were off the beaten
track must have taken quite a beating in the ten years since one of
their writers last saw them.)

The Lonely Planet also covers places off the beaten track that other
guides might not cover. My main problem with it is that they seem
equally enthusiastic (or unenthusiastic) about everything, so I find
them less than useful for deciding what's worth seeing.

I mostly use Let's Go for lodging all over Europe, including here in
Italy. They have extensive accurate information on the low-cost end of
the lodging scale. (Rough Guide and Lonely Planet cover from low to
mid-range lodgings, so have less of the cheaper places.) Let's Go is
updated every year, while Lonely Planet and the Rough Guide aren't.
The probably don't review everything, but at least the lodging
information seems very up-to-date. They don't cover out-of-the way
places as much as some other guides. They have excellent information
on such things as location of post offices, laundromats and bus
stations. Their tourist information is a bit lacking.

Another guide I like is a French series called the Guide Routard. I
have the Italian language version of their Spain guide. I wish I had
used only that instead of the Rough Guide.

I don't use any guide very much for restaurants, so it's hard for me
to evaluate that aspect. I trust my eyes and nose to find where to
eat.

For touring, I prefer the Michelin Green Guides, which have the
additional advantage that they're not very heavy.

As far as how many guides you need for one region, I would recommend
two. One for lodging and one for sightseeing. If you've never been to
the region before, you might want to buy a third guide with lots of
pictures for using at home to decide where you want to go. The
Eyewitness guides are good for this, but they are heavy and a bit
light on actual information, so I usually leave them at home.
-----------
Barbara Vaughan
My email address is my first initial followed by my surname at libero dot it
I answer travel questions only in the newsgroup

B Vaughan

On Fri, 23 Jan 2004 22:35:27 +0000, Padraig Breathnach
<> wrote:

    >Juliana L Holm <> wrote:
    >>More than one book is good for planning. I'd rather spend an extra $20 or
    >>so on a book then miss some little thing that woudl ahve been rich for me.
    >>But only carry one with; and possibly stuff torn out of others.
    >Don't spoil the books! Photocopy.

Guide books have a pretty short useful life anyway. I usually buy them
in paperback and have been known to tear out pages. My standby, Let's
Go, is printed on 100% recycled paper (cheap newsprint at that), so I
don't feel as though I am destroying a book if I rip out pages. I look
at it as a newspaper with glue on the spine.

I read that several of the extant copies of The Travels of Sir John
Mandeville are missing the pages that describe how a pilgrim can get
to Jerusalem, so I think tourists have been doing this for over 500
years.



-----------
Barbara Vaughan
My email address is my first initial followed by my surname at libero dot it
I answer travel questions only in the newsgroup