Travel Guides?

 

Like a printed travel guide? Is it worth it? Will you use it? What is the point? Do you need more than one? Don’t they all contain the same information?

Yes, I am talking about a printed, book form travel guide and I do feel it is absolutely worth it.  I actually tend to buy three or four of them, depending on the type of trip I am going on and the amount of money I am going to spend. For instance, for a recent trip to Italy, I purchased a Rick Steves'
Italy (Amazon link) and Fodor’s Travel Essential Italy (Amazon Link) . The prices are similar, and they both provide great information. Most people would probably be happy with just one. I find Fodor’s to have better maps and they have local writers that contribute to the books. I’ve read many of Steves’ books and there is a lot detail that is really useful – often including the hours of operation and the website. Both include recommended itineraries, and their websites have additional planning guides. Fodor’s has pullout maps to utilize on your trip. Steves’ also has an app for travel that includes walking guides for cities – it has a lot of useful tips in it and it isn’t a memory hog!

For me, if the location is a place, I have not dreamed of going to for years, these books serve as a starting point for what I might want to see while visiting. I have a package of 3M Post it flags (Amazon link) at the ready and, as I read - I mark places that I’d like to visit on my trip. At the end of the book, I go back and compile everything that I’ve flagged and begin to look at it in detail. I also buy a couple of maps for my trips – one for planning and one to take on the trip.  While I am a huge fan of using the GPS on my phone while traveling, sometimes, it just does not work – especially in Venice.  Research will tell you this and having a handy street map tucked in the backpack was useful. Then I take and transfer all those little Post it flags to the map.  These come in handy later when I’m planning my itinerary and my final budget.

I know plenty of people who never purchase a single guide and do just fine and that’s great.  For me, I’m a planner. I will have a ton of options planned for a day and may choose to do all of them or maybe sit back and relax. My last afternoon in Venice was meant to be spent on the beach in Lido. It was a Tuesday afternoon.  It wouldn’t have been crowded and we had vaporetto passes, so there was no cost to get there – but we were tired. We had spent the last 15 days on the go throughout Italy and so we decided to find a café, grab a few bottles of water, and a selection of pastries. We then proceeded to just people watch for a few hours. Was this on my itinerary? No. Was it something I had planned? No. But, because I had seen so much of Venice, I was completely happy to just sit and watch people walk by.  While I do plan trips to have a lot of structure because that is what I like, I do leave room for spontaneity (and, yes, I know how that sounds)! I am not the person who just packs a bag, hops a plane, and takes off without a plan. Although, I have been known to discover something while traveling and decide to do it because it looks like great fun (like an Ecotour in Florence – which was basically like an electric golf cart tour for me and my cousin with a local tour guide and we were driven all over the city).