:: travellingcari.com ::

inspired by the backpackers.com post Choosing a Travel Guide for Europe…

I’ve been a Lonely Planet girl since “Japan Round I” but it has its faults. Granted I didn’t expect them to accept my additions (OK, maybe I did, I was naive – but now I know better and I understand their process for updating their guides) but I thought that over the course of a few new editions they’d have sent a correspondent to update. Nope, as of the editions I used last year, it was still not updated.

I’ve used Frommer’s and Rough Guide  at various times but always seemed to return to Lonely Planet. I like LP and still do recommend it to people. Their LP Journeys titles are among the best in travel writing and their guidebooks are a good starting places. Any guide is out of date as soon as it hits the press, I just really wish they’d put more of an update into updates between editions, otherwise what’s the point in putting out a new one? [I know, money.]

For this June’s trip to Prague, the Easter Bunny bought me Rick Steve’s Prague and the Czech Republic. While not as comprehensive as LP or the other guides, I think it gave me more information about locations rather than glossing over things in an attempt to cover everything. I suspect it may be a lot like the LP City Guides, which I have never used. That said, I didn’t find myself using it all that much.

Even for my trips outside of Prague I felt comfortable enough not to have a guide. For Krakow/Auschwitz I printed some pages off the museum and city’s websites. For Rome, I Googled some basic information and stopped at a tourist office to pick up some brochures on the way to the hostel. Berlin was easy, I had a walking talking guide for most of it, but even before Ute and I met up, I just went to the tourist office at the train station. In Geneva, I actually found myself wishing for some brochures because the tourist offices were closed on Sunday.

So what will I do in the future? I don’t know. I’m not going to get any book for August’s trip to Australia and I’m not sure what the next trip will be. I suppose it will depend on the type of destination and how much information I think I need pre-trip.  One downfall of all the guides is their size/weight. I could get two paperbacks for that size (and price often!) and that’s why I found myself jettisoning the LPs in Australia quite quickly…