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I would not leave for any backpacking trip without a Lonely Planet guidebook in hand. This guide made planning my Europe trip very simple. The contact information is up-to-date and the descriptions of hostels, restaurants and attractions are spot-on.
and all on a "backpackers" budget. Has everything I need in one book, I plan on taking it to Europe with me. Maps, food, prices, sightseeing.
Also, I wanted to give it a 4 star rating but clicked wrong and it wouldn't let me change it. So far it seems it will be useful, but I can't really say until after my trip. Ask in two months.
This is ideal when you are still undecided about the places you want to go and what to do cos it will guide you and give you many useful tips. This book is great for you when you are planning your European vacation. Sometimes you can come across places that you have not even heard but sounds very interesting.
Often criticized, the maps in LP guides are small and inadequately labeled, but they still give you more than enough information to find the local tourist info, where you can usually get a real map for free. Unsurprisingly, western countries like France and Italy get far more attention (and pages) than the eastern European countries, but these still get fairly specific and very helpful descriptions. But for people planning to zip through countries, this guide does a decent job of highlighting the major attractions in the major cities, and is much more convenient than lugging a dozen country-specific guides around. Ironically, because such a large portion of budget travelers rely on Lonely Planet, any "off the beaten track" tips noted in little sidebars are guaranteed to be over-visited by the time you get there. The binding is sturdy enough to allow for tearing out countries you don't plan to visit or have already finished. .but if you really must see all of Europe in one vast, hurried trip, this book is for you.
If you're planning to spend any significant amount of time in a country, you're much better off with an in-depth country guide. The abbreviated language guide in the back is useful, if you can hold an entire conversation using only greetings, numbers, and days of the week. Using the sights-by-day, Eurail-pass-by-night method, this book got me from Sweden to Romania. (Not that I'm condoning destroying books.). When we found a small hole-in-wall cafe in Istanbul proudly displaying a replicated Lonely Planet logo on its illuminated sign, I wondered whether LP's influence reaches a bit too far.Overall, this is a great guidebook for backpackers and budget travelers, if supplemented with a recent Thomas Cook rail timetable and local information from hostels and tourist info centers.- Mary Ann Miller, author of CH is for Chocolate: Individually Wrapped Tastes of Switzerland It was invaluable for getting my bearings as soon as I walked out of a train station in a new country, and gave me a good idea of how to get around using public transportation and walking tours.
For backpackers, the book is a bit heavy.
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