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Travel guidebook options for your next trip(page 2 of 2) Traveling business-styleIf you're just traveling to a city for business and have no desire to leave your conference hotel to see a few sites in between meetings, a guidebook will be a waste of money. Also if you only plan on seeing the one or two really popular sites in the city (e.g. the Eiffel tower or Big Ben), you can likely find those sites without a guidebook.Traveling adventure styleIf you're the adventurous type, you might find a thrill in riding a train from one city to the next without knowing where you're going to sleep when you get there. I've traveled this way in the past, but the older I get, the more I like to know I won't have to stay up all nite or sleep in a train station because all of the cheap hostels were full.There are a few things to consider if you try this route. First, unless you're a history wizard, you probably don't know all of the sites in any large city you'll be visiting. So unless you only plan on attending the most touristy sites, you're going to need to find out other sites from somewhere. I think staying in a youth hostel is the best place for this. Most youth hostels have a few city guidebooks that you can browse (but then you'd be cheating and using a guidebook). More interesting is to chat with the people hanging out in the hostel. Almost all hostels have an open area with beat up couches or tables were people rest in between seeing the sites. Unlike a hotel where people pretty much keep to themselves, in youth hostels it is common for folks to chat about the sites they've visited. Some of the most interesting sites I've seen (e.g. the Catacombs in Paris and the Tenement Museum in NYC) were recommended to me by other travelers rather than from a guidebook. Free GuidebooksOfficial Visitors GuidesIn the US, many cities and states provide free travel information. Even foreign countries (e.g. Iceland) provide extensive travel guides that you can download, print out, or request a mailed hard-copy. Typically missing from these free guides are opinions. The sites, restaurants, and accommodations are listed but not really reviewed. However, for less traveled destinations like St. Louis or the Civil War Battlegrounds, the free information might be all you're going to find and is certainly useful.The self-publishing blogger revolutionIncreasingly travelers are posting organized travel information online that matches or exceeds the quality of the book published travel guides like Lonely Planet. In fact, many of these free online guides are written by travel writers that have worked (or still work) for the major travel books.Although these free independently-produced guidebooks are limited to a few destinations. It is likely that the number of such free guidebooks will continue to increase as more travelers join the self-publishing trend. For more, check out this great blog-post on the trend towards independently-produced guidebooks as well as this similar blog post on the future of Indie travel guides. Current independent guidebooks that I know of are:Also, there are ongoing efforts to create a world wide Wiki-based travel guide. But the city and state wiki articles are currently hit-or-miss – mostly miss. In general there is currently little information on wiki travel that isn't already available in the free visitor information guides that cities provide. And the articles generally lack opinion or commentary. Final thoughtsI believe a travel guidebook is necessary to get the most from your limited travel time. The cost of a good travel guide will be more than made up for by the savings in food and accommodations you'll get by sleeping and eating at cheaper but still nice locations. In addition a travel guide will provide you with a large list of what's possible, so you can spend more time seeing sites that interest you most.Previous Page Skip to page: 1 | 2 |