Blue Guide strategy

Joel, Thank you for bringing the English version of these wonderful guidebooks to our attention. Thanks to your post, we've just ordered one to enjoy before next summer's trip. For the trip itself, we will photocopy (including in color certain pages) and scan those pages into several pdf(s) to read on our tablets. I brought up the spiral-binding idea, which I think is genius, but my husband won't cut up a book. It's highly unlikely you will find these books for sale in English. Not only are the Blue Guides used by fewer people, but also we've found each country seems to promote its own publications.

Not sure what you'll find there, but try www.blueguides.com. Perhaps you will find answers to your questions.

Are you taking your i-pad? If so, take photos of all the pages you want to have with you while in Europe, then you don't have to buy new books and you have all the information you need at your fingertips.

Joel, I don't think your plan will be reliable, particularly for the Blue Guide, which isn't as widely used as some others. I use the Blue Guide as the primary guidebook I take I take with me when traveling. I take the book(s) to Kinkos, and have them cut off the spine and spiral bind only those sections that I'm going to need. I have a problem carrying weight on my shoulder, so I have them bind the needed sections into several smaller booklets, which are easier ergonomically for me. If there's practical info I need from another book (eg, the RS guide), I'll have them bind those in the same booklet, or I ask them to include a few blank pages, so I can enter my own notes.

I agree that you shouldn't count on finding Blue Guides abroad, even in stores selling English language travel books. So, either cut the books up, or photocopy the needed sections (double-sided to save space and weight).

I usually just rip out the sections for the places that I am visiting.

It looks like some of the Blue Guides are available in a Kindle Edition. I don't know how well the illustrations show up, but you might want to check it out. Also, all publishers are moving books to e, so contact them ask if there is a schedule for the books you want. There's a contact us link here.

One comment about e-guidebooks. After trying a few, I found them to be very un-user-friendly. I took the RS guide to Italy with me a couple of years ago on my iPod. I did this for convenience; I don't travel with the RS guidebooks, since they don't really address my needs in touring. But they are great for logistics, so I thought bringing it electronically was a great compromise. The index in the apple store version was not linked, and the TOC was spread over so many pages, it was difficult to find anything that way. So I had to rely on searching for everything, which was slow and sometimes difficult. It's much easier to flip to a page in a paper book.

By the way, as I recall Blue Guides are not as good as they once were; bigger fonts, less text, more pictures. I had a Blue Guide to Greece from the 90's and compared it to a more recent edition- the newer edition was less detailed. Seems like they were once the "scholarly" guidebook, not so much anymore.

I'd never heard of these guides before. The one for Rome is over 600 pages. I don't know that I'd ever use one "on the ground." However, I will look for them in the U.S. On a sidetrack, I do wish the publishers of guide books would use Michelin's example of 2 series of guides, one for sightseeing and one for eating and sleeping. When I'm out and about touring, I don't want to carry a book with large sections that I don't need.

When we first began travelling in Europe (many years ago), we felt Blue Guides were the best guide books available. Admittedly, they were physically big and heavy, and somewhat expensive, but the detail was fabulous. Wandering around major cities was a joy because the Blue Guide for the city inevitably could explain the history of every interesting looking building, square, park, etc., that we might encounter. We have great memories of a driving trip in rural France. Every old town, church, archeological site, that we encountered had a full description, complete with comments about the history and art, in the Blue Guide we kept in the glove compartment of the car. These were far more comprehensive, detailed, and scholarly than any of the other guide books I've found.

Thank you very much, everyone, for the very helpful feedback! I have emailed BG about availability and future e-books, but have not heard back so far (I'll post when I do). But based on other comments, it seems like a good idea not to assume they will be easily available. So, that leaves storing photos or PDFs in an iPada good excuse to buy an iPad mini, which weighs 1/2 of a regular oneor doing the great-idea binder thing, or biting the bullet and taking one or more complete books. I may need the complete Rome, but I might get by with fragments of others. So now I need to ponder (1) the convenience of hard copies vs. paging through (complete) e-files, (2) the weight saving of e-files over paper and (3) the security of having complete e-books vs. incomplete hard copies (but I suppose I can have both). Another possibility might be ordering copies of the BGs I want from European bookstores in advance, if this is possible, timing them to arrive by the time I arrive in a specific city. Take care all,

Whoops, from the lack of double hyphens before and after "a good excuse to buy an iPad mini, which weighs 1/2 of a regular one," I see that these are not permitted. Sorry about that.

Hello All, Here is the reply from Blue Guides about their availability in non-UK countries. No word yet on possible e-Blue Guides. Dear Joel, Thank you for your enquiry. It is highly likely that you will find our travel guides at all major Italian booksellers, like Feltrinelli, but in the rest of Europe (apart from the UK) it depends on the bookshop or museum, they don't necessarily stock Blue Guides. I hope this helps. Kind regards, Eti Szakmándi Sales Manager Blue Guides Ltd. Tel: +44 208 144 3509
www.blueguides.com/trade

Here is Blue Guide's reply concerning e-guides:
Yes, we are planning to publish the e-edition of Blue Guide Rome in the near future. . . Please see here other Blue Guides already published for Kindle, iTunes or Kobo. The Kindle link was thin and I could not get the Kobo link to open, but the iTunes link had many books, including an amazing array of guides to Greek Islands. Here is the link, which I was unable to find from the website itself (BTW thanks to the person who posted that BG has e-books): http://www.blueguides.com/our-titles/search-for-a-title/all-titles-in-digital/itunes-us/ "(Customers outside of USA please visit the iTunes webpage of your country)" And the publisher himself wrote: . . . on the subject of Rome, we have noticed that the Anglo American Bookshop there (Via della Vite, 102, 00187 Rome, www.aab.it) does tend to have a pretty comprehensive (Italy) Blue Guides ion (elsewhere in Italy can be fairly hit and miss). Enjoy your travels, kind regards Tom Howells, Publisher

Thanks for the information, Joel.