I'm having real trouble finding a decent travel guide for Puglia (in English!). I'm going there a lot at the moment (buying a villa there), but I really want to get the most out of the region.

There don't seem to be any decent/comprehensive guides to the region. The closest I can get to is a guide to Southern Italy from Blue Guides that gives Puglia about 30 pages.

The local Italian guides are really awful - you know the standard sort of thing, lots of poetic waffle about landscape and architecture, poorly designed, without any coverage of restaurants etc.

At this rate, I'm going to have to write and design one myself.

OUCHG, just re read my title - I mean a guideBOOK, not a human tour guide!

OUCH, just re read my title - I mean a guideBOOK, not a human tour guide!

I was just going to suggest Touring Club Italiano's guide in Italian, but I see that you need one in English. Good luck!

You can search here for Puglia, and Travel & Leisure had a longish article on Puglia last fall, I think.

I guess the lack of responses highlughts one of the reasons I like the area so much - it's not inundated with tourists!

I've got some great ideas for a guidebook - maybe I should just get started.

Michelin has one that combines Puglia with Molise and Basilicata, but I haven't used it. For pre-trip planning, the Insight Guide to Southern Italy is nice, with great photos, but it's way too heavy, and probably not as detailed as you would need. I thought TCI/Heritage was publishing the regional guides in English now. You might want to contact Savvy Traveler in Chicago as they carry a wide variety of the more difficult to find guides.