Kindle/Rick Steves Guidebooks

If you are comfortable with reading on a Kindle and can use all the features to bookmark, hilight etc, you will do fine with a guide book on the Kindle. The maps however, are a little problematic. They are broken uo into 4 quadrants on 4 sepated screens - Upper Left, UR,LL and LR. That's the negative. You could bring paper copies from home or rely on city maps from your hotel or the TI. Currently there is limited availability of RS books on Kindle.

Karin, I'm currently evaluating the Kindle app. on my iPod Touch and currently have one of the Guidebooks and two Snapshot Guides on it. My initial impressions are favourable, although I'll need more time to really see how well it works during travels. Some first impressions..... As Elaine mentioned, the Maps are configured with a full page and then split into four parts, so each Map requires five pages. With the iPod version, the full page Map can be "pinched and enlarged", allowing the user to scroll around to see the detail. I tend to use that more than the four segments. I don't have an iPad so don't know if that version works the same. Reading the text portions is quite easy and some photos are provided. Even on a small screen, the text is quite easy to read and it's possible to change the text colour if desired. I tried the Sepia version for awhile and it wasn't bad, however I've now switched it back to black & white. If there's one "weak point" with the concept (especially with the iPod Touch versions), I suspect it will be battery life. If the Guidebook is used frequently while out day touring, it's likely that the battery would be depleted before the end of the day, making it impossible to refer to the book. That's where paper books have an advantage. I have a compact external battery for the iPod so will have to be sure to pack that along. There's a fairly good range of Rick's books now available in the Kindle format (about 61 at last count, including some that are only available as E-Books). There are about 42 available in the iPad format. I believe ALL of the books will be converted to E-Books this year, so it's possible these will eventually overtake the paper versions in terms of sales. Cheers!

Elaine is correct. It's certainly not as easy as thumbing through a hard copy, but it's worth a little incovenience to save the pounds. I was fine with the one I took on my Kindle last year.

Ken, can you provide any tips for actually locating and purchasing the iPad versions? I tried the other day and was unable to locate any of Rick's guidebooks in the App Store. Seems like a basic business problem there (and I am no stranger to the computer industry nor iPads - if it's that hard to locate the digital versions, sales of them are not going to take off!). BTW - the battery life on my iPad is astonishing. If you are not using the wifi, the thing seems to last forever. I took mine on a trip to Southeast Asia last fall, and used it off and on throughout some extremely loooooong flights, watching videos, listening to music and reading, and it never even got below 50% (this was on a string of flights from Singapore to Seoul to San Francisco, flights that seemed to go on for days and days). On my next trip to Europe, I won't worry about the battery going kaput at all. As long as I charge it overnight and start with a full charge, it should last all day easily, even if I do use the wifi at times. It's a wonderful device for travel (OK, threadjack over).

I buy all of my R.S books for Kindle at Amazon. I also would recommend taking hard copies of the maps from your books. 12-15 pages photocopied will not add appreciably to your poundage, but will aid you enormously as a reference. And I gladly gave up some convenience for reduced weight! I love the Kindle.

Ken - Battery life on the Kindle 3 is a non-issue. The specs state there is a 30 day battery life. I was sceptical so I packed the charger for my 19 day trip. I used it a lot, read four books and perused the guidebooks as needed. I could have left the charger at home. Didn't need it. I've had my Kindle since 12/7/10 and it's only been charged twice. It's the best $139 my kids have ever spent.

David, I don't have an iPad so have never had occasion to download any books. I tried to have a look at the iBooks Store both using the App. Store on my MAC as well as my iPod Touch but wasn't able to find anything. According to some of the MAC Forums, it's not possible to see the iBooks Store without an iPad. My suggestion would be to download the free Kindle for iPad Reader from the App. Store. That will allow you to download a wide range of Rick's E-Books at reasonable cost. Of course you'll need an Amazon account with a registered credit card to download the books. I used that same process in obtaining the Kindle Reader for my iPod Touch and it was very easy. It only took a few minutes to download the Reader (from Apple) and three books (from Amazon). My impression is that Apple doesn't really "have their act together" yet with respect to E-Books (some of the comments on MAC Forums have characterized the E-Book store as "floundering"). That certainly doesn't inspire me to think about buying an iPad as I can now easily access E-Books with the Kindle Readers for my iPod Touch, MAC or PC Netbook. Good luck!

David & Elaine, I suspected the battery life on an iPad was probably good, as it's a newer device. This allows for not only better battery technology but the larger size will house a larger capacity battery. My comments on battery life were directed solely at the iPod Touch. It's not bad when listening to music but due to the fact the screen has to stay "active" with E-Books, it tends to deplete the battery much faster (hence the need for an external battery). I may look at the iPhone 5 when it's released (possibly this summer?) as it should have fairly good battery life. It will also reportedly have a slightly larger screen than the iPod Touch which will be helpful (although it's apparently going to be only slightly larger than existing versions). Cheers!

I have an iPad and downloaded RS' France book. You don't do it from apps - you open iBooks, go to the Store, search for Rick Steves, and buy it that way.

Dale - THANK YOU. Just fired up the iBooks app and found all the Rick Steves titles there easily. Downloading one now.

Oddly enough, some Rick Steves' 2011 books are available in the iBooks store but not on the Kindle.

Lisa, According to the list in the Guidebooks section on this website, there are FAR MORE titles available for the Kindle format than any others. This will probably change over time, as all of the books are converted to E-Books, but at the moment the selection for Kindle is the best.

OK, Karin - here's a link to a link to a link to a link, or so...;-) http://www.ricksteves.com/graffiti/helpline/index.cfm/rurl/topic/61461/can39t-read-the-maps-in-kindle-ebook.html I'm the 3rd poster down; I included a link (GIVEN ABOVE) to the other links, since there'd been several Kindle guidebook questions over the space of 1 or 2 weeks... So, if you follow them in order...: The first link was a thread started by 'Lesa'. The second was started by 'Art'; THIS thread includes your next link that you'll find in the post by 'Jaime'. And in 'Jaime's' thread you'll see a link in 'Laurel's' post. WHEW!!! (cont.)

(cont.) Now that I've finally purchased a RS ebook guidebook, I'll say that I'll enjoy having it as a Kindle/ebook much better because I've been reading, and at times committing to memory, RS's guidebooks for YEARS! I know them inside and out, front to back, and what line is coming next LOL! I am very familiar with the layout of the chapters, etc., and where to find maps as opposed to museum hours, so it's been pretty easy for me to navigate. I DO wish I could magnify a few of the maps more, but it's not a deal-breaker (besides, I probably own at least one copy of every book I want, so I can always make copies from that one if I want). I'm definitely planning to go paperless, but I admit I'm bringing paper copies of a few things that I think are really important (musuems hours and days, bus/tram info - where to catch them and the cost, etc.). If you haven't already, be sure and "sample" the first chapters of several of his books; you can get a feel for them. The main difference you'll notice is that you can only magnify the maps a bit; the real magnification comes with the full version because the larger maps are actually located in the back of the book (and you only have the first chapter); you can't use the links titled "For details on Italy/Rome/Venice map, click here". You can try ;-) Please PM me if this made no sense!

One of the big advantages of the Kindle versions is that you can make all of your highlights and notes on your computer using a free Kindle reader and then have those bookmarks, notes, and highlights sync with the other Kindle devices and readers you're using. I'm trying this out for our Italy trip this year as part of the pre-planning. When we're in Italy, I'll be able to refer to the notes I've made on the iPhone with the Kindle reader. The lack of an index in e-books means you can spend a fair amount of time searching and browsing from the table of contents and chapter links unless you've made your own set of bookmarks, highlights, and notes. I agree that the maps are problematic, at least with the Kindle reader. I'll still be taking one or more paper books with me this year, but I'm hoping by next year that enough publishers embrace the Kindle and iPad that I can take many guidebooks, but only a single tablet.

Ken, When I bought my 2011 Rick Steves' Venice in the iBook store it wasn't available in the Kindle Store. I have lots of Kindle books too, the advantage of the iPad is you can read books from Kindle, Google, Nook, iBooks, PDF, probably others too also Apps (many travel apps) that are essentially books all in full color not gray on gray.

Doesn't seem to an issue for the RS series, does it?? ;-)

RS 2011 Books have color maps Many others have color photos, I also like Lonely Planet, Rough Guides and Time Out
.

The Rick Steves print guidebooks are continuously d so a copy you buy in September may be more up to date than one from February. Are the Kindle books also d?

What's a "d"?

Karin, with regard to the maps being a bit of a problem, I'm not sure if this will work with a Kindle, but it did with a Nook. Go to your ebook account using a regular PC. You should be able to view the book & maps just as you would on an ereader. Highlight and copy the map, save it as a word document, and then print it off. Hope this helps. TC

I took one of the RS guidebooks on a Kindle with me last fall. I would not do it again. The maps were hard to read. And maybe its just me, but I don't find the bookmarking and highlighting on the Kindle to be as easy to use as dogging the ears of some pages, using PostIt notes, and writing in the book with a pen. Also I can thumb thru physical pages faster than I can page on the Kindle. I also did the RS tip of cutting the book apart so I only needed to have the appropriate section with me, which was unnoticeable in my pocket or backpack compared to the weight of the Kindle. So a Kindle wasn't the right choice for me, but it may work well for others.

Roy--I think "d" is u-p-d-a-t-e-d.