Paris Guidebook

Hi Ron, Can I suggest a different approach? Do you have an e-book reader to take along? Or a netbook that could load up e-books? I drive around Europe usually, because we are local and I can, and do, chuck a box of guidebooks in the back of the car. With 3 weeks around France (not sure where you are going) I'd have Rick Steves and Michelin Green books for Paris, Normandy, Provence and French Riviera, Green books for other areas, and Lonely Planet France. I have all them on my bookshelf so I just throw them in (Ed from Pensacola - cover your ears!). Hauling all that around for most folk is impossible. Therefore my suggestion to probably carry Rick Steves France and maybe the Green Franc or a Lonely Planet, and read the hard copies of the others and download them to the e-book reader. Take and use the e-book reader while you travel, but you need to have studied the printed versions. Controversial?

Rick's France guidebook has plenty on Paris. There is no need to get his Paris guidebook, especially if you'll only be in Paris for five nights.

Ron, The France Guidebook should be more than adequate, as it provides lots of information on Paris. Unless you're planning to do some very extensive touring in the city, I doubt that you'd need to buy the separate book. However, as one of the previous replies mentioned you could always take the Paris book along as an E-book if you're travelling with an iPad, Netbook, Laptop or Kindle. The Rick Steves Paris 2011 is currently listed on Amazon for $8.99. Happy travels!

If you are investing in a three week trip, you might want to consider reading several guide books before you go. It's good to get multiple perspectives and the research is half the fun of a trip!........ Often one guidebook will tell you about an interesting site that another will not even mention........If you are concerned about cost, look for recent used copies on Amazon. Older guidebooks may be out-dated for accommodation and food recommendations, but the sites don't change much.........To keep down weight, we rip out the useful sections of the guidebooks, take just those parts along, and discard them when we are finished........I have loaded one guidebook on my Kindle, but I find it rather cumbersome to use- the ripped out sections work a lot better for us.......Our favorite guidebooks are the Rough Guides, we also like Lonely Planet, and the green Michelins.

While you certainly could get by with using only the RS France book for Paris, I will encourage you to buy a Paris guidebook from another publisher to get a different perspective. My recommendation would be the Lonely Planet Paris guidebook. Rather than hauling the whole book along, do what Cynthia suggests and rip out the pages that cover things you're interested in that don't appear in the RS France book. If that seems too destructive and you want to keep the book "forever," then write down the information from those pages. I also like the Lonely Planet Provence & the Cote d'Azur guidebook.

Ron - I'd suggest you get the Paris guidebook from the library and review it to see if it would be worth buying. Only you can determine if it is worth it, based on what your interests are etc.

I read other guide books and ended up only taking RS. I would tear out the sections so you only carry the area you are in during the day. One mistake I made was not using the book for the first few days when looking for restaurants. We were tired so we would just go to someplace that had a lot of people. We ended up with some really bad meals. Know that by following the RS book you will run into many others doing the exact same thing. Hardly a unique experience but it didn't matter to me. It's like being on a tour but not being stuck with the schedule or people.

For Paris, I use the guide books at home (along with all the internet resources) to make a list of the sights I want to see and things I want to do (including the days and opening times). Then I sort of group them by area. I take the list with me and a list of the restaurants I may want to try. More important is a good street map and a large metro map (the free ones are teeny tiny and really hard to read). I find that there isn't enough information in the guide books to warrant carrying them around with me all day. And as someone already pointed out, you've only got 5 days in Paris. Don't waste any of that time planning your next step.

Instead of tearing up your books, or writing everything down, you can make copies of the pages you'll use.