Favorite Travel Guides

DK Witness guidebook, Lonely Planet.

DK, Michelin, and Foder's. In general, unless they are half off or more on the RS site, I borrow them from the library (don't tell Rick). Don't get me wrong, I love the RS guides, when he covers the areas I'm going to, but I actually use the library for most books. I own DK for most countries in Europe. Love their pictures, walking maps and diagram/maps for large tourist sites.

Fodors and Frommers are the old standbys for good reason

Also note that most guidebooks these days (including RS) post almost the entire book on their websites.

This is so dependent on your particular style. I'll summarize my preferences and reasons, you might like or not like the same things but seeing why someone prefers or doesn't prefer one thing is helpful to see if the advice is relevant to your needs!
Also sometimes a guidebook series is great for one place but not so much for another.

-I don't like DK, at least the ones with the highly visual layout because that style just isn't informative for me
-I don't like Frommers and Fordors because they are too old-school - they tend to be very conservative (not politically, but in being very hand-holdy and mainly recommending safe, traditional, mid-to-upscale things).

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-Lonely Planet is hit or miss - depends on the specific author.
-Rough Guides are OK, too. I don't actually have much to say about them, they are...fine.

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-Blue Guides are great, but not published as often so may be out of date for things like restaurants, but their history/art coverage is extensive and less likely to change over time.
-Monocle Guides are fun and sometimes hit interesting, stylish type things you don't see elsewhere. Last I looked they didn't have Florence, but that could have changes.
-Moon Guides are probably my favorite other than Rick Steves. Good balance of types of places, visuals and text, often pretty engaging.

For just Florence, I like the RS Florence pocket guidebook. If you want Florence + Tuscany, I like DK and Fodor’s.

Another thumbs up for DK Eyewitness Travel. They are a nice compliment to the RS Europe book style. DK books have an easy-to-read format, inspiring photos, useful top ten lists, great maps and fun cut away illustrations. This is an especially good series for quick touring idea reference and to engage kids or adult travel companions who may not be interested in deep research. : )

I'm with you JenS. I would agree that DK doesn't have much in terms of practical details like hours and costs. Certainly RS has more of that. However, when it comes to the attractions/sites that I plan to visit, I don't even trust the RS guides, maybe I'm just very cautious, but I always check out the specific website.

We really like the RS guidebooks for independent travel. His “getting there” and “away” are very helpful. He also has helpful tips and links to websites to obtain reservations for places like the Last Supper in Milan. We also like the DK guidebooks for the visuals. If RS doesn’t publish a book for a country, then we like Lonely Planet.

Thanks all.

Jules, I do the same. I tend to go to the web for details. I don't trust the guidebooks to include the most up-to-date or correct information on what's open on what day and what is not. I believe I was looking at the RS book on Florence/Tuscany and it said "Check websites for what is open and closed on Mondays and Tuesdays". I just wish a book had all of that detail.

Same with trains. I have two England guidebooks yet none of them gave me the tricks about how to get discounted train tickets to go from London to Edinburgh. You all told me how get the best deal on a train, which route to take, etc.

Sigh....

When I'm heading into areas that I don't know, and even when going into areas that I do know I love the Michelin Green Guides. They are very helpful when driving, they have centre town maps of most interesting or larger towns and cities, they give loads of information on places that I've never heard of but would now want to go, and have plenty of good hints.

I have a 3 shelves of Green Guides, a shelf of Rick Steves, a shelf of various local guides, and nearly a shelf of dictionaries, grammar guides, menu translators and other ephemera. Plus another bookcase of miscellaneous travel books including some DK which have great photos but are WAY too heavy to leave the house. Oh, and lots and lots of maps and atlases.

TMI?

I like Rough Guides and Bradt (when I can find them). DK aren't my style, especially the fact that they weigh a ton. I have also used Cadogan and Lonely Planet.

DK Eyewitness is usually my first choice.
Rick Steves’ guides are very good for the select areas he covers but are not comprehensive. Fodor’s guides fill in the gaps as do Frommers.
I do not like Lonely Planet or Rough Guides.
Cadogen are excellent for more detailed info on less well known places.

I like National Geographic - among other types, they publish small walking guides to various cities.

I'm a Rough Guide fan. The Rough Guide to Berlin written by Paul Sullivan is particularly excellent.

I've been using my first Bradt guide (Bosnia) recently. It took some warming up to, but I like it quite a bit now.

DK, Fodor's, and Frommers' don't appeal to me -- seem like old person guides (sorry! 😬)

I'm moving more and more toward digital resources. Some of the online guides are getting really good. I really like the In Your Pocket guides for cities. I'm also starting to really like the Culture Trip website. I found some very appealing obscure things to do in Bosnia on both of these sites that were not in any print guide.

For a guidebook to a specific city/region, Rick Steves literally Wrote The Book. For guides to a whole country, which can contain some info on particular cities in the country, Lonely Planet and Rough Guide have been the next 2 picks over the past 5 years. Michelin Green Guide, Frommer’s, Fodor’s, and Moon have also been helpful.

DK Eyewitness have been pretty, with many photos, and full-color 3-D artistic sketches of historic buildings and churches. Their drawings, however, aren’t the same as seeing the actual site, and written details are pretty slim. Pictures can be worth 1,000 words, but not for European sights and sites. As Nigel mentioned, past DK Eyewitness books have been inconceivably heavy. Maybe they shellacked the paper with a thick finish, maybe there’s a brick embedded in the spine, I don’t know. More recent editions checked out from the library seem lighter, but they’re still more picture books than the useful guides from others. And their lodging suggestions are few, and are all scrunched into a list at the back of the book, not in the chapter for their location, which is cumbersome. Less a guidebook than assorted pictures and drawings of things that just happen to be in a European country. TMI, or doth I protest too much? Just don’t make DK Eyewitness your single guide, and I’ll look at one from the library, but won’t purchase one.

I think I will head to my small town library and see what they have on Florence and Paris. I have been to both 3-4 times but am visiting my daughter as she studies abroad so want to figure out how to train from Bologna airport to Florence. (Pretty sure I will just ask this group LOL but would love a book to give me the websites and tips you all will offer) 😊

For me, I guess I would differentiate between guides I use for planning and guides I actually bring on vacation. Unless we have room in my husband's suitcase and he wants to bring and carry it, we don't bring DK guides. Occasionally we will bring RS guides. Mostly, what I do is prepare a ziplock bag with maps, some RS pages, information for each destination and throw away materials as we travel. I also, typically have at least one guide book in digital form.

Rick Steves’ has a Florence guide: https://store.ricksteves.com/shop/p/florence-guidebook and a Pocket Florence: https://store.ricksteves.com/shop/p/pocket-florence.
My other go to guide book is Lonely Planet because like Rick Steves’, LP let’s you know when the next edition will be available so you always have the latest copy when needed: https://shop.lonelyplanet.com/products/florence-and-tuscany-11?via=Z2lkOi8vbG9uZWx5LXBsYW5ldC9Xb3JrYXJlYTo6Q2F0YWxvZzo6Q2F0ZWdvcnkvNTllZTQ5YjlmOTJlYTE0MTg2MDU4NThm. Rick Steves' uses LP too.

If you want train advice, have you checked Rome2rio for a starting off point...I notice that it is a little more 'real time' than it was in the past. Or see what seat61 website has to say. He is, after all a European train guru.

We use guide books for planning at home and rarely take a paper book with us anymore. Since travel is our shared hobby, my husband and I enjoy creating an extensive google doc while we are planning that becomes our personalized virtual mini-guidebook and itinerary. My husband will print out some of the pages for his reference. For our at home research we use physical guidebooks and topical nonfiction books as well as internet research using official websites, local tourist board websites, general travel, hotel, language and transportation apps, etc. While on our trip we then rely heavily on our smartphones, reverifying info on official websites for attractions, using downloaded walking tours and regional train and local transit apps to get from A to B.

When I'm heading into areas that I don't know, and even when going into areas that I do know I love the Michelin Green Guides. They are very helpful when driving ...

Agree, the Green Guides are very good for discovering an area. I've got a bunch of them, all pretty old.

FWIW, five of Steve's book are in the current top 25 bestsellers (Best Sellers in European Travel Guides) on Amazon. The audiobook version of his new book is #1, the paperback is at #42. Others: #12 Iceland, #15 Portugal, #18 Italy, #22 Greece.
https://www.amazon.com/Best-Sellers-Books-European-Travel-Guides/zgbs/books/16917

Guides are good for some practical information. I‘ve used Fodor‘s since 1964, used Frommers in the 70‘s and 80‘s as well as the Michelin Green Guides. Rick’s are good for the places he covers. I like DK for ideas of places to visit. But since 1999 the internet has been my main source.

Half the places I visit in Germany aren‘t lusted in any guidebooks. Town and regional websites are the most useful for me.

I rarely buy guide books these days as they are out of date before they get printed, even before Covid changes. I tend to rely on online information including blogs, YouTube vlogs and local tourist offices which are far more up to date and give a wider view of places than the bias of just one travel writer in a book.

Per MariaF, all known train info is known by the Man in Seat 61. And yes, Rome2Rio is a very quick and handy way to see the various travel options between two points.

As for Rick's books being so popular on Amazon, firstly people are dying to travel again, and second no one markets like Rick. Not that that's a bad thing, it's just his thing.

I'll second Inbsig on using National Geographic. Rick is VERY specific and timely, in his guides, and there is a bias towards, Art, Religion and Food. Thus we use those as a main source, yet NG, has a page, or a paragraph or two, on EVERYTHING. In order words, its more a complete description of what might be interesting an area, even if it isn't up to date and not specific of how one navigates this site or that site. We have retuned from a trip several times, and read another guide, that pointed out something that we wished we had known about. :)

Unfortunately I can’t read French. Someone told me the only website you should use is en.oui.sncf refusing any transfer to 3rd parties such as RailEurope. The other websites don’t show all of the routes.

For example, she said In August I could take the 11.57 from CDG changing in Chessy-Marne-la-Vallée with a 40 minute wait before catching the Ouigo (low cost train with special rules) that gets us to Aix-en-Provence TGV at 15.50.

I’m not finding this in a guidebook or on the website.

Again, grateful for this group for sharing their wealth of knowledge.

I've been using Trainline for France. I usually want to use the country specific website for train travel but SNCF has been problematic. I tend to not rely on guidebooks for specific transportation information. It changes a lot. Also, I would say with COVID, the schedules could likely change frequently as countries transition back into tourism. I do like RS general information, usually at the end of a section on connections/ways to get from A to B.

We've been using Rick Steves' guidebooks every year for the last 10 years. In 2019 we did a 3-week drive around Britain and the year before we did a 3-week drive around France. Both trips were wonderful. Due to Covid, our planning took a little twist this year and we had two weeks unplanned except for flying to Paris and then back home two weeks later. As a lark, we looked through a Lonely Planet book called France's Best Trips/38 Amazing Road trips. Having never been to Brittany, we chose the 8-day Breton Coast road trip with a few days in Paris at the end. We'll mix in any recommendations from the RS France guidebook section about Brittany. It should be fun.

I only rely on Rough Guide when I want use a travel guide, used to be Let's Go as well.

I'll second Inbsig on using National Geographic.

Does National Geographic still publish guidebooks?

I started with the Lets Go: _____ series, as it was more oriented towards budget student travel. RSE took that to a more mature but frugal traveler level. I prefer Lonely Planet for places that RS does not cover. It has a level of detail and practical information I do not find in the Fodor/Frommer world. I think all guidebooks are subject to the lag between writing & research, and actual publication, so should never be relied upon as current information on times, costs, etc. Rather they are best used to compare relative price ranges.

I just discovered Michelin Must-Sees which I like but there is no hotel information.

I also bought my first Fodors and really like it for the regional overviews and what’s where diagrams.

I've heard about Rough Guides. I am going to seek them out. I just got a Michelin "green" guide for France. There seems to be multiple types of Michelin guides.

As many have already said, explicitly or implicitly, this is a very subjective question. Different guidebooks appeal to different types of travelers and different personalities.

My feeling about the RS guidebooks is that they are woefully incomplete, but that's by design, because he weeds out the things he considers to be a waste of time and money. The thing is, I don't always agree with him, and I'd like to make up my own mind on what to see, so I prefer reading more comprehensive guidebooks.

And may I say that the walking tours in the RS guidebooks are excellent (I love how he points out details you'd never notice on your own), but the directions are often difficult to follow. "Take the path on the north side of the sycamore tree" is not helpful if you don't know what a sycamore tree looks like or if you aren't sure which way is north.

I almost never use guidebooks to find lodging or restaurants. There isn't a guidebook author in the world that can stay at enough different hotels, hostels, inns, guesthouses, and B&Bs, or eat at enough different restaurants to give you a definitive recommendation. I might look at Rick's suggestions as a starter, but then I do my own research online. Plus, I have already booked all my lodging before I left home, and I don't want to carry around a book with lots of pages devoted to places to stay.

I love to use the guidebook when I'm traveling to read about the places I'm going to visit each day. I'll read over breakfast, jot down some notes, and then leave the book behind and rely only on my notes for the day's adventures.

So the way I pick a guidebook is to look at as many a I can find in a bookstore or online. I'll pick a topic or a site I'm especially interested in. For instance, if I'm going to Florence I might pick the Duomo or Piazza Michelangelo or Pitti Palace. Then I read that section in each guidebook and decide which offers the information in a way that is most interesting, complete, and compelling. That's the one I buy.

I just looked up "Rough Guides" and I thought I'd share that they come with a digital copy!

Lane,
That’s a great idea - to compare the description of one sight in several different books. How do you find lodging? I’m looking in Florence Oltrarno and Paris Left Bank. There is so much to choose from, it is overwhelming.

Regarding restaurant & hotel recommendations, yeah, I doubt Rick himself has been in every one himself. But I have witnessed the RSE tour guides spending their free time on tours scouting new sights, trying new restaurants, and visiting new hotels as (as told to me) part of their job. Some of them would ask for impressions and recommendations from tour members who would venture beyond the recommended places. Then, a couple of B&B owners in the UK mentioned that someone from RSE comes by once a year or so, to verify conditions and prices, etc. So I don't follow the recs blindly, but I think its an honest process.

My first go-to is usually DK Eyewitness or Insight Guides mainly because of the bright shiny photos. When I first look at these it could be because I'm still trying to decide where I want to go and and the photos help. I h9onestly doubt I'd choose where to go by looking at an RS Guide. For me, his books come into play after we've made a decision and I begin the search for practical information.

I almost never use guidebooks to find lodging or restaurants.

Same for me; especially restaurants. What I find more valuable is information about suggested neighbourhoods to stay and from there I'll do my own web research.

I love DK guides because of the visuals.... leaden spine and all!!

I want to add Wikivoyage to the list: https://en.wikivoyage.org/wiki/Main_Page

As a user written guidebook, the quality varies. Sometimes lacking, sometimes excellent. But it is free, and a good start. And sometimes you can find true "hidden gems" there.

In response to Allan’s question, I recently bought National Geographic’s ‘Walking Paris: The Best of the City’, copyright 2012, 2016, 2020.