I like a good guide book. I like something I can read on the plane, on the bus or wandering around the streets without having to worry about it being stolen, damaged, forced to shut down during take-off or the cause of horrendous roaming fees. But not all guide books are the same.
A lot comes down to the author. Some are far more knowledgeable, some research more meticulously, others have the skill of bringing a place to life through their writing, and a worryingly high percentage of them just don’t do the job very well at all.
But while the author is the key thing, the brand does count as well. Outlook, format, editorial standards, update frequency and mapping matter – and when the authors are equal, the brand affects which one to choose. Flicking through the guide books in my collection, I can see the strengths and weaknesses in most series. Here’s what I reckon to them – feel free to share your thoughts by leaving a comment below…
Lonely Planet
I’ve far more Lonely Planet guidebooks that I have of any other brand. If it’s a guide to a country I’m after, LP will usually be first choice. But despite what the publishers might like to believe, Lonely Planet’s strength isn’t depth of research.
I often find that the numbers don’t add up. For example, the sixth edition of the Poland book boasts “Four authors; 133 days of in-country research.” To me, 133 days isn’t enough for a country of that size – it’s enough to get the basics, but not to hunt down the treasures that aren’t immediately obvious or get an idea of what’s really happening in the cities
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I also notice that a lot of Lonely Planet’s writers hop around the globe, tackling a new part of the world every time. So the Western Australia section of the Australia book won’t necessarily be written by the person who knows Western Australia best – it’ll be the person who did New South Wales or Queensland last time and fancies heading west. This isn’t always a bad thing – it’s far better that someone goes in fresh and researches it meticulously than someone who knows it like the back of their hand gets lazy and assumes the reader does too.
Where Lonely Planet wins is on format and layout. Simply put, the books are easy to read and work well as a guide. You don’t want to read a guide cover to cover – you want to dip in and find the information you need. And, crucially, the Lonely Planet books make that very easy.
Some people criticise LP for focusing too strongly on the budget end of the market. I’m not so sure – it feels about right to me (but then again, my interest in Michelin-starred dining and £300-plus a night hotels is minimal).
Lonely Planet Encounter
An offshoot of the main Lonely Planet books, the Encounter series does pocket-sized city guides. The individual area maps are great – possibly the best of any guidebook brand – and the focus on places to hang out, bars and restaurants is a winner. But the detail on the main tourist sites is feeble, and hotel information virtually non-existent. Then again, the Encounter guides aren’t pretending to be good at that sort of thing.
I also prefer my maps to be irremovable from the book. The big pull-out overall city map at the back inevitably gets lost once you’ve detached it.
Rough Guides
I can never quite place why, but I always find Rough Guides rather frustrating. They usually feel like they’re written by someone who knows the area better than their Lonely Planet counterparts, but they also feel a lot harder to read. The chunks of text are bigger, and having one column per page rather than two (two columns is possibly Lonely Planet’s greatest trick) makes it something you have to read through rather than glance at for the required information. It’s almost certainly because I’m more accustomed to the Lonely Planet format, but I find Rough Guides harder work.
Bradt
I want to like Bradt guides. I admire the fact that Bradt will often commission full guides to countries that are usually only given a spot in broader regional guide by other companies. The history, cultural and environmental detail is often superb, and the writers clearly know the places they’re writing about.
But the strengths are also the glaring weaknesses. I often feel that having someone who knows the country well and spends a lot of time there takes precedence over having someone who can actually write, research and convey the country to people who don’t know it.
The books frequently lean too heavily towards the writers’ whims – you’ll get pages and pages of scientific waffle about mangroves and native birds in the Seychelles, and virtually nothing about where to go for a drink in Taipei.
The books are seriously ugly too – new fonts, breaking the reams of text up and maps that don’t look like they’ve been drawn in pencil on the back of a beer mat wouldn’t go amiss. The authors need heavier editorial hands on the shoulder and constant reminders that most readers will have never been there before.
In short, the Bradt guides are often full of noble intention, but largely hopeless as actual guides.
Odyssey
Take everything I said about Bradt, and multiply it by 50.
DK Eyewitness
You know how when a film has ‘3D’ in the title, everything aside from the graphics is likely to be crap? Well, if the book says DK Eyewitness on it, you can generally make the same assumption.
The DK Eyewitness guides have an obsession with breaking everything down into little chunks and spraying pictures all over the place. Sure, a few pictures is great, but when the DK Eyewitness Guide to Hamburg wastes space with pictures of motorway signs and train conductors – just so you know what they look like – it starts getting incredibly pointless.
It feels patronising, and becomes utterly clogged down in random photos when you just want the information. Listings of hotels, restaurants and cafés are pretty impressive – bars less so – but they seem to just list everything rather than discerningly picking out the best.
The major problem, however, is that the guides are often translations from another language, which makes them horrible to read and gets the focus wrong. What a German visitor to Hamburg wants is very different to what a British visitor desires. I can see that the DK Eyewitness books might work for some people – simpletons, perhaps – but I hate them.
Thomas Cook
If you like your guides to skim the surface, and read like they’ve been written by someone who’s never even been to the town before, Thomas Cook’s guidebooks are the ones for you. For everyone else, avoid – they’re rubbish. They feel like they’ve been cobbled together from other books, tourist office info and whatever can be found on the web.
Time Out
Time Out guides are unquestionably the best for cities. The level is detail is superb, and the focus is firmly on what’s happening and where to go out rather than an obvious list of tourist sights. I find myself trusting the restaurant, bar and hotel reviews implicitly, and feel that the authors have really gone and dug out interesting places rather than trotting out the same old trail that the other guide books – particularly Lonely Planet – tend to fall back on.
The major problem with the Time Out books is that they virtually ignore the budget end of the market. If you’re staying in hostels and looking for dirt cheap eats, the Time Out guides make for a frustrating read.
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Regarding short term LP writers in a country. I would prefer a short term writer in a country, than a national of said country writing a guide book.
I believe LP India has suffered from this in the past. A national gives a totally different perspective. Which at first glance would seem good – local’s should know better etc. But, it isn’t. At least not for me.
A local will get around with a lot more ease, and unfortunately presumes, either subconsciously or not, that the “tourist” will or should know the obvious.
Sadly I found this incredibly frustrating. Reading a guide book written by locals, and expats seems great. But too many presumptions and inner working knowledge of a country can be detrimental to newly arrived baby tourist.
As a whole, I would agree with your summary of the brands though. Adding that I really wish Rough Guides would do better on the layout / map front. And, LP would spend a little more on sights rather than eating out.
Acturall, I agree with you Dave. An outsider who’ll do the research with other outsiders in mind is generally better than an insider.
The local expert problem is one I associate with Bradt Guides. As I say, they’re often extremely knowledgeable but virtually unusable.
Great observations. A few comments:
1. As one of those four authors of Lonely Planet Poland ed 6, I agree that it’d always be good to put more time in researching on the road. However, that’d mean the book would have to cost more, and that’s something a lot of readers wouldn’t swallow in the very competitive guidebook market. It’s a trade-off, inevitably.
2. The positive slant to the above point is that LP authors aren’t working from scratch, they’re adding to the years of work by previous authors. Often authors have researched that country before, so there’s more depth than may first appear. I’ve been to Poland four times for LP and have far greater knowledge, contacts and cultural understanding than I did the first time, and that feeds into the quality of the work.
3. You’re right about the DK guides; however, they are popular with the “grab a guidebook at the airport for our last-minute Ryanair getaway weekend” crowd, which is why (I suspect) LP came up with those Encounter guides. They work for that target market, I guess.
4. LP used to have a reputation for budget travel, but aside from a few specialised “Shoestring” guides, they’re very middle of the road now. It’s quite normal when researching Poland, eg, to aim for an even split between budget and midrange, with a smattering of top-end stuff.
There is another brand not mentioned in the post – Footprint. Their guidebooks for South America (both single country book and South America Handbook) are excellent and much better then LP.
I tend to use guidebooks pretty much for the bare bones of information and because its handy having maps of regions, cities, parts of cities, transport network maps and a few basic language phrases to hand bound between the same covers. Occasionally I use guidebook accommodation recommendations as a starting point, but that’s about as far as it goes. The authors themselves don’t really matter to me unless I know them personally: I guess I’m trusting such established imprints as LP and RG to select the right people for the job.
For me the only thing that really matters in choosing between the different imprints is how up-to-date they are, hence I’ll always go for whichever has been published most recently. If there’s not much to choose between them on that score then price becomes the penalty shoout-out of selection.
I agree about the Bradt guides. Thought it might be because I was so used to the formulaic LP and RG templates, but while Bradt’s idiosycracies have their charms and it’s brilliant to have such detailed information about obscure [sic] places they’re not the most consistent or user-friendly books out there.
I’m increasingly using Frommer’s Day by Day as I find their European city guides really opinionated and useful, and tailored to personal interests. I use TimeOut guides as well for their younger and more topical information, but I also find some of the guides wildly out of date, so you have to check when it was published.
In Africa, I found Bradt’s guides really helpful. Their Eastern African wildlife guide is a must for anyone on safari, and their guides to more remote places the most relevant. They cover in details what others don’t, and have a loyal following because if it. Lord knows if they make any money….but respect to them for a quality product. I’m putting in an order on their Northern Lights books because it is a niche I’m interested in, and easier than cross-referencing two or three other guides to work out which place to go to (hopefully) see them.
I agree with Magda- for South America, you really shouldn’t bother picking up anything other than a Footprint guide (although Moon can be good as well). A friend covers a few titles and they really do do their research and the hard yards for their books.
As for Lonely Planet, travelling through South and Central America as a backpacker you really do see the effect they have had. It was what a lot of hostel owners would say as well- towns transformed and the infrastructure to support the hotels etc not being able to keep up with the tourist traffic. It’s not just Lonely Planet that does this, but it’s a major problem I discussed in the latest edition of Backpacker Essentials on page 33 here:
http://backpackeressentials.realviewtechnologies.com/?xml=Backpacker_Essentials&iid=42049
I think it should be noted their are some great electronic guides coming out at the moment- Coolplaces for Ipad are really nailing the niche- focusing on regional destinations and making them glossy and pretty and affordable at under 2-3 euros.
Thanks for reminding me about digital guides Shaney, they slipped my mind earlier.
After a shaky start I think LP is picking up its game here; I’ve been wandering around Delhi over the last few days with their Delhi city guide for the iPhone and it’s been really useful.
Once you’ve got used to its idiosyncracies it’s much faster to pull the phone out of your pocket and look up info than it would be to flick through a book; and you look like less of a gormless tourist if you’re just glancing at a phone like anyone else on the street, rather than at an obvious guidebook.
As you mention, the iPhone (and Android) app stores allow other competitors to enter the field. Coincidentally, just yesterday my second iPhone guide, Melbourne Getaways, was released into the wild (plug plug). I see that and my earlier app, Melbourne Historical, less like competitors for the likes of LP guides – more as complementary guides which add more detail in specific areas.
I think the “insider issue” can be dealt with pretty well with clear guidelines and editorial oversight. If the writer is taking too much for granted a good editor should pick that up.
There’s strengths and weaknesses to each. LPs maps tend to be quite reasonable, RGs less so. RG tends to be stronger and more readable on the background side of things, while I find LP too edited down. LPs room prices are right there, while with RG I’m forever leafing to the back cover to check what price “3″ means. These are mostly usability issues that can be dealt with – hopefully RG will implement some in their redesign.
Crikey. Well, given that the idea of this post was to spark debate and get opinions from people, I’ll chalk it down as a success. I’ve received a lot more comments on Twitter too (search from mrdavidwhitley for range of them). Never let it be said that guide book writers are apathetic about their trade…
To clarify – the opinions expressed in the post are just my personal reflections on the guidebook brands I have used in the places I’ve travelled to. I’ve never been to South America, my Africa experience is limited to SA, Morocco, Gambia and Senegal, while I’d regard myself as something of an Asia greenhorn too. People have mentioned Moon, Footprint, Frommer’s and Insight, but I’ve never used them (something I should perhaps rectify). I’m not even regarding my comments as proper reviews, just reflections. At least some of my preferences and dislikes are completely irrational (notably a large chunk of my LP vs Rough Guides views).
I’ve also been a bit flippant with Odyssey. As has rightly been pointed out, they’re designed as pre-departure reading. I’ve only got the Oman book too, which might not be a fair representation. Once I’d started reading it, it was really interesting as a backgrounder. I still needed to refer to the Oman, UAE and Arabian Peninsula Lonely Planet to get my bearings and work out how everything fitted together, however.
An interesting subtext to this debate is the two parts of ‘guidebook’. Some brands are better as a ‘book’, some better as a ‘guide’. I generally lean towards the latter – I want something that helps me navigate and covers the basics well. That’s partly due to what I do for a living though – I do a lot more pre-trip research than most (books and web). If I’ve the choice of taking just one book (and I’ll often take two), however, it’s going to be the one that’s most use on the ground.
What Charlie says is correct too – how up-to-date a book is will often be a deciding factor. A good guide book to a place in 2007 is likely to be less so in 2011.
Oh, and I’m most certainly the wrong person to even venture a comment on smartphone guides and apps…
I think you are right – guides try to be all things to all people but probably shouldn’t – we should differentiate between the background reading and the practical advice. The stuff to read to understand the country and the stuff you need to have with you on the ground. I’ve written and/or edited for most of the main guidebook publishers exc. Lonely Planet over the years and have seen the cracks under the surface of the design of many. Many are too heavily formulaic for their own good, relying on series reputation rather than solid research, which is why I like Bradt – more chaotic perhaps but ultimately more reliable. I know how much is left out of ‘tidier’ books! I agree that Frommers Day by Day are probably the best of the current crop of pocket guides, but the format doesn’t always fit the destination. The other huge problems now are lack of money for good research and writing. I usually end up taking at least two books with me – and buying by author. But then, I am in the fortunate position of knowing most of the authors!
I tweeted earlier about odyssey books & guides (as @edentravels)- thanks for your comments above. I’ve worked with the Publisher of Odyssey (as a UK rep, editor, manager type role,freelance and part-time) since my days as a travel book buyer for Waterstone’s – when I also used to write the Travel Books supplement for The Bookseller – and I think the books really are great pre-departure reading. However, this isn’t always made clear and if someone took an Odyssey guide to say, Tajikistan, and tried to travel the country with this book alone, they’d come un-stuck.
I travel in Central Asia from time to time, and I rely on the LP guide to the region, for hotels and so on, written by the excellent Bradley Mayhew. Brad also writes the Odyssey guide to Uzbekistan. This particular Odyssey title is interesting as it’s got a flavour of LP, within what is a pretty thorough historical/cultural book. As with most guidebook series some titles for Odyssey are ‘stronger’ than others. I agree that each title needs to be taken on it’s own merits. I would say the following about Odyssey (who are not that well known here in the UK, the main market for the books being the US)
-I edited the Odyssey guide to Iran and genuinely believe this to be the best Iran guide on the market – I would ASSUME that those who are willing to jump hoops to get a visa for Iran, who are willing to shell out on pricy airfare, probably will do an escorted tour for part of their trip, want to be as clued up as possible about the amazing sights and history that this country offers. Pre-departure reading is essential. The Odyssey guide offers unparalleled info on history, art and culture and is written by a man who speaks countless languages, has lived in Iran and is William Dalrymple’s translator and researcher. I also like the Bradt guide for this country however and if I was to go now, I would travel with both books. So, my point is, if someone is going to one of Central Asian countries that Odyssey covers (Kyrgyz Republic, Tajikistan, Afghanistan, Kazakhstan) or the Silk Rd (China, Iran etc) an Odyssey guide is a good choice.
- Practicality – some Odyssey guides are heavy, some are 700pp long, again making them pre-trip and post-trip reading. I had to take a light aircraft in Tajikistan and only had a 10kg luggage allowance, the Odyssey guide had to stay in the capital until I got back, it weighs 1kg!
- Dated information. This is an interesting one. The Odyssey guides do not date as quickly as RG, LP etc. Why? Simply because they do not have the pages and pages of practical info.
-Odyssey guides do not attempt to compete with other brands as we feel our books are quite different – they can sit happily in the history section AND the travel section.
- Design. Just my opinion, but I have issues with the general design of the books, much discussed with the Publisher, and hope that one day our books will be slightly more modern in their ‘look’, but, we publish to our main market, the US, and we get few complaints state-side on the design, so for now it’s staying as is.
I could go on and on about the guidebooks and the guidebook market in general – so will stop here. One last thing though – I can find positives in most guidebook series – the guidebook that the traveller chooses will depend on so many factors (length of trip, style of travel, interests, age, the buyers geographical location etc) and that’s why, I guess, it’s almost impossible to say which are ‘good’ and which are ‘bad.’ We all have our favourites though I guess. My only hope is that they find a way to survive, as David says, there are a lot of things to like about the old-fashioned guidebook….
Interesting roundup. I am a huge fan of guidebooks and usually buy more than one when planning a trip. I prefer Lonely Planet for its practical information, although I have one main pet peeve – their “Getting There and Away” sections, which usually include info on getting away from a city instead of getting to it, so you have to backtrack to find solid info on how to get there.
I personally really like Bradt and Odyssey for pre-trip research because they are more in-depth about the culture and sites of a place.
I have mixed feelings about Rough Guides. I used one for Egypt and the information was great. It had a great section on Middle Egypt, which I actually showed my guide to convince him a certain tomb was open, because he didn’t realize it had re-opened. It also had some great diagrams and descriptions of a lot of the temples, tombs and other sites. On the other hand, I find them a bit hard to read – they just feel a little cluttered to me, so I haven’t used one since Egypt.
I agree with you about Rough Guides. I always feel like I should like it cause they’ve got some great reviews and excellent local tips or country information (it helps to have a tad bit more info than what LP offers). But it’s not easy to navigate or find your way through that book.
I appreciate Eye Witness for their pictures– IF I only want to research or know what a place looks like. But I”d never carry one in my backpack. That thing weighs just too much.
I’m also a huge fan of guide books and although will always continue buy them (Lonely Planet)feel the more up to date nature of internet guides will ultimately dent their popularity. As far as hotels, bars and restaurants are concerned they’re out of date as soon as they’re published.
The question of who’s best placed to write guides opens up an interesting debate – locally based expert or visiting one? For keeping information up to date it’s impossible for a visiting writer to be able to keep as up to date as one based in the destination. But I don’t believe you can be as prescriptive as saying it should be one or the other – it should always be the person who is fit for purpose.
I’ve written for many of the publishers and would say your comments are pretty accurate. With regard to Bradt Guides, they pay their authors peanuts, so…
I agree that Time Out are, overall, the best city guides, but the ones I’ve used have always catered to the budget end of the market too.
The problem with many series is that someone at the publisher comes up with a format and every destination in the world has to fit into that format. As an author planning such a guide, it can be a nightmare and there’s very little flexibility. If you’re told there have to be four major sights in Area A, even when you know there are only two things worth seeing, you have to throw in two more lightweight sights and pretend they’re important.
Rigid guidebook formats do not serve the readers well, and that is one of several reasons why guidebook sales are falling… then it becomes chicken-and-egg time. Less revenue coming in, guides are updated less frequently, there’s less money to pay the writer to spend time in the destination, and so on.
And these days (another fault) guides are increasingly updated rather than written, and it’s rare for the author to be paid any expenses to actually go to the destination.
But I look forward to part two, when you go on to cover the AA, Michelin, Insight, New Holland, Frommer’s, Fodor’s, Cadogan, Berlitz etc etc.
From a travelling point of view I’ve always tended to buy the most recently published in the hope of up to date info. A quick glance at the groaning shelf of guidebooks behind me is fairly evenly balanced between LP and Rough Guides.
It’s interesting reading guide books when you know a place well, the LP Thailand guide has always been great, whereas I found Rough Guide better for Greece – but Tanzania where I live (and have done on and off for most of my life) shows the biggest differences, I loathe one guide in particular because it is obvious that the author didn’t visit certain areas during the research of the latest one, it was a complete rehash of the previous (4 years between guides) edition – there are now more than double the hotels in the area and yet no mention of ANY of the new ones were made, also flight info was 5 years out of date as were prices. Doesn’t exactly inspire confidence for me in any of Bradts guides.
“Doesn’t exactly inspire confidence for me in any of Bradt’s guides.” But they just won best guidebook series at the Destinations travel show as voted by Wanderlust readers…. Hmmmm. I guess it all boils down to taste and what travellers perceive/are used to. I like the Bradt guides a lot, but have not travelled an entire country with one, nor with any guidebook come to think of it.
Why haven’t you reviewed Insight Guides? They are really beautiful, especially the new Select series. Tons of photographs, with lots of background, cultural and historical information (which is great for me, because I hate how LP lists every single bar in town but barely mentions the museums!) They have lots of different kinds of books too, including small ones for weekend breaks or the big honker for the trip of a lifetime.