Hi everyone. I want to buy a guide book to Ireland for my future brother-in-law for Christmas. He and my sister are going to Ireland as part of their honeymoon. Does anyone have any opinion as to what the best guidebooks are for Ireland in general? One with pictures would be preferable! Thanks.

My Lonely Planet guidebook has lots of nice color pictures. However, I think it is more important the guide book have accurate and up-to-date information than nice pictures. Not all guide books are updated every year.

Rick Steves, Fodors, and Let's Go in my experience have been the most accurate and up-to-date guidebooks generally.

For pictures, get them a coffee-table book with lots of great pictures. It will give them ideas on where to go. Then they can use the guidebooks to see how best to get there.

Thanks Edward, and I do agree with what you've said. The only reason I wanted pictures is becasue I think they will help him help my sister plan more (just seems to me like some guys need the pictures!). BTW, I so far looked at DK Eyewitness Ireland, Fodor's See It Ireland, and Discovery Channel Insight Guides Ireland.

We use Fodors and the Eyewitness Guide, the latter having lots of pictures. (I am pretty sure there have been lots of other posts on this topic here.)

Hi jaclyn:

I find that the Rick Steves book does very little for Ireland. He has this magical disclaimer that says he only writes about the places worth going to which is why he leaves huge sections of a country out. In the case of Ireland, it's quite clear that he has never been to the rest of the country.

One that I really like is the Ireland Guide published by Bord Failte which is the Irish tourist board. It can be found on amazon and Barnes and Noble, cheaper on amazon. It's got lots of pictures and blends tourism info with history. A very good choice. I also like the fact that for each area there are choices for a rainy day, not an unusual event in Ireland.

Michele Erdwig at Irelandyes.com publishes a very good non-picture book which is good to carry with you. She updates it every year and it's usually available in March. It will be much more up to date than most. All she does is Ireland so she can really focus on it.

The Michelin Green guide has lots of pictures also and good information, but it's alphabetical listing, as opposed to by region makes it rather irritating to use IMO.

Bill

For pictures, I would go for a non-travel book. One idea for a nice Christmas gift for them would be something like "Great Houses of Ireland" - which shows beautiful pictures of Irish Manor type homes. It's a great coffee table book which they could read before their trip. Another nice one is "a day in the life of Ireland" which is another coffee table job shot by some famous photographers over a 24 hour period.

No single guidebook ecompasses everything you could want.

Frankly, I like the suggestion of buy a coffee table photo book instead--especially if you can find a truly comprehensive one, that has cities and rural areas. It will help him picture what he would like to see.

I like all of the guidebooks mentioned above. They all serve a useful purpose (including the hated Rick Steves) and can be beneficial to most travelers; however, if you are buying something as a gift, I think the photo essay book would be more appreciated.

When I went to Ireland a few years ago, I purchased Patricia Preston's book. It used to be called "Day Trips", but now it appears to be "Take a Break in Ireland." I have loaned it to several people for their travels and they also thought it was a truly helpful guidebook. It is sold on her website http://www.irelandexpert.com/books-t...kinireland.htm

I like the suggestion of buying a coffee table picture book. There was one on sale recently in bookstores called Spectatular Ireland, a great big wide book of rectangular shape, in the big books on sale section. It's not too fat, it's just wide. Big photos.

Then also consider getting them a guidebook, or they could get their own. I have a big pile of guidebooks and I would recommend for a honeymoon they should consider not only this fodors.com travel talk site, but also www.IrelandYes.com, which is Michele Erdvig's web-site, author of the Best Little Guidebook to Ireland, which you can order on her web-site. The advantage of her web-site is she (along with other travellers) will answer questions, and she has travelled to Ireland 40 times!

The National Geographic Traveler Ireland guidebook has nice photos and good descriptions of areas, but the section recommending hotels is small, in the back of the book.

The Fodors Ireland guidebook is very thorough, and I like the way it is brave enough to give some opinions, whereas the National Geographic Traveler guidebook doesn't give opinions, so everything sounds equally wild, spectatular, special, etc.

Nice of you to think of your sister!

No one has yet mentioned the book "Portrait of Ireland". It contains beautiful color photos, good maps, excellent drawings along with text. It is a coffee table size book so it will not be the one they will actually take to Ireland with them. It will get them started though.

If it's pictures + planning you want then the AA best Drives - Ireland is the one. It has 25 car tours for an independent traveller and although its not a coffee table book, it's got everything in it for your sister and her intended to get a grip on the country and what's where.

www.theaa.com

Perhaps you could buy them this for a practical book and a gorgeous coffe table book too?

I love having a book with pictures to look at before I travel and it is even more fun to go through after the trip. Good idea above about getting both a big book with photos and a true guidebook.

For a coffee table type book for someone planning a trip, I really like the Illustrated Guide to Ireland (Reader's Digest book -- don't let that put you off, it's not at all "condensed".) Lots of maps and photos, written with the traveler in mind. You can look it up on amazon.com to have a glance.

For something more compact, the DK Eyewitness Guides are always fun to look at.

For guides to Ireland without photos, I
like the Rough Guide and Lonely Planet. I agree that Rick S does not do a good job with Ireland. Let's hope he hasn't ruined Dingle by recommending it so strongly.

For fun add McCarthy's Bar: A Journey of Discovery In Ireland.