Which Guide Book to Buy?

You know where to go, you’ve read www.nosywombat.com, but where do you go to get the rest of the details? Unless you’re a local or know a local, most likely, you’re going to pop into your nearest bookshop and buy a guide book for your destination. But which guide book should you buy? Here’s my tips.

The market leader for guidebooks is undoubtedly “Lonely Planet”. These books started out as a guide to Asia from the Australian husband and wife team Tony and Maureen Wheeler. Since then, they’ve expanded to take over the world. The target market for Lonely Planet is the diehard backpacker. Think greasy hippy with dreds and questionable body odour. If you’re not this sort of person, then you may have problems.

I’ve had a love hate relationship with the Lonely Planet guide books for a few years now. My problem, is that they often cater to the budget minded tourist to the exclusion of everyone else. In some third world countries, getting to a tourist attraction is explained is great detail. You catch this bus, from this station and get off at this stop. All well and good if you’re a struggling back packer, but if you’ve got a few more quid in your pocket, you’re out of luck. It doesn’t tell you that a taxi to the attraction cost five quid and saves you three hours of hassle.

The details in the books can be a bit ropey. In times gone by, Lonely Planet had a reputation for producing maps with glaring errors on them. While this has been cleared up, it still pays to have another source to double check the details.

Another problem I often have is the writing in some of the books. It can be confusing, badly laid out and sometimes just annoying. I’ve just come back from a trip to Havana. I would gladly strangle the author of that book. The section on Havana is really no use when you’re in the field. The content of the guide is writing as a bit of a ambling story, not a concise set of details. It drove me up the wall and I dreaded having to refer to it. Luckily, most of their guide books get to the point. I think Havana was just a bad example.

Another favourite of mine is the “DK Eyewitness Travel” series. These are the books with the white spine. The reason I like these, is that they are jammed full of photos and illustrations. I find just flicking through these books will inspire you to actually go to a destination. It is true that a picture is worth a thousand words. If you’re not sure what there is to see at a destination, then these books are perfect. A quick flick through and you’ve got the outline for your itinerary.

They usually have a lot of maps and lots of lovely details on areas and buildings. Every page is in colour, so the maps are a lot, lot easier to read than the Lonely Planet equivalent. The prose is also a lot less flowery and concise, which is the whole point of a guidebook.

The trade off for a glossy finish though, is the detail. On a page for page basis, the Lonely Planet books have a LOT more information, history and details than the DK books. In some cases, this really isn’t an issue. You know what you want to see and you’re getting a taxi there. Often, when I’m going to a new destination, I get both books! I use the DK book for planning what I want to see and the Lonely Planet book once I’m on the ground.

Another good series of books to check out is the “Footprint” series. The emphasis of these books is to convey a sense of place in a concise manner. The descriptions of all the destinations give you enough history and detail to give you a flavour before you arrive. The level of detail in the books is also really good.

The market for Footprint books is more upmarket that Lonely Planet. The target audience is either families or yuppies. They tell you the cheap way, but they also tell you the comfortable way.

The disadvantage of the Footprint books, is that there are not many of them. They only cover certain destinations and their updates are not as frequent as other books.

There are a lot of other guide books out there on the market. For a weekend getaway, a slim book that covers just one city can be much more useful that a big fat back breaking guide to the entire country or continent. My theory is that the thickness of the book should be proportional to the time you’re spending there. Off for a month, get the fat book. Only a weekend, get the skinny one.

A trap I often fall into, is buying the guide book AFTER I’ve booked my trip. Doing it the other way around makes a lot more sense. The trickiest part of booking any trip is to get the right hotel. You need one that is close to the action and close to where you want to be spending your time. Don’t trust the maps on hotel websites either. It’s their job to make the hotel seem closer to the good bits. With a guide book, you know exactly where you’ll be staying.

In general, the best criteria for getting a guide book is the age of it. The newer the book, the better. I have bad memories of wandering China with a five year old guide book and finding it completely useless. I also had a stressful time when I went to Myanmar. The guidebooks says that all cameras and laptops are confiscated upon arrival. Not anymore, which was lucky. The newer the better.

The other, slightly vacuous criteria, is to get the book that has the prettiest pictures. This will inspire you to go to places and it will also help you find them when you arrive. Regardless of how good your map reading skills are, having a picture of your final destination helps enormously. It’s also very useful to show taxi drivers if they don’t speak English.

Choosing the right guide book can make or break your holiday. There’s nothing worse than wandering lost or worse still missing out on some good stuff. Choose wisely!