Siam

I plan to visit Paris for one week, and look for a good guidebook. Need..help!

WillTravel

If you can, get several out from the library and see what style appeals to you most. I took the Rough Guide with me on my last trip, and it was fine. I like the Eyewitness DK and the Lonely Planet ones as well.

USNR

For practical information, I have relied on the Michelin Green Guide for many years. It is updated frequently, especially their most popular places such as Paris.

Keren

I also recommend Rough Guides. It was very helpful to me on my last visit.

Gretchen

I particularly like the Eyewitness Guide. It organizes Paris by areas that make planning your daily trip easy and compact. It offers enough info on the museums although I like the Michelin Green Guide for museum info.

mamc

My favorite is the Michelin Green Guide for history, sights and maps. For illustrations, the DK Eyewitness Guide. For hotels and restaurants, I do not rely on guidebooks. This board is a great source for opinions of where to go, what to see, where to stay and where to eat.

SuzieC

Nothing wrong with the Fodor's Guide either. Eyewitness gets my vote as well.

cmeyer54

We used several books in our travels. I personally liked the Dummy guides - they were clear, had good tips, nice itineraries. Of course, you have to be confident enough to carry one around!

111op

Depends on what you like, actually.

I'll mention a series that hasn't been mentioned -- Time Out Paris. It's very good in terms of good lists of restaurants, shops, bars, etc.

Another (smaller) series -- the Thames & Hudson guides called "Style City." The pictures are quite wonderfully produced.

I used a Rough Guide for Andalucia recently as a friend lent it to me, and I was surprised by how informative it was. I've never used it before -- it seems more popular in the UK (?).

KateIP

My first trip I used several different guides. Go to the library or your local Borders/Barnes & Noble and check out the selection. There are several different types of books: great practical info with few pictures and graphics(Let's Go, Lonely Planet), wonderful 'picture' books (Nat Geo, Knoff) and then 'specialty' books for restaurants, shopping, walks, etc.
The pretty picture books are great for figuring out what fascinates you, what you have to see, but are usually pretty heavy to carry around all day. Let's Go & LP are good to take as they have plenty of on-the-go info, and you can rip out the relevant pages instead of taking the whole book. I usually took at least two books with me to Paris~an Eyewitness or Knoff for inspiration in planning the next day, and a lighter Let's Go (with ripped out pages) to guide me during the day.

bevzy

I agree having just been there and stayed in an apartment with loads of guides(all mentioned above)left by other travellers that you really often want a guide that you can take with you each day. The one that was light enough there was Rick Steves.Not the greatest but easy to follow and light to carry. Often you go to an area but need to know specific interesting streets or restaurants when you are actually there. We always needed to eat when we did not have a guide with recommendations and had some pretty bad meals.

melissa19

i like the Access series of guidebooks. they are organized by area, including all the recommended hotels, sites, restaurants within each.

you might also check the Cadogan guides. a british series that are wonderfully fun to read. i can vouch that the paris one is delightful (and helpful).

travelbunny

..do a lot of ready at the local library and on the web BUT take the green guide with you. It is light and has a factual list of opening times, locations ect...just the thing that you need as your plans change as you relax and fall in love with Paris.

Vincent

There is a new series by DK called "Top Ten", which is very unintimidating for first timers, yet surprisingly comprehensive and hip.

melissa19

the knopf mapguides were recently recommended on this forum. i haven't used it yet, but i've bought the one for paris.

it's a small size with a foldout map for each area. looks very user-friendly.

i guidebooks!

moondoggie

I like the Fodor's "Paris on $90 A Day", which gives some touring highlights as well as hotel/restaurant info. We are going for the fifth time in seven years, and always manage to find new stuff in the latest guidebooks. Plus, this one is a small guidebook. I recommend going to a big bookstore and check out the selection there rather than at the library. You will want to highlight and make notes in the book, so buy it!

jay

I would recommend a combination of books. We usually use the DK books. I would recommend taking the DK book with you to read in the evenings and then have a Streetwise Paris map to carry around during the day. The DK books weigh a ton and I think are too heavy to carry. We usually do our homework before hand and use the streetwise map to find where we want to go.

clevelandbrown

Visiting a bookstore and browsing is the best way to find one that suits you. Many are aimed at a particular segment of the population. One aimed at young backpackers might not be useful for those with more maturity. One aimed at the bargain traveller might not be useful for the more affluent. I usually try to find two, plus a separate map, and take a lot of notes from places online, such as this forum. A small phrase book is also useful. I research in advance, but also like to reread the guidebooks during the long flight over.

One caveat about on-line research. When places close or go out of business, they don't seem to shut down their website, and much of the internet is not dated, so you aren't sure that all online information is current. Our first night in Paris we went to a restaurant that was praised at a couple of online sites, only to find that it had been closed over a year earlier.

elaine

I haven't seen the Knopf Map guide yet, but there is another publication called Paris Mapguide by Middleditch, amazon has it. It is a combination map (each page is a detailed neighborhood) with street listing, and also some basic tourist information and suggestions.
Very very lightweight and fairly small.

That, plus any one of the guidebooks mentioned above would be good to have.
The Green Guides are good if you like a lot of detail on art, architecture, and history, but they don't offer much in the way of practical info (currency, taxis, metro, etc). Fodors is good for basic tourism information and also restaurant and hotel listings, though not so much at the lowest budget level.

I always suggest going to a bookstore and looking up the same topic in several topics, say, 'the Louvre'. See how the different books treat that one subject, and see which approach appeals to you.

Beatchick

I like Fodor's Gold Guide & Cadogan's Guide but for a 1st-timer I would suggest Rick Steve's Paris. It'll help you get over some of the humps of being new to the city.