How to Buy Travel Guides

Tips for buying travel guides

1. First, make a list of all the places you will visit on your vacation. This list should include the countries you will visit, and each region and city within the country where you will be stopping. Travel guides cover nations, regions and cities. For instance, you can find many travel guides for all of France, several guides for the Provence region and countless travel guides for Paris.
2. Now, look at the list you made. If you are going to be traveling through France and stopping for a few days in Paris, you may be fine with a travel guide to France that includes a section on Paris. If, on the other hand, you plan to fly into and out of Paris and never or rarely leave the city while you are there, the only travel guides you need will be ones covering only Paris. Most travel guides of major cities include sections that address day trips out of the city to nearby famous sites including villages and parks.
3. You can also find guides for entire international regions. Again, look at your list of places you plan to visit. Let’s imagine that you are going to Central Europe. Are you going to several countries in Central Europe? If so, a large travel guide for the region is certainly the most economical way to go. However, if you are only going to Germany and Austria, for instance, then you will be better off with travel guides that are specific to the two countries. Guides for specific countries have more details on the country and its cities than larger regional travel guides.
4. Every good travel guide has several maps. A travel guide for a country should not only have a map of that country, but also maps of regions of the country and maps of any cities the travel guide suggests as good stopping points. The city maps in these travel guides may be small, but they usually point out the locations of accommodations, restaurants and shopping locales mentioned in the guide. Similarly, travel guides to cities like New York should have maps of the entire city, including the subway system, as well as maps of specific neighborhoods and districts.
5. Finally, different publishers put out travel guides with different approaches. Cadogan travel guides are geared towards leisurely travels and high-end shopping. Fodor’s travel guides focus more on family fun. Rough Guide books cover not only the usual sights, but sights off the beaten path. And Time Out travel guides focus on hip shopping, eating and clubbing. So, be sure you know the tone and intended audience of a travel guide publisher before you buy one of its books.

Caution

Travel guides for popular destinations are updated roughly every two years. Make sure you are buying the most recent edition of the travel guide for the places you are visiting. Older guides might contain outdated information.

Where to buy travel guides

You can purchase travel guides from one of these online sources:

Amazon presents travel guides by publisher, including many you may not know yet.

Powell's Books offers new and used travel guides. Browse by publisher and subject, such as travel guides for women.

AbeBooks.com sells travel guides from all of the major publishers.

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