guidebooks vs RS Audio app

I appreciate this is an RS forum, but other guide books can come in ebook versions. You can buy just relevant chapters from Lonely planet for under $4 a chapter if that gives some piece of mind.

Personally, I use guide books as 'guide lines' and logistics and rarely use the hotel or restaurant sections. I tear out the relevant chapters and discard along the way, or use an ebook as well as my notes. I also tend to get the audioguides for special sites as I prefer to listen than tear my eyes from the beauty in order to read about it. Or, if there are absolute details you must have from the books, can you just photograph or scan with your phone for reference?

Thanks Maria. I agree with the listening part. If I tried to read a guidebook and walk at the same time, I'd fall flat on my face. That's why I'm thinking the guidebooks or even chapters from guidebooks seem redundant at this point. If we get lost while wandering, the map apps can get us back to hotels or just do it the old-fashioned way and ask for directions.
Kathy

Are you really a person who does everything all day on her phone? And will always have it charged, etc? And what about your co-travelers? What info are they carrying?

Although I have recently made some repeat trips (e.g. to NYC) without a guidebook, I would bring the books. There's bound to be some option or instruction in there you didn't think you'd need, or thought you'd remember. You can take out pages you don't need. And/or just be prepared to leave them behind as you go. That Rome book need not stay with you past Rome. I'm sure your guide will appreciate you having the Naples snapshot with you.

Most of the RS guide books are available in e reader format as well. I have used the Kindle reader on my iPhone along with the Kindle version of the books purchased from Amazon. Sometimes the pages don't line up exactly with the printed version, but overall they work fine.

I don't walk around with my face pasted into a guidebook, I use the guidebook to do a deeper dive into my surroundings over a drink at night while I plan the next day's activities filling in some of the gaps the initial plan left.

I agree with comments already posted, but would add they really want you to have the appropriate guidebook on the tour. In fact, the tour guide often refers to "see page x" of your guidebook when giving suggestions on things to see, where to eat, etc. during your free time.

I agree with Maria. Guidebooks add lots of weight. If there are any sections you think you will need, tear them out. Otherwise, let your eyes enjoy what your seeing and not be focused on a book.

I buy the ebooks and look at them as needed in my hotel room. I bring small city books with maps sometimes.

I buy the paper books for planning then for travel either download them to my Kindle app to access on my iPad Mini OR as others indicate, tear out sections of the guide books and take them with me. I throw them out as I go or leave them in the bookshelf of the hotel. I did not like how the guidebooks appeared on my old Kindle but I like them OK on the iPad Mini. It also helps if you are familiar with the books ahead of time.

With Rick's books, you can bend back the spine and pull out certain sections. You don't need hotels but you might need some of the tourist sights in Rome, Naples, Venice. Clip the sections together or staple them and off you go.

Altho his maps are better than they used to be (at least now I think he always orients them so North is at the top) don't try to use them for navigation. Use either your phone or nearly every hotel has a pad of maps at their desk they'll tear off for you. They'll also mark the location of the hotel for you - particularly important in Venice! I also use the Streetwise maps for cities.

Thanks every one. Although it feels like scracrilege, i’ll rip apart the Italy guidebook since it will be lighter than the nicer city guides.
It’s interesting that there is a concurrent thread in Technology asking almost the same thing.
Also, the audio tours and the book verbiage are almost identical.

I have used the ebook versions of the guidebooks, but sometimes paper is just what I prefer (especially with the RS tours because they refer to the guidebook so often). If there are some pages you want to take with you, consider making your own guidebook. Go to an office supply store (Kinkos/FedEx) and have them slice off the bindings. Take out the pages you want to keep and have the store punch and spiral bind them into a slimmer book (I keep the cover pages to add a little bit of substance). This really cuts down on weight - I never need the pages with the introduction (I often keep the full color maps), the index pages, or chapters for places I am not going.

Thanks CL for the idea of Kinko's slicing off the binding. It'll be a lot easier than trying to tear out pages.

I haven't use Kindle, only Gutenburg Project very old and free ebooks, so will stick with the paper version. My sister-in-law and I can share pages.

I always make photocopies of the pages I’ll need and then toss them when I’m done.

Just did it this week for s trip to Oslo, in fact. I was very happy to have the couple of pages from Rick's Norway section on stave churches in hand when I was visiting the one in Oslo's Folk Museum. But I didn’t want to carry the whole huge Scandinavia book! Since he takes time to describe historical, cultural, artistic and architectural elements, I really like having the material with me on the trip. I might have read it four times before departing, but I’ll still notice something new in the text once I’m there at the site.