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Guidebooks for Finland

Can anyone comment on guidebooks to Finland? I see Rick's store sells his Scandinavian guidebook which, looking at the Table of Contents, has about 50 pages on Finland out of 900+ and he also sells the Lonely Planet Finland guide.

The RS book was published in July 2024.

The Lonely Planet in Rick's store was published in May 2018. I see on the Lonely Planet website there is a later edition from July 2023.

The travelers: My nephew, who is in his 30's, and a group of his friends are going to Finland in July with a focus of playing disc golf because apparently the number of courses is "insane" (where oh where is the eyeroll emoji, lol!!). I have no idea where these insane courses are but it seems like they will be traveling all over. I am sure they are not into cultural/historical sites but thought if they had a guidebook they MIGHT work in some things if nearby. The friend group went to Playa del Carmen in January and actually did go see some of the ruins.

As a loving Auntie, I'm thrilled he is going to Europe! His first trip was 12 years ago when we all went on the Heart of Italy tour, and yes, he and his brother spent a day after the tour in Pistoia playing disc golf, lol. (And another yes, the kiddos who have never lived where there is pubic transit figured out the train from Firenze to Pistoia with the help of the RS guide, lol).

Anyway, any comments would be appreciated!

Posted by
1389 posts

We used Lonely Planet for our trip last summer. Supplemented by internet searches as needed, but the guide book was very useful. Finnish public transport is excellent, especially the trains.

Posted by
28898 posts

Recent editions of many of the Lonely Planet guidebooks are getting much lower reviews because of lack of detail. It seems the company has changed its idea of what consititutes a good guidebook. I'd look at the ratings for the various editions on Amazon to see whether the earlier edition might actually be better.

Posted by
15259 posts

Thank you all!

Skyegirl and acraven - thanks for the comments on Lonely Planet. I have not looked at their line of guidebooks in years and would not have known there might be some issues with content.

Mary, thanks for the suggestion on Rough Guide. That might work for this group of guys.

I appreciate the input!

Posted by
2 posts

ALWAYS use Rough Guides over Lonely Planet. Lonely Planet guides have become picture books full of typo-ridden blurbs with no real detail given.