Driving solo with RS guidebook

I have pretty much avoided driving when I'm traveling solo, but when I have in the past, I've used some kind of GPS, whether on my phone or a dedicated device. I would never try to navigate and drive at the same time using paper maps or a guide book.

Rent a car with a GPS and English directions (if you dont understand Italian).

Sorry, my original post wasn’t clear. I have updated it to hopefully make it sound more clear. I was referring to all the information written in the book (not necessarily getting from point A to point B).

If you have the ebook version of the guide, you could use the assistive reader function of the Kindle app to read aloud from your phone or Kindle. I'm not an expert but my blind aunt uses a similar feature on her iPad. There are probably 50 details required, but here's a place to start: https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=TqLHvK6eo6O7DJVQoZ

You may or may not have Bluetooth capabilities in your rental car, so some good wireless headphones would probably be necessary. I myself would be a little worried about getting too distracted listening to that instead of the GPS in the car, but YMMV.

And instead of having the guidebook read aloud, you could consider downloading relevant RS Audio Europe segments that will be on topic but not necessarily guidebook detail. https://www.ricksteves.com/watch-read-listen/audio/audio-europe

I guess your options are to do your homework and read it when you are not driving (I am not aware of passages that apply while driving like an audio tour), or get the guide on Kindle and see if there is an audiobook, but I do not think there is.

Reading passages of the guidebook while driving solo requires multitasking skills that you can learn in this video.

Happy travels and watch out for the Carabinieri!

Thank you all for your responses. Kudos to Roberto hehe.

I realized after posting this topic that it was probably a dumb question to ask, but I genuinely was wondering what other people thought of the subject. I do read his books many times before embarking on my trips.

I actually have driven in Europe before while using the guidebook. I recall doing the drive in Montenegro and being constantly annoyed of having pulling over every few mins to read the guidebook (because he has descriptions of places along the drive).

It would definitely be useful for RS to have audio recordings of his drives in his guidebooks, but that’s probably wishful thinking.

FWIW I was curious and tried the text-to-speech function on an old RS ebook on my desktop Kindle app. It does indeed work but the reading style leaves something to be desired. I understand your desire to have a narration in solo travel, so maybe do a bit of research to see if there are alternatives with less potential for mishap. For example, I recently used an excellent podcast with a guided drive through a big national wildlife refuge.