Great Britain

Rick Steves doesn't try to "cover everything" in his guidebooks, but picks regions and cities he has found most attractive and convenient, especially for first-time visitors. He does an excellent job with those areas, and I'm sure his books acknowledge that there are other areas of great interest as well. Other guidebook series, like Lonely Planet, try to be more comprehensive.

Devon and Cornwall are great destinations, farther from London and most other parts of Britain. Getting there and back takes more effort than getting to Bath, Oxford, York, and other places highlighted in the RS guidebooks. They're less likely to be visited by someone making their first trip to England without a special interest in them. So buy the competitor's book and go there, rather than somewhere else that appeals less to you. It's about tradeoffs.

As said above, Rick's books are not comprehensive, and do not try to be. They have a lot of details on places he chooses to cover, and omit everything else. That's a deliberate part of their design. I always supplement his books with other ones, for this reason.

Note that Cornwall is covered in his England book, which also has various other destinations not covered in the Great Britain book.

A useful feature when buying his books is to look at his web listing in his store, under "What's Included" and "Is This The Right Guidebook For Me?." The latter compares his various books on a place. For instance, in this section for his England guidebook, it indicates the following places covered in the England guidebook that are not in the Great Britain book:

"Canterbury, Dover and Southeast England, Brighton and nearby, Portsmouth, Dartmoor, Cornwall, Oxford, Blackpool, and some of North Yorkshire"

So is the guide book honestly marketed as "Some of Great Britain, but not a lot of it"?

Because if I bought a book purporting to be a guide to GB, but which didn't mention Cornwall, then I'd be more than a little peeved. It would be like paying for a guide book to Italy that forgot to mention Sicily or a book on Spain that ignored Catalonia (ignoring Murcia, on the other hand, I can understand!).

Surely a decent guide to a country will at least refer to most popular visitor areas plus some "wild card" options. And then rely on the intelligence of the reader to decide what might interest them or be possible to visit in a limited time.

I feel your pain. I have a travel guide of West Virginia and it barely mentions Boone County, and that's a travesty, my friends. Lots of stuff to do here.

In my opinion, Rick's Great Britain guide is one of his weakest. So many major cities are left out while Bath and the Cotswalds punch way above their weight. I also think the worst piece of his advice ever is the, "Start off in Bath." London is a big city, yes, but it's not overwhelming to a North American like Beijing or Mumbai.

For any international trip I plan, I buy a minimum of two guidebooks and often 3. For the UK, I've got Lonely Planet Great Britain, Rick's Great Britain, DK Eyewithness Great Britain, DK Eyewitness London. I also have some inexpensive Kindle books on Liverpool, Manchester, Beatle Guide to London, and Rick's tours of the National Gallery, British Library, West End walk and City of London Walk. Plus, I read this forum as well as Trip Advisor.

No guidebook is perfect and Rick tries to make his readable and compact. Thus, it means leaving out a lot of places and most of the places he covers are also included on his tours. Still, Rick does a better job than many guidebooks. Ever read a Fodor's? They're as boring as reading an organic Chemistry textbook. Sorry to all the chemists out there, but endless coverage of massive USA chain hotels such as Hilton, Hyatt, and Marriott isn't what I"m looking for.

Lonely Planet has really doubled down on the hipster millennial generation with far too much coverage of free trade, organic, vegan cafes that will most likely be closed by the time the book hits the shelves. But, there is a lot of good information in there, just have to skim through what doesn't interest you.

DK Eyewitness has become my favorite, although they're quite heavy to haul around with you. Still, the excellent photography and devoting several pages to each major museum and tourist attraction makes them a winner for me. They get me excited to travel to the destination.

The Beatles were arguably the greatest pop-rock band ever and bring in $130 million annually to Liverpool alone. Indeed they were "four lads who shook the world ." ( I prefer "rocked" but that's just me.) But yes it's a shame many people may limit their visit to Liverpool to Fab Four sites.

I actually questioned some years ago why Rick doesn’t seem to rate the UK very well in his guide books, this is the reply from his office:

Hello,

Thanks for your e-mail. However, we're not sure how you would have
gotten that impression. Rick has written three guidebooks on Britain and
filmed 10 of his half hour TV shows there. He also operates over 20
tours per year in Britain.

What is perhaps being misinterpreted is that Rick feels that Britain is
less of a cultural stretch for Americans. Our language and much of our
culture comes from Britain and so it might not seem as "exotic" as other
destinations. So for this reason, he often suggests Britain as an easy
first trip for folks traveling outside the USA for the first time.

Happy Travels,

ETBD Travel Team and Pat
Travel Advisor

harley, I think you are on to something. Some Americans may visit the continent prior to Britain. However, Great Britain and Ireland are the mother countries of a huge percentage of my ancestors as well as the rest of my country.

When my wife and I worked as civilian employees of the US Army in Germany from 87-91, we didn't visit Britain, since it was some distance away and driving on the left was another issue, so we visited Central Europe, France, Italy, Switzerland, Austria as well as some then communist Eastern European countries. We felt that Britain was easier to get to from the USA and we could do it later. Well, we did and loved Britain. We have been to Britain and Ireland three times in the last 5 years.

It was great visiting the places were our ancestor once lived.

I love Italy, since I am a huge ancient history buff and the art and food is great, but Great Britain is right up there for us to visit some more.

I do think some Americans visit Britain because of the common language.

Why are Cornwall and Devon not even mentioned in the Great Britain
book? There is so much to see and do there, and we had to buy a
competitor’s book to learn about travel there.

In one of RS's books (Great Britain or England), both Oxford and Winchester weren't included either. These books aren't all encompassing so it's good that you looked at other travel books. Getting more than one perspective can only enhance your travels.

Hi heatherlovejoy763,

Sorry to hear that you are disappointed regarding the Great Britain book. The Rick Steves England guidebook includes Devon and Cornwall. Please note that -- if you aren't able to see the table of contents by purchasing in a brick and mortar bookstore -- our website's store, Amazon, and other major online retailers list the included destinations for our guidebooks. We also have a section called "Is This the Right Book for Me?" when buying our guidebooks which says the following for our Great Britain title:

What's the difference between this Great Britain book and either
Rick's England guidebook or Rick's Best of England guidebook?

Rick Steves Great Britain covers Scotland, Wales, and our top picks of
English destinations. Both Rick Steves Best of England and the
complete Rick Steves England exclude Scotland and Wales, and just
focus on England. While the Best Of book covers fewer destinations in
England than the Great Britain book, the complete Rick Steves England
covers some English destinations not included in the Great Britain
guidebook (Canterbury, Dover and southeast England, Brighton,
Portsmouth, Dartmoor, Cornwall, Oxford, Blackpool, and some of North
Yorkshire).

I understand that showing you this doesn't help you after the fact, but I hope that shows that we do our best to communicate what our guidebooks do and don't cover to prevent this very scenario. I also hope this resource can help you find the right guidebook with your preferred destinations in the future.