Best German travel guide books

Since so many of you seem to be world travelers, it only makes sense to pose the question: Which are the best European travel guide books?

Who would you rather have in your pocket, Rick Steves, Frommers, or a snobby Harvard student (they write and publish the Let's Go Travel books)?

Or do you use guide books at all?

Give it to me straight, because books make for heavy luggage and I'm packing up.

E

Fodor's, no question.

Working in the tourist industry and having seen about everything in Bavaria (except eastern...) as well as much of the rest of germany...
Fodor's is damn good. I have a Rick Steves book too (best of europe) which sucks...but I grew up watching Rick Steves on PBS *sigh*

I think it depends on the country. I like the rough guides, sometimes, as they give more of a historical background, or better map layouts. But that was comparing Rough Guide Prague to Lonely Planet Prague. I think the Lonely Planet Germany is better than the Rough Guide Grmany, but my parents prefer the Fodor's Germany.

Depends on what you are looking for... We had a Lonely Planet, Fodors and Rick Steve with us on our back packing trip and I have to say that some of the tips in Rick Steve saved us a lot of time... eg. In Florence where to get tickets for the museums without waiting in line. But the others give a much more information than Rick Steve.

I used an out of date "Western Europe on a Shoestring" (Lonely Planet) which I thought was excellent

I like to use Let's Go when I can. They are updated very year so the price and transport info is more accurate.
If LG isn't available then I use Lonely Planet. One problem with LP is its popularity. If LP recommends something you can be sure its going to be jam packed with travellers.

For my second visit to London, I found a little red book that was full of little secret place. I had lots of fun with it. I like to get lost in cities.
To find a place to stay, to eat, rough-guide, LonelyPlanet or "Le Guide du Routard (sometime we look in the shop ). But I like the visuals in Eyewitness Travel Guides to wander with me. It is easy to find the little bit of information that I may want with all these pictures. And it is nice to keep afterward, the pictures are still very nice.

My recollection of Fodors is that it has lots of photos, which might be nice to look at when you're at home, but a pain in the butt to carry around with you in a backpack. My personal choice is usually Rough Guides. My advice would be to compare the different guides and simply buy the longest one. The more pages it has, the more information is has. In the case of Germany, Rough Guides is far, far better than Lonely Planet.

Thanks, everyone. It's a jungle out there.

E

If you're travelling in France, use as Falco B said 'the Routard Guide'. They are the best by a mile. If a restaurant is included in the guide you be can almost guaranteed that the place is decent. Just got back from Paris and we used the guide and found some amazing restaurants.

The D+K series is awesome! I also like Lonley Planet.

...u know it might seem odd but i don't carry a travel book when i travel anymore - i used to always buy the rough guide books but then found that they were weighing me down a bit - i felt like i had to see a certain site becasue there was a picture of it in the book ... u know what i mean -

now i just venture into a place and figure it out from within - always a pleasurable experience - and no, i'm not trying to be vulgar -

these days i'm carrying Bill Bryson around - its the kind of thing you can dip into in a few minutes on the train or over lunch and get a quick laugh - the kind of light reading thats needed on the road to keep everything nice and chilled -

expecially when u've done something seriously effing stupid like taken the S-Bahn in the wrong direction for 40 minutes [as i did last week...] anyway,

Small town boy: "My recollection of Fodors is that it has lots of photos,"

I have the fordor's germany 2004...no photos whatsoever...so, umm...what?

It varies for me - is usually lonely planet or DK. But I would have to say that I have given up on books and just rely on the internet now - as is free and can access all the books online and much much more.

I agree about the internet, things have moved on since I first went travelling with a Lets Go! and a rucksack. The other things I found invaluable were maps, I bought 2 good quality ones covering the whole of the USA, used them in conjunction with the book and everything was great. The difficult thing is choosing exactly what to see and do. All I knew was that I had a vague plan to drive east to west and once on the road it was all a bit adhoc. I used the maps far more than the book.

Back to technology then,

Google maps is getting there but I´ve got an old version of the MS route planner from 2001 or thereabouts and it´s pretty good at showing places of interest, eats, etc.

Or, to be really flash, get a portable GPS unit, subscribe to google earth pro, mark all the places and establishments you want to visit, download all this info from PC to GPS, then off you go.

No decent information about hotels, but Tim Moore is a fantastic traveling companion. Harry Pearson has a very funny book about Belgium (Tall Man in a Low Land). In the arena of actual travel guides, I haven't yet been disappointed with Rick Steves.

I'll warm this up again:

My question is: what is the best travel guide for Germany? I feel I should see more of my adopted homeland, especially since my girl is not so hot on plaves outside our home town/region.

dankeschoene =]

The Rough Guide, without a shadow of a doubt. Nearly 1,300 pages, compared to 770 for Fodor's and 820 for Lonely Planet. The other two are fine if you stick to the most popular places, such as the big cities and the Romantic Road, but for all the hidden gems that the hordes don't know about, you need the Rough Guide. For example, my Lieblingsstadt of Landshut barely gets a few paragraphs in Lonely Planet; in the Rough Guide it gets 8 pages and a map. The only downside is that a new version is (presumably) due imminently, as the current edition dates from 2004. The only likely impact though is that some of the prices are out-of-date.

cool, thanks. i'll see if i can find when a new version is due before buying the old one.

On the other hand, if there are any gebraucht versions available on TT, then that would be cool.

Have used Fodors both for Western Europe and Quebec, and would definitely recommend them. One example of why I recommed Fodors: the best Indian restaurant I have ever eaten at (Taj in Montreal) was in their guidebook, and since it is on a side street you probably would never find it as a tourist.

update:

i contacted the Rough Guides co and the next Germany Edition will be published in May 2009.

that is all =)

in an effort to learn German I am looking for a guide book in German, about Germany - I haven't done an avid search out there but mostly I only find those Marco Polo city guide books - is there a good guide book (auf Deutsch) on Germany? Thanks in advance

@bobD: Thanks for the info.

@vinterdrog: The main guidebooks in German are Baedeker and ADAC, but I think you'll have more luck with individual guides for towns, cities, states etc., rather than the whole country. Have a browse through any bookstore.

On a similar subject, does anyone have any opinions/has used the good pub guide and the CAMRA good beer guide? It seems to be becoming increasingly hard to find a nice pub at home & a few people (non Brits) have recommended these books & I would like to know the opinions of the natives.

Yes, I not only have strong opinions on guidebooks, but on beer as well – and the Good Beer Guide is excellent. Although in theory the main criteria for inclusion is the quality of the beer, it follows pretty closely in the UK that good pubs also sell good beer while shit pubs only sell shit beer.

Ok thanks.