What's the Expiration Date for a Guide Book?

The only thing that really gets dated in a guidebook is prices, restaurants, and hotels. Walking tours, descriptions, etc. stay the same. We have used guidebooks as much as five years old without any problems when focused on the things we want to see and do.

My Michelin Green for France is twenty-one years old and seems to work just fine. Nobody ever moves the towns and castles around. I'm a geographer by training and think maps are really important. I'm also cheap. I replace a map when the scotch tape out-weighs the paper. The worst that can happen is that somebody builds a new freeway and you figure that out pretty fast when you stumple upon it. Most roads have been in the same place for seven eons.

More than once we've had the experience of hunting down a restaurant recommended in the current edition of a guidebook, only to find out that it went out of business a few years' previous. No guidebook can possibly keep itself totally up to date, so having the latest version probably isn't all that critical.

Hi Dina We have limited access to US books so we keep up our Rick Steves collection by Amazon.co.uk. I bet that either they or the German Amazon.de would deliver to deepest France. We upgrade our blue books every 3 years plus or minus, although astonishingly we haven't the English one for 10. I always carry the most recent Green book of an area. They only update every few years on a rolling program so that's not too bad. I used to get all the Time Out Guides but have given that up. We always carry the Lonely Planet and try to get either the current one or last edition of those. Just in cheap restaurants alone they save us a fortune. Good luck

I feel that the price of a new guide book is very little compared to cost of a trip as a whole but in your situation that doesn't sound possible. If you're not worried about the exact $$$ or searching out restaurants, does it really matter? We mainly use the books for sightseeing and ideas. As reported above, restaurants, hotels, routes, etc. can all close or change prior to even the latest guide books.

While I agree with Ed that a lot of Guide are perfectly fine 23 years later. But new things do get built. Here are some examples. When I first went to Amsterdam, The Van Gogh Museum did not exist so if I had been using the same Green Guide from those ancient days I would miss out on that monumental museum. Also, Scotland built a new parliament in the last ten years and so you would be scratching your head and wondering what this Holyrood place is if you had an old guide. Personally, I think you can get by with a book that is 2-3 years old, but much older than that and you'll find a lot of things change. With an older guide you might want to use the web to get updated information on prices, opening times etc.

I just snapped up 2010 versions of RS France and Frommer's France at Half Price Books! I figure I'll read them, and for the important info, like trains, hotels, and museum times, I'll verify on the internet. Ed, does your atlas still show Yugoslavia?

Actually several do. And you'll remeber that Beijing used to be Peping and before that it was Peking. Got em all. Somewhere is the pile there's probably one that had Tokyo as Edo, but I think I bought that one used.

I'm having this issue right now with Sicily guidebooks as most of them are being d this year and not published until after our trip in March. So I'm gathering all the relevant, easily changed data from internet sources (hotels, restaurants, train schedules, etc) and creating my own "guidebook" for these details. It has the advantages of being completely customizable and light-weight. I'll get an older, cheaper guidebook for doing the walks, exploring the temples, etc. and probably cut it apart to leave out the sections I don't need.

As far as I'm concerned all guide books expired in the late 1990s when the Internet became readily available. Places are in about the same place as they were back then. Rheinfels is still above St. Goar. I discovered the Markburg on my own, before Rick mentioned it. I never use the recommended accommodations. The towns' own websites have a much better selektion of places. One thing Rick says is, "you have to find your own back doors." If you do that, there is no guide book (certainly not his) to tell you where to stay. As for restaurants, I just find something in the neighborhood, or, as a last resort, I ask my host. BTW, my latest edition of RS Germany is 2001, and I don't think I bought it. It was included with my German Rail Pass.

Thanks for the responses. I do think the internet has changed the game for guide books. As for amazon.co.uk - I actually get access to most of those books through amazon.fr. I'm doing an almost last-minute trip and right now it seems all the 2010 books are sold out, but 2011 aren't all out yet. I had gone to WHSmith's down in Paris a couple weeks ago and didn't fare much better. They had sold out of quite a few of the RS books. Borrowing from friends, buying used and checking the internet for changes seems like it will work. And I do have a GPS that covers all of Europe that's only a few months old, so that could help.

Prices, hours and recommended lodging/eating change all the time. In at least that sense, guide books expire before they are printed. By the time it gets from the authors PC to the publisher and actually printed in the latest edition, many details have changed. As was said earlier, castles and medieval centers don't move, so much of that information remains current for decades. As Lee said, with the internet you can always get the latest information. I like guidebooks but generally use the old library versions first, then buy only what I need for the trip (and take only the specific information I'll use). After a trip the guidebook goes in the trash because I won't use it again.

I have purchased books from half.com which is affiliated with E-Bay. You can usually get 1 year old guide books for about half price, sometimes less. As was pointed out above, a 1 year old guide book will have most of the relevant information that you may need. Dan