Karen Brown Guidebooks

I occasionally take a look at one, but virtually all her picks are out of my price range. I go in the other direction and use Lonely Planet, sometimes supplemented by Fodors and Frommers (I liked Pauline Frommer's budget series, but it doesn't seem to have taken off).

Maryam, I've never seen those in any of the local book stores, so haven't had a look at them yet. It sounds like Karen uses the same style as Rick, in terms of listing only specific destinations in each country.

Rick mentions her guides in ETBD, he describes the books "as carefully researched" but "ideal for people with extra bucks". He sums it up like this, "My splurges are Karen's slums." As I tend to travel lower class than Rick, I figured they were good guidebooks but not for me.

When I was on the RS Village Italy tour I was talking to people sitting at the pool where we were staying, who found the hotel in the Karen Brown guide. I guess the fact that Rick used to consider his splurges her slums is not the case for his groups. Interesting, since I've traveled on 2 of his tours and some people on the tours have said he seems to have slightly 'stepped up' his hotels in the past 3 - 4 years. Maybe this is confirmation of that... :)

Regarding the Karen Brown books etc, I have never bought the actual books, but I have used many of her hotel/B&B ideas on trips. Some are actually the same as Rick's. I always check out many sources but I'm probably obsessive. I usually do the ones on the lower end, and all have been very nice places. Just go to www.karenbrown.com and pick your country, area, town etc. You can even go the actual websites of the places.

I haven't even looked at the hotel suggestions. Did not realize she was more upper crust. I was really referring more to itineraries and descriptions.
Did not even remember these guidebooks being mentioned in ETBD. Thanks for pointing that out.

My library has a couple of her books and they are nice books- illustrations, itineraries, a travelogue type book. Seems like a market for a very crowd than RS, more genteel somehow ( dress for dinner crowd maybe?). ( not that any of you regulars aren't genteel LOLs)
You can see a sample itinerary on her site. Have also noticed there are more reader's reviews of hotels in the last few years than just hers.

Yes, I've read through some of them but don't use them. As some have noted, the selections are really out of my price range, so I stick to other guidebooks.

I occasionally check her books or (more often) web site for ideas on places to stay. Some of them are really expensive, but some are quite reasonable. I think she's got great taste in places to stay; I just wish there were more that weren't so expensive. I've never been able to get into the rest of her books. I'm not sure why, but I've never found them very helpful in planning my trips.

I find her to be a great resource for trips I'm splurging on. A lot of my travel is accidental and I have no plan or budget so I just pick up a RS guide (Lonely Planet for the rest of the globe) before I leave and follow it. The more I go to the same places, the more I up my experience and her guides are good for that as they aren't too extravagant on most things (yes...some are) and her philosophy on travel seems parallel to RS. RS is still the travel bible for me as it's got the most basic points in it that I forget no matter how many times I've been somewhere. Some days I wish he'd write one for Atlanta :)

We've used KB's guidebooks numerous times over the years. It's definitely true that her recommended places have gone up in price since she started. But we've always found her recommendations & descriptions of places to be spot on. Her books are particularly helpful for B&B's in France, Ireland, and Italy. On most of our trips we hit one or two KB B&B's, and I have to say that she's never put us in a bad one.

Hi.....We've used KB guides, along with others, for about ten years. We started with them in Europe and have used all of those over the years. We also use RS and tripadvisor. We follow her itineraries and when she mentions a restaurant we often go there too. When we travel somewhere for which no RS or KB guide is available (New Zealand, etc.) we use Frommers or Fodors. I know it sounds like we are brainwashed but we've never been disappointed except that some of the suggested lodging is too expensive for us. Amazon is a good place to purchase them.

Hello Maryam. I like the pictures (drawings) in the Karen Brown books, especially her books on Switzerland and France. And her books have suggested routes for driving a car in a country in Europe. Other than that, I have no use for the Karen Brown books.