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Choosing A Travel Guide For Europe: Why Let’s Go Got My Vote (And My Money)

About a month ago I found myself in a bookstore staring at several shelves of travel guides – impressed by the variety, but wondering how on earth I was going to select only one to take along with me on my upcoming travels around Europe.

I’m going to be backpacking, travelling on a limited budget, so the first step was to focus on those books aimed specifically at budget travellers, like myself.

So, I discarded the glossier (and therefore much heavier) guides like Frommers and Eyewitness Guides, and instead shifted my attention to the backpacker-orientated Rough Guides, Lonely Planet and Let’s Go guides.

As I’m not certain exactly where I’ll be going, but know it’ll be to several different countries, there was no point in choosing a country-specific guide. Quite obviously, a guide to Europe was what I was looking for, but which one?

There are guides to Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Central Europe, Mediterranean Europe – the list goes on… And though at the moment I’m most interested in western Europe, what if I should decide to head east, on a whim (or because I’m running out of money and it’s cheaper there!)?

So, a guide to the whole of Europe it must be – a current one. I took out guides from Rough Guides, Lonely Planet and Let’s Go, laid them side by side and started to compare them, flipping through the pages to a few of the destinations I hoped to visit.

They were all fairly comprehensive, with as much detail as one dares go into in a huge volume without it becoming impossible to carry, but, in the end, Let’s Go’s Europe 2007 guide got my vote (and my money).

And here’s why…

Let’s Go’s Europe 2007 is detailed, but very easy to follow. I particularly like the fact that it’s rather unpretentiously printed on lower-grade paper than Lonely Planet, allowing it to be a little larger (that’s more info for me), without being heavier (always an important consideration when you’re carrying everything on your back).

The book has all the info you’re likely to need to find your way around Europe: useful colour maps of major cities and their transport systems, price ranges and rankings for accommodation and restaurants, festival calendars, suggested itineraries, handy tips for planning your adventure (visas, packing, money, safety, etc) and transport advice for the various ways of getting to, around and from Europe.

Plus, if you’re looking for a less touristy experience, there’s a ‘beyond tourism’ section for each country, helping you to find possibly more satisfying alternatives like volunteering and studying.

All guides have variations on this theme, but what it came down to for me, when it was time to decide (and part with my hard-earned cash), was two main things:

• This is no stuffy guide, it’s written by people who have a sense of humour. Being advised to be ‘looking out for cowdung’ when climbing up Glastonbury Tor, for example, amused me no end, and left me wondering whether the guide had learnt that the hard way.

• The price. Every backpacker is watching his or her budget very closely. Perhaps because of the less costly paper type, Let’s Go is able to offer this book for half of what the other guides were going for, and that’s what cinched it for me.

And so it was that when I walked out of the store it was with a copy of Let’s Go Europe 2007 in hand, and a big smile on my face.

In case you’re wondering, this review was not sponsored in any way by Let’s Go. Though in future we will be receiving review copies from Let’s Go (and letting you know what we think), this book was bought and paid for by ourselves.

Posted in Destinations, Reviews, Travel Tips & Planning