Free basic city guides: www.arrivalguides.com
 

Hello all,

Through the website of Ryanair I recently discovered an interesting travel website:

http://www.arrivalguides.com

You can download for free basic travel guides in PDF-format for lots of cities worldwide, but mostly European.

They are about 10-15 pages each, of which 2 contain commercials (but you can skip those while printing out the guides) and contain all the basic useful info + main sightseeing and some sleeping/eating/drinking/shopping suggestions and a regional and city map + street index.

Of course this is not enough if you thoroughly want to visit a city, but I think they are really useful when you happen to be in a city for just one day and don't want to buy an entire travel guide.

Thanks.I'm heading to Sydney in a few weeks and just downloaded the Arrival Guide.Pretty nice.

Thanks for the site. The guides are helpful. :)

Thank you.

The maps look very nice and the photos are beautiful.

Olive Oil

Thanks for the link...great site other than the fact that it is an obvious e-mail harvester (you could probably put in a bogus one to prevent future spam) it seems pretty comprehensive especially for major cities.

Thanks for the link. Quite nice, but they are short of destination cities. Couldn't find Antwerp, for instance :(

Thanks, Stardust. Am in the process of printing out Melbourne and Sydney, following the advice above re the ads and the e-mail address.

Massagediva, when will you be in Sydney?

Dukey,
You're right about the e-mail. However, I read their terms and conditions and they say they promise not to sell the data to third parties. Of course, that's hard to control. They also say that you can ask to remove your data.

UnaS,
Yes, I noticed as well that Antwerp was missing, as well as Siena. They have 149 cities though, but I have the impression that they have started with cities with international airports, seen their co-operation with companies like Ryanair. They promise to add more cities.

Hi, Betsy-I will arrive in Sydney on 12October,then on the 16th fly to Cairns for nine days in Queensland ,then fly to Melbourne for a week.It's going to be so much fun!How about you?

Another similar product are the Frommer "Snap Guides":
http://www.budgettravelonline.com
Buenos Aires
Cape Town
Honolulu
Los Angeles
London
Miami
New York
Paris
Rome
Santa Fe
Sydney
Tokyo
Coming this fall: Las Vegas, San Francisco, and more.

In Melbourne Oct. 13 through 16, then to Tasmania. To Sydney on the 23rd, and the GBR after that. Was going to suggest a glass of wine somewhere, but it looks as if we'll miss each other.
:-(

Happy Travels!
:-)