Basel

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Rick’s guidebooks are not comprehensive; there are many worthy cities all over Europe he does not include. He focuses on his preferred itineraries, and in Switzerland that is mainly the lakes and mountains, plus the airport cities of Zurich and Geneva, and towns and cities on the way to the mountains, such as Bern, Montreux, Lausanne, Luzern, etc.

Basel is a lovely city and well worth 2 nights with a full day in between. If it is mid-summer and you enjoy swimming, there is a river swim there that is just as nice as the one Rick promotes in Bern, and considerably safer.

We'll be getting off of a river cruise in Basel next year and was wondering the same thing. In my modest Googling so far I haven't been able to find anything of great interest to me.. Our preliminary plan is to get off the boat and head to Colmar for a few days.

I would say that Basel is worth scheduling a day, but perhaps not two days, unless you want to visit the Vitra museum in Weil am Rhein or day trip to Mulhouse for the excellent train and car museums there. The old town is quite pretty and there are some good museums (Tinguely, Kunstmuseum).

That is interesting, and I hate to comment in a bad way on Rick on a Rick Steve's forum, but it was the same with Bordeaux in France.

I am Australian, not American, and I like the Rick Steve's app with his self guided tours, so am certainly not a hater. I also like his shows, although all we get in Australia are at least ten years old.

I do think that his travel guides are very lacking though. We spent five nights in Bordeaux a couple of years ago and I had the Rick Steve's France guide. The city of Bordeaux did not get one single mention! It is a completely amazing city and well worth a visit, so I googled as to why Rick didn't mention it. Apparently (and I do get that this might not be true), Rick did not like Bordeaux, so omitted it from his guide book. Not a great move for a travel writer in my opinion.

It seems like Basel might be much the same. We spent a full day in Basel and I think that was plenty, but it was still a lovely city and we found plenty to occupy us in our day.

Responsible authors should cover all major cities, even if they do not like them much. The amount of time given to Gimmelwald compared to zero to Bordeaux is telling.

I do think that his travel guides are very lacking though.

I'm going to agree and disagree with your entire post. I do get disappointed when he doesn't cover something that is important to me, such as a location I'm going. However, I do appreciate the depth that goes into the places he does cover. His practical knowledge is unmatched in the guidebook world and when I consider what I get out of his books as compared to something like Eyewitness which does try to cover everything, but only gives snippets, I end up appreciating the RS method even more.