With the help of my research partners, I update my guidebooks lovingly and in person. Rick Steves: My series, written and refined over the last three decades, is designed to help smooth your travels and broaden your cultural experiences. Others seek to cover every possible destination you might find yourself in. Some guidebooks (like mine) are more opinionated and selective, choosing only the most worthwhile destinations in each country and covering them in depth. Other series can't be beat for history and culture. Guidebook SeriesĮvery guidebook series has an area of specialization: Some are great for hotels, but fall down on restaurants. When I'm choosing between guidebooks for a certain destination, the publication date (often on the copyright page) is usually the deciding factor. Only a handful of titles (including my most popular books) are actually updated in person with regularity. Most guidebooks get an update every three or four years. If it's last year's edition, find out when the new version is due out. With a good guidebook, you can come into Paris for your first time, go anywhere in town for less than $2 on the subway, enjoy a memorable bistro lunch for $25, and pay $150 for a double room in a friendly hotel on a pedestrian-only street a few blocks from the Eiffel Tower - so French that when you step outside in the morning, you feel you must have been a poodle in a previous life.īefore buying any guidebook, check the publication date. With this tool I can travel like an old pro, not because I'm a super traveler, but because I have reliable information and I use it.
When I visit somewhere as a rank beginner, I equip myself with a good, up-to-date guidebook.
As a writer - and user - of guidebooks, I am a big believer in their worth. Guidebooks are $25 tools for $4,000 experiences. The money they save in the bookstore is wasted the first day of their trip, searching for buses that no longer run and restaurants that have long since closed. I am amazed by the many otherwise smart people who base the trip of a lifetime on a borrowed copy of a three-year-old guidebook.