can't decide on rome travel book?
 

i have been looking at different travel books for my trip to rome. i have specifically been looking at "Let's Go", Lonely Planet, and Access Rome. does anyone have an opinion on which book was their favorite and why?
thanks, michael

really, you need to look at several and decide, each of us looks for different things in a guidebook.
The Time Out books-, which I've recently discovered, are very up to date on restaurants, clubs, shopping, and have just enough history and architecture info to keep them worthwhile to me.
Michelin Green if you like a lot of historical and cultural detail; the Blue Guide if you want the max on that (those are too dull for me, but many people like them)
Let's Go, is, as you know, youth-oriented, as is Lonely Planet.
Rick Steves give you the abridged version of everything, but he has lots of budget-minded tips.
The Fodors and Frommers books are great middle-of-the road books. Frommers has more budget-minded hotels and restaurant, and better suggested walking itineraries (see also their website)
Fodors is slightly more upscale.

"The Companion Guide to Rome" by Georgina Masson is wonderfully detailed and an absolute must for anyone interested in Rome's history, churches, art, and architecture. I hope it's still in print and available, but if not, search for a second-hand copy.

I agree with a multiple book concept. We used Rick Steves for logistics insight and Eyewitness for more indepth descriptions and street-by-street recommendations. I also would recommend the Rome Map by Mapeasy. It has sights, restaurants, and shops plotted right on the map and it was very easy to read.

I loved Eyewitness, for the block by block detail. I carried it with me everywhere and read through chunks while I sat in neighborhood cafes with my glass of wine. Very helpful!

The "Rome" edition of the Dorling Kindersley (DK) series is amazing. Yes, you will pay a bit more, but the quality and the amount of information you'll get is absolutely worth every penny.

Hi xman, I just saw your question and was interested in Viajero's answer to you. That is because my son-in-law who was born and raised in Italy gave me the Rome DK book as one of my Christmas presents a couple of years ago. He had checked all the books at Barne and Nobles and found this book to be the best. Since he is a native of Rome I can only assume he knew which travel book to give me.

Hi, We purchased both the Fodor's guides and the DK Eyewitness guides. The DK guides are pictorial, you really get an idea of what your going to see. The Fodor's guides are very different, I use them for hotel recommendations, itinerary suggestions, etc. They really compliment each other. I also get the Fodor's Kids guides . I find they really advise well when it comes to travelling with children. All the guides seems to cater to different needs and niches.

i vote dk as well...and the dk top 10 is really useful. i also like the aaa sprial guide.

oh, the why portion:
the dk book is complete. but big, so the top 10 gives you all the essentials in an easy to carry form. the aaa spiral guide because the map in the back is great to use due to the spiral nature of the book.

This past Christmas my sister gave me the DK Eyewitness for all of Italy. Thank god she did because it finally got me off my behind and past the talking about going to Italy and actually book a trip. At first I booked an escorted group tour. But after 3 months of reading other travelers posts here and on other sites I canceled the tour and now am going to Italy on my own for two weeks this October!!

Now I am looking at books for the individual cities I am going to(Venice 2 nights, Florence 5 nights and Rome 5 nights). I will use a mix of different guides to get a larger perspective and opinions of what to do and see. Also I reccomend that you really listen to the people here at Fodors, there is a great wealth of information to be gleamed here.

Tom

Hi

Yes I find those books informative. I just love the Eyewitness series. They are just so beautiful. I collect one for each place I visit (makes more sense to me than beer coasters or tea towels although these have their uses).

I think its Function (Let's Go) vs Form (Eyewitness).

See ya

xman, considering the overall cost of your trip to Italy, the cost of a couple guide books is a drop in the bucket. So buy a couple of guidebooks.

I confess I pretty much bought them all! Okay, not all, but close.

consider this...are you going to pack the book and take it to Italy and maybe carry it around with you? Then you need a light-weight, portable book. I'm serious! Rick Steves has some light-weight guidebooks with great restaurant recommendations...there's one for Rome, one for Venice and Florence, or even the one for Italy is fairly light-weight.

The picture book types like Eyewitness are wonderful to look at at home but too heavy to pack and carry around for me.

Fodors and Frommers are the best for looking up ratings on specific sights, so you can decide what are the must-sees, and what are the okay-to-skip sights.

Absolutely loved Rick Steve's restaurant recommendations especially for rome. They are a good price, and have atmosphere, and are family-run. Ristorante der Pallaro in rome was our #1 favorite restaurant for Rome (and for Italy in general!)

xman-
The books you mention are my 3 favorites.
I like the Access books for carrying with me when I travel. I prefer the way these books are organized by area within each city and the reference from featured entry to the map using numbers. It makes managing the sometimes overwelming cities like Rome and Florence very easy.
The Let's Go books are in my opinion the best for public train and bus travel between cities and towns. The details explaining how to go about traveling by public transportation around Italy have been a wonderful guide for me on several extensive trips.
I find the Lonely Planet books good for pre-trip research.

I LOVE the DK Top Ten books, they are so easy to carry while sightseeing. I have quite a collection of these guidebooks, they are my absolute favorites.

I dont use guidebooks for picking hotels, I usually get advice on travel forums such as this or go to VRBO.

Don't forget the Baedeker's guides. These usually list all sights in an A-Z format, and come with an incredibly detailed and complete map.
The Baedeker's won't organize area by area like the Eyewitness ones do, but nothing beats Baedeker's for excellent sight descriptions, floorplans, and colorful writing.

-Alan

We've used Michelin Green for years and have never been disappointed. They are pretty much pure guidebooks without a lot of coffee table book type fluff.

Get as many out from the library as you can, look them all over, and then decide. I took both the DK Eyewitness Rome, and the Time Out Rome, and both were useful.

Reviving this string as I love the trip planning part too. We just returned from Paris and I used the France Eyewitness Guide at home and carried the Paris Top 10 everywhere. It's light weight and fits in a small purse. I packed the Access series too for great restaurant recommendations and the book's layout that others have referred to.
For choosing hotels, I go to Tripadvisor.com. It's like a search engine for travel and has user reviews and ratings. We've had good luck with Karen Brown's guides and website too. You can download itineraries for specific areas rather than picking up the whole book.

I used to buy 5 or 6 different travel books but I've found that I can find most of the informaton on Fodor's and Frommers website and pick and choose what I want.

Hi
We used the Cadogan guide to Rome, last year. found it very helpful, informative and humorous at times. It breaks the city up to its various areas. It includes maps, sights and hotels and restaurants for each area. I find the Lets Go better for younger, people who look for hostels and cheap eats. I'm not a big fan of the Eyewitness series because it's descriptions are short and I could live without the glossy paper and all those photos. I used it once and it was all right. Michelin is a good guidebook also. It stars the sights for how highly it is recommended. It has good maps and descriptions. I usually go into a bookstore and look through several guide books before deciding. It is a personal decision based on your preferences.
Enjoy your trip.

In my travel prep, I rate the guidebooks as follows:
1. Rick Steves-which go with me.
2. Rough Guide-gives the most detailed
information, great for planning.
3. DK Guides-great photos, too heavy to pack.

All the others have their strong points, and I refer to them for specific information.

Guidebooks can get expensive, but are usually available on eBay for a fraction of their cost, and current year editions are plentiful there.

My two favorites are Cadogan and the Blue guides (excellent details re art and architecture.

Kjosker: excellent tip! I never considered using e-bay for travel books. Thanks.

Hi,

A topic after my own heart! I'm addicted to travel books the way I'm addicted to cookbooks (but that's another story altogether).

I have to say the DK / Eyewitness are my favorites. (although I've been known to spend hours in Borders pouring over everything)!

But, I don't take the books with me most of the time...too bulky. I go to Kinko's and make copies / cut & paste information I think I'll need and keep it in a file folder smushed into the front flap of my luggage. OK, I'll admit it -- I'm anal..I've been known to go so far as print out each section on color coordinated paper - like Yellow for Venice, etc., and then I rotate them as the trip progesses.

Regards,

Melodie

People frequently mention that the Let's Go books are youth oriented but I like them very much for the descriptions of sights, the historical background, and the general information about a city or country. They are actually among my favorites, and I am far from college aged. It is true that they contain much information on budget food and lodging, and I don't use them for those suggestions as much.

I pretty much agree with Elaine. I also buy alot of guide books before each of my trips as the cost is small in comparison to the overall cost of the trip.
Everyone travels differently with different budgets and different needs and interests and every guide book has it pros and cons so there is no one great guidebook for any destination. If you can tell us more about yourself it may help us help you in a more efficient manner.
I myself would use the DK guide to get ideas as to what I would want to see in Rome but would not take it as it is too heavy. I would use Rick Steve's for practical information about how to tour the city.
Tend to rely on Frommers, and Sandra Gustafson for places to stay. Eating recs from Gambero Rosso, Zagats and Sandra G. Carry around the Lonely Planet condensed guide to Rome for maps and other info.

Definitely get several. If price is an issue, check out the library before investing. Or, ebay, amazon, alibris, etc for second hand books.
kjosker gave excellent advice. Some books are great help for planning, but too heavy to travel with you. I carried the Steves book for lightweight logistical info, tore out pages (painful, but necessary) from Fodors, etc., for cities and sites we were interested in, and left the gorgeous DK/Eyewitness book at home. Ditched all this stuff before returning home, to lighten the weight on the plane & avoid additional fees.

When my husband and I went in 2003, we checked out several from the library, including Fodor's, Lonely Planet, and Let's Go books, but we bought all the Rick Steves books and took those with us.

Rick's walking tours -- especially of the Vatican were priceless. I found some of the information in other books to be out of date or just plain wrong, whereas Rick Steves updates his information every year, and provides a good middle-of-the-road travel book for the non-student living out of a backpack for the summer or non-5-star hotel type travelers, offering a range of information depending on what you want to spend, but keeping budget in mind. Perfect for us.

You can also find his videos at a lot of libraries. We borrow those and others in advance and have taken notes about additional sights to see. He also has a 3-part travel skills video that is outstanding.

Happy travels,

Jules

I really like the Lonely Planet guides - good maps and smallish. I use them in combination with the Eyewitness Guides.

I found an excellent guide on Rome called Moon Metro. It divides the city into areas, and includes fold-out maps in great detail. I found restaurants listed there that were not mentioned in some of the other books. It is small enough to tuck into a newspaper, and durable. Certainly not an all-inclusive book, but a good supplement to take along.

www.moon.com

They have a range of cities available. I really love my Moon book!

The first guide I buy when starting to plan a new trip is an Insight Guide. About one-third of the book is historical and cultural background information and there are many gorgeous, full-page photos to whet your appetite and help you decide what you want to see. I also like Cadogan and Blue Guides for their detailed information (like the art and architecture mentioned above). Blue Guides have great room-by-room museum tours. The Blue Guide to Rome includes about 10 or 12 pages on Pompeii--much more detail than most guides (which is important to me, but of course wouldn't be for everyone). Finally, I like Rick Steves for his practical suggestions -- the least crowded times to visit certain sights, what entrance to use for the shortest lines,locations of clean public restrooms, etc.

But before I start buying a lot of books, I check my local public libraries. I have found that they buy the new editions of most guidebooks. BUT--the new editions are usually checked out. So if you don't see the new editions on the shelves, don't just assume the library doesn't have them. Check their catalog (you can usually do this on your computer at home) and ask to be added to the waiting list for the books you want (I can do this on my home computer too).

Once I have new editions of library books checked out, I take them to work and photocopy (2-sided) the pages I want so that I can take those pages with me on my trip(discarding them as I go along, to lighten my load). About a month before my trip I go back to the bookstore to buy any guides I really want that I haven't been able to find at the libraries.

Like Grasshopper and other posters I found "Eyewitness" guide bok very helpful. It has wonderful photography and good historical information.