The ones I'm considering are London, England, UK and Ireland. But it really seems like overkill for the first three! I mean, England clearly has lots of London information. And the UK book is obviously mostly England anyhow!
Is it worth getting all four books?
With 11 days, are you certain you want to try to do London, parts of England, Ireland (Northern and Republic), Wales and Scotland? If I were you I'd use Rick's books and other sources to help narrow down the focus. Do Ireland in depth, or England and Wales or England and Scotland. Or just hit London, Edinburgh, Cardiff and MAYBE Shannon or Dublin. You won't really have seen the countries, but just gotten a very small taste of the bigger cities. You will also loose a lot of your time in transit.
I've read that - nothing is set in stone. I'll read the books and plan the itinerary based on that!
Thanks for the help - I'll head to B&N today and see which books I want.
See if you can find these books in a used book store. They won't be the newest ones, but at least you can buy them for cheap and get more time to study them than you can looking at them at BN. Then you can decide which new ones you need. I used to save my travel books, but they are so bulky I now sell/trade them to my local used store. I know some think that's sacrilege but my photo books have better memories, and I always want the newest version when I travel anyway. :)
Rick's 4 books are: IrelandGreat Britain (not UK)EnglandLondon
The Ireland book includes Ireland and Northern Ireland.
The Great Britain book includes England, as well as Wales, and Scotland.
The England book covers only England; it does not include Wales and Scotland.
If you're going to either Ireland or Northern Ireland, you'll need the Ireland book.
If you're only going to England but not to Wales or Scotland, the England book will give you somewhat more coverage of England than the Great Britain book.
But if you're going to include Wales or Scotland, you'll want to buy the Great Britain book.
Your post lists a UK book, there's no Rick book with that exact title, you're probably thinking of the Great Britain book.
We're thinking of going to England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland. So we're definitely putting the Ireland book in our cart.
My point is that London is obviously covered in the London, England and Great Britain books. And England is covered in the GB book. So would the GB book be sufficient? Or do people still recommend getting the London and England books even though it's got to be a bit redundant information.
"London is obviously covered in the London, England and Great Britain books. And England is covered in the GB book."
Yep, that's pretty much correct. But technically, here's the catch: the Great Britain book has somewhat less coverage of England than the England book.
What Rick's editors did not do, in creating the Great Britain book, is: they did not simply copy every page from the England book and paste them into the Great Britain book, and then add Wales and Scotland.
Some travelers will consider the difference in coverage to be unimportant, others might consider the difference to be significant, given their preferences and exactly where they're going in England.
Also, note carefully that none of the four books mentioned were intended to cover every worthy location in the UK or Ireland, Rick is selective in his coverage, and in that regard his books differ from the competitor books.
Since it gets down to a matter of your personal preference, perhaps the best way for you to decide is to go to your local bookstore and browse through both the Great Britain and England books; and then decide whether, for your needs, the coverage of England in the Great Britain book is sufficient for your needs. If it is, you'll only need the two books, Great Britain and Ireland.
In my opinion, you don't need the London book, if you're going to buy either the England or Great Britain books. So we've at least eliminated one of the four! :)
You might want to check out your local library, too. Many have Rick's books and other good guides.
