Mr H

I've always believed that LP includes information that would appeal to people on a variety of budgets with the main focus on midrange but also including budget and top end travel. Conversely, I have always believed that RG assumes that people are looking to travel as cheaply as possible and have no time pressures - and sneer a bit at people who want a bit more comfort or a bit more speed.

These are probably ill founded prejudices, but having started on LP, it looks quite smart to have a shelf full of navy blue spines. I wish they'd put the destinations' names in the same font size though. On the other hand, I have a good friend with a shelf full only of RGs, and all the sky blue looks quite well together.

Cha-cha-cha

I've found Rough Guides better than Lonely Planet, for me at least. The RG's background information is fuller and better informed, they are good at giving a feel for the atmosphere of various places, and their hotel and restaurant listings are better and include more places that other guides don't.

I also like DK-Eyewitness and the related Top Ten series.

You want to go where?

Interesting. My perception was the opposite. I found Lonely Planet to be more budget range and that Rough Guide was a little bit better for a broader picture. I guess it depends at least partially on the particular writer or perhaps it was the places where I glanced at LP vs those where I looked at RG. I will have to go back and look at LP again.

I do second the recommendation of mhnadel on the Cadogan guides. One of the problems I find with Frommers, Fodors, and Rick Steves is that they tend to be less comprehensive - focusing on where a tourist will or "should" want to go. I often am looking for a guide which will help me get an understanding of a place that I end up in for work. It really helps set the tone walking into a meeting with colleagues from a less well-known city or town if you can say you've seen one of the big attractions in their city rather than imply that their special attraction isn't on your radar screen. Let me emphasize, though, it isn't just about setting the tone - I often find these lesser-known sights as interesting as their over-hawked brethren.

DesertNomad

If you've been using LP for long enough, you'll have several non-blue spines too.

ksandness

One of my pet peeves on travel websites is people who post things like "im going 2 London next week what do u think I should see and do and whats a good hotel."

I have to wonder if they're young people whose parents have always spoon-fed experiences to them so that they have no sense of self-reliance. They actually seem to be asking strangers on a website to plan their trip to them. Hello? Planning a trip takes a little personal effort.

When I know I'm going to go to an unfamiliar place, even an unfamiliar U.S. city, I start by buying the Insight Guide for that place. These are short on practical information, but they give a lot of historical and cultural background and detailed narrative descriptions of sights, both well-known and obscure, along with magnificent photographs. They're the greatest thing for getting me thinking about what I want to see and where I want to go.

My next step is to consult a more practical guidebook. I go to a large bookstore, page through the various brands of guides to my destination, and pick the one that happens to appeal to me that day. I've used Rough Guide, Lonely Planet, and even Rick Steves.

Then I go onto the Internet or to a travel agent and start making reservations. I always reserve at least my first and last night's accommodation, even for a long trip. If any rail passes are needed, I buy them.

I can't imagine just picking a country and just landing there without prior research. I never did this, not even as a student going to Japan for the first time.

What if (and this has happened to me) you arrive at a city during a festival (which you didn't know was going on because you didn't do your research) and all the hotels for miles around are booked?

What if you don't know what's safe and what's dangerous?

What if you drink tap water and it's not safe, or conversely, you avoid tap water only to find out later that it is safe?

What if you inadvertently violate a serious social norm?

What if you make assumptions based on your home culture only to find that the locals do something entirely different, which may be a pleasant or unpleasant surprise?

What if you miss out on an experience that you would have loved if you had known about it beforehand, and you learn about it only because another returned traveler asked you about it?

What if you find that what your parents told you was a low-cost country has now become a high-cost country?

So while some people may like the "parachuted into a new environment" feeling, I'm better off with some preparation.

mhnadel

I'll admit I've chosen to go somewhere with little preparation before making the reservations. Typically, that happens when I'm going to be in one place and there's another nearby. For example, it's extremely easy to go to Swaziland from South Africa and, in fact, some transit options more or less make you do so.

But I usually do my homework after making the reservation. And a lot of that homework includes knowing what types of things I do and don't like. I'll go out of my way for petroglyphs, but not for 19th century painting, for example.

I figure that the people who are asking "what should I see in city X" don't get useful info anyway. I can tell them what I like in that city, but they could have tastes that differ radically from mine.

Martinis at 8

joker545,

Guess what? With what you described, you are not only a tourist, but you are a poor tourist at that.

Oh, I see. You want to have a swag at it without planning, etc., so that it appears to be "an adventure", or so that you can get jiggy with the locals. Now that you have completed your long weekend in Panama, let's see your trip report. You can post it here, or over in the trip report section, since it's not on your blog as of yet.

ragde77

Travel Guides are essential (for me) when visiting a new place and (as many have said) I take them as what they are: guides.

It's somehow similar than asking for advice from a local or someone who has visited the place: you listen, take your notes, do your homework and then you try to make the most of the place for you.

Bukhara

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rankourabu

I am also in the LP camp (as evidenced by a shelf full of them)

They have been proven very valuable time and time again for me. I mainly use them for maps, little background info and for things to see. Rarely for hostels/hotels and restaurants, although that varies by region.
Of course some places like Europe are easier to wing it by gathering local tourist maps, and doing research online. But for some other places (like past trips to places like Myanmar or Albania, or my upcoming trip to Yemen and Iran), where the tourist infrastructure is weak, you simply cant do without a map or at least a basic understanding of what's coming up in your next destination.

I once had a Rough Guide and a Lets Go guide for Europe, I found RG ok, but Lets Go was hopeless for me.

I stay clear of Frommers and Rick Steeves, I find those guides for more the grey-haired and/or four star+ crowd than 20 somethings

mersk862

I'm a fan of guidebooks only if I don't have time to read up on a city that I'm heading too (more than once I've stopped by the Borders across the street from my office on my way to the airport to head to some city that I don't know too well). Good to read on the plane over to get a general feel for the city and where I might want to head out and see.

deniah

lame. i do a quick check on wikitravel (only as a *rough* guide), but mostly talk to locals or other travelers.

recently met a briton who claimed to have traveled 65 countries. yet he was *absolutely* married to his Footprints guide.

granted Footprints is a little more "in-the-know" (Footprints > Rough Guides > Lonely Planet > Fodors/Frommers)... it was ridiculous how he was so adamant on stickin to every word his precious book read

MilesDependent

That's a bit harsh. I've done the "hop on a plane and figure it out on the way" from time to time. I did that with my first trip to Seoul. It's a unique experience. Generally I am quite well organised, but I really enjoyed the unplanned randomness of my trip to Seoul. I wandered around aimlessly and have tremendous memories of the trip, despite not seeing a few of the "main attractions".

As for me, I am generally a fan of LP, as also evidenced by a see of blue (with some white, green and light blue from my younger days). I will generally buy two guidebooks, LP and something else. I love the D&K guides. Not really a fan of Rough Guides.

In order to travel light, I often photocopy the parts of the guidebooks I want, and chuck them out as I go. I am contemplating buying the PDF lonely planets available online, but I do enjoy adding to my guidebook collection...

I pay no attention to the hotel parts in guidebooks anymore - relying on things like trip advisor and flyertalk. The restaurant guides are important for me in places that are tough to travel around like Iran, Africa and parts of Eastern Europe. For more mainstream places I generally wouldn't even read them.

KNRG

Hello, from the other side of the binding.. I work part time for a guidebook, covering central FL attractions.

I can't speak for how other guidebooks work, but I know our focus is on giving you all the options and critical review from ourselves and other readers via surveys to allow the reader to make decisions on their own. Our books are often referred to as "bibles" because they're pretty hefty and try to touch on anything you could imagine in a systematic manner.

We don't just recommend 5 hotels, rather we stay at lots of hotels (nearly every one you can find in the area at the time of publication) and rate the services, check the thread count, see if "garden view" has any sign of a real garden, etc.. You get a grid and a table and such comparing all the various offerings. Very mathematical - everything has a point value that goes into equations that are used to define "quality."

As far as I know, we're the largest/best selling book in our series. The specific book I work on is in the top 5 of all guidebooks for sales. That said, you'd be amazed at the number of people it takes to keep the book chugging along each year (note, we release updated editions throughout the year too).

Hotels can change ownership and policy, attractions can change nearly everything, etc.. Takes a small army. And I bring this up because many guidebooks don't have that army.

Rather, they're often written by a small group of people who research and have some personal experience with an area. Thus, within a year's time they can certainly research for critical updates but much of the information will quickly become outdated. You're essentially paying for the opinion of the primary contributor/author and it's only relevant as far as when it was published originally (assuming it didn't take too long to goto press).

The book I work for is trying to expand other books in the series that most directly relate in scope/style to ours. We're establishing real crews at other sites, not the skeleton crews that worked to get the first edition published (like most other guidebooks.)

I really think that until more book series take this approach we're going to continue to have lots of outdated and vague information in the books. Publishers only want to pay for the first research team - they feel getting it on the shelf is enough. Our book has a running blog and we release updates/corrections continuously throughout the year.

Mr H

I don’t see what the big deal is with pretending not to be a tourist. When I go abroad, I am a tourist – I have no business in the country; I don’t live there; I am not representing my country at cricket…

Pretending to be living like a local, getting an authentic experience, is just self-delusion. If I really wanted to understand the local culture then I’d probably have to start off by throwing away my credit cards, my passport, most of my money, and try to work out how I’m going to live for the rest of my life without leaving the country I have landed in. But even then, I probably wouldn’t get the authentic experience because I’m white and speak English and practise no religion.

On my travels, I hope to see interesting sights, taste interesting foods, meet interesting people. But however much I try to be a responsible tourist, I’m always a tourist.