Tour guide book

Hi Charlotte, Rick himself recommends tearing his books apart, and only taking the pages you'll need. If you are staying in Rome, and have already arranged accommodation, you don't need to take the "where to sleep" pages, for example. Just break the spine on the book and take the pages for the sights you think you might visit. It's hard the first time you break a book apart, but it's worked brilliantly when we've done it on trips to both Italy and Spain. Ended up with about 1/3 of the book with us, and just grabbed the section we'd need on any given day. Rome is an exciting, vibrant city - enjoy your visit!

Thanks, I am going to order the book right now!

An Amazon Kindle is a way to unburden yourself from thick guide books. Plus, you can add your own documents, pictures, and PDFs. I know R.S.'s Italy 2011 is available and for 1/2 the cost of the paperback.

We've booked our September Italy rooms so we'll not need the "sleeping in..." section of Rick's 2011 book (which we've purchased and from that we're trying to commit to memory what we hope will be the most important parts). We'll pick our own restaurants as we happen upon them and the hunger pangs strike. Now for the sites to visit: for our trips to Budapest, Vienna and Prague we spent $14 for each of the Eyewitness "10 Best" guides to each city. We found the recommended sites coincide closely with Rick's recommendations for the best sites, and include pretty usuable maps (much more detailed than Rick's--sorry, Rick). These Eyewitness books are condensed and summarized versions of the pretty expensive and heavy but visually impressive Eyewitness series and each will fit in a guy's front pocket very easily (each book is about 1-4" to 5/16" thick x 2-2" wide x 8-9" high. P.S.: As many on this site have mentioned, a small compass is a great supplement to any guide book.

I'm not sure if I picked this up on a RS show or not, but, the cost of good guides books is minuscule when compared to the cost of your trip. Pre-trip research makes for a much more rewarding experience. I get the RS guide book, and maybe a Lonely Planet, for where I am headed, read it before the trip, study a map, then take the whole book on the plane to read if I can not fall asleep. I do carry the whole book around with me but I have learned to travel very lightly so that it is not a weight problem. I just can not bring myself to tear apart a book as he suggests.

I'm planning on using my Kindle instead of a pile of books when we go to Europe in Sept. I would need three RS books minimum. Plus I really like the idea of loading flight info, itinerary, and lodging or museum reservation information onto the Kindle, instead of a stack of paper work. I'll also email these documents to my email account as backup. RS book suggested making copies of the RS maps since they are pretty small on the Kindle. So as we are wandering Florence, Cinque Terre, or Siena, we can just go to those sections on the Kindle in RS book.

Charlotte, I don't usually find that it's much of a problem to pack along one or two Guidebooks, as I find them extremely valuable for reference during trips. If you're really concerned about the weight and you presently have an iPod Touch, you might have a look at the E-book version of the Rome 2011 Guidebook. I currently have a few of the E-books in Kindle format, and find that they work reasonably well (although the Maps are a bit difficult to navigate). I still prefer the paper version, but the E-books are very easy to carry! With an iPod you'd also be able to load the Ancient Rome audio tour. Check the Guidebooks / E-books section of this website for details. Happy travels!