mrsjoujou

I was at B&N today and was wondering which guide book should I purchase? I noticed the green guide book,rick steve,fodor's(the only one with the city map)and many more. We will be traveling to paris in may and I appreciate the help.

Matt_from_England

I'm not up on Paris but you will find information on this board far superior and perhaps more up to date than can be found in many guide books. And here you can ask questions and raise doubts, there are some great Paris threads if you search for them. Take care and have a good trip,

Matt

TimS

Before you buy one or more guidebooks, visit your public library and carefully browse the guidebooks you find there. See which ones best match your interests, style of travel, and expense level. I'm an independent budget traveler. The Rick Steves and Lonely Planet Paris guidebooks have worked well for me.

TimS

You'll find lots of helpful and up-to-the-minute information on the Web. Here's the URL for the Paris Tourist Office site: www.parisinfo.com.

Flyboy

My favorite is the Eyewitness Travel Guide from DK Books. You'll find a section of maps near the back of the book. It's excellent and durable, a good size format and richly illustrated. I highly recommend it.

DiG

Hi mrsjoujou:

There are numerous books as you discovered today. What you decide on will be determined by your reading style. Do you like brief descriptions, basic info' with lots of pictures? Do you enjoy texts with lots of info' and little pics?

As Matt from England posted you can do
extensive research here. Type in exactly what info you need in the search box.

Examples: Rainy day suggestions, Paris Bus tours, Paris Hotels in the 6th, etc. Past posts will come up relating to your topic. Print out or download pages that you find helpful.

Click Destinations above and type in Paris. You will be able to read Fodors
online. Print out pages that are of interest to your trip.

One recommendation is a good city map,
laminated, like 'Streetwise Paris' or 'National Geographic Paris'. Even though you will be inudated with maps and info' once you reach Paris, it will be practical and helpful if you can
depend on a map that will hold up in weather & during your travels.

Also, you will be acclimated to the geography and lay out of the city which
will help you make up ideas for daily
itineraries. Grouping things to see and do together by geography saves time and money. However, I wouldn't limit myself to doing this every day.

Rick Steves gives a 1st timer the nuts & bolts so it's a good book to read.
Check your local library or read it at B& N or read it on his website. Again
print out what you need.

Fodors goes in depth and offers more details on a larger scale. I miss the older version of Fodors because their maps were more detailed to their itinerary suggestions.

For me the DK eyewitness guides are somewhere in the middle.

I am glad to see that you actually went to a bookstore to start your research.

Many of us make our own guide by reading several books. Then take out only the pages needed for our trip, add pages from the forum here, buy a good city map for walking and you're on your way!

Today, I also was at B & N and purchased the 'DK Top 10 Paris' guide book. It has a great Metro/RER map. But I've already done my HW, so this may be something I actually take with me in addition to the travel guide I am making.

Also my DH isn't much into the research. He likes to read just before the trip so this is an excellent quick guide for him as well as for the plane ride.

Follow this up with questions and comments and others will share their thoughts.

Happy travels,
Di

StCirq

The Eyewitness Guides for planning and teh Michelin Green for on-the-spot.

Robespierre

Try this (Microsoft Reader, which is free, required):

http://www.mslit.com/details.asp?bookid=1858289335

The thing I like about eBooks is that they're searchable by machine. Scanning the entire text repeatedly for a word or phrase is, IMO, much better than looking in an index and <i>then</i> going to the referenced page and not finding what you want and going <i>back</i> to the index...

wco81

I got a couple of guides of Paris. Buy new ones every few years to get updated prices, some new info., and keep humanities grad students employed.

Look these things are like $11-12 from Amazon (except for Rick Steve's which doesn't look to be any better but costs $5-10 more). Combine it with a DVD or some other knick-knack for free shipping.

Forget about printing out and carrying a sheaf of papers. Much harder to look through, you kill trees and you inhale aerosolized ink or toner particles.

Good books will not only have good reviews of dining and accommodation options, they'll also give you history and some of the current politics or sociology of the place. Like the Let's Go Rome book I bought a couple of months ago (mainly because it had a good section on Italian, beyond just useful phrases) talked about the plight of some poor Easter Europeans and Africans in Rome. Gives a good flavor for the place.

I also liked in one of the Paris books where it gives you the background about all the Republics in the 19th century. In particular, how the Catholics (may have been the pope) offered up Montmartre as &quot;expiation&quot; for the &quot;sins&quot; of The Commune.

So not just practical info. but some semblance of the historical and cultural contexts of the place. Some haphazard reading on a tourist web site won't give you that.

Spend the $10-15. Small expense for a trip you're spending at least a thousand on.

As for the differences, LetsGo still has student budget sections but it's a good comprehensive look (depending on who wrote the particular guide of course). Frommers and Fodors seem to be for the older, more well-heeled crowd. Rough Guide also gives a nod to the backpackers (anything with info. about hostels) and Lonely Planet is the alternative guide, although why they would do the developed world rather than the more off the beaten path is surprising.

CU

Go to a good bookshop and look for 'Eyewitness Top 10 Travel Guide for Paris'
It has been translated to many languages and you will see many tourists with a copy of it. I had one on my visits to Paris and I found it ourstanding.

ABENDIGO

I really like the &quot;National Geographic&quot; guidebook for Paris. It features interesting articles about Paris, 5 suggested walks (The Isles, Le Marais, Montparnasse, Grands Boulevards, and Montmartre), excursions near Paris, and maps for each area and their landmarks. The information you can get on these forums is also very valuable and free. I hope this helps.

Robespierre

Here are the best maps of Paris (all free at RATP outlets):

http://www.ratp.info/orienter/f_plan...eur&amp;fm=pdf

http://www.ratp.info/orienter/f_plan...eur&amp;fm=pdf

http://www.ratp.info/orienter/f_plan...eur&amp;fm=pdf

This one is available only on line (but small enough that you can print it out):

http://www.ratp.info/orienter/f_plan...aux&amp;fm=pdf

bob219

Someone gave me a Michelin green book when I was in Paris, and I thought it was great.

mrsjoujou

Thanks every one for your help. we will be staying in the 7e area and can't wait to get there.

krisojen

I'd recommend buying more than one guide book. I found that every book has strengths/weaknesses, and buying two different books provides some &quot;balance&quot;.

mjs

I just checked my travel book case and was surprised to see 20 guidebooks from the last 5 to 6 years on France including many on just Paris. This goes to show that not one guidebook is good for everything. Also probably goes to show an neurosis about travel. In any case I think it depends alot on what you want from a guidebook and to a certain extent what your budget is.
One constant guidebook that I really like because it is small and has good maps and is easily carried around is the Lonely Planet condensed guidebooks.
I must have 15 of these including the Paris one.
The DK books have nice pictures and information about what to see but are very heavy and I never carry one or use them for lodging or restaurants.
The Michelin green books are are the best IMHO for information of sights and are easy to carry. Rick Steve is good for walking tour suggestions and nuts and bolts type of information. Steve I think is better for novice travlers at the moderate spectrum of the budget but I think many of us can find some interesting things in his books. Time out is also a decent overall guide to Paris. I rather like Frommers for lodging information. I tend not to use Fodors European guides. Have not used Lets go since I was a student. Sitting down in a library or bookstore with some time to read a few guides to find what you want out of a guide book should direct you to the books that are best for you.

julies

I haven't checked out the one on Paris, but one of my favorite small guides to purchase is the Knopf CityMap Guide. What's really nice is that this is a very small book that has the city mapped out by section with a small description of the sightseeing, hotel and restaurant recommendations in each section. Rather than struggling with a huge map catching the breeze, each section of the book is ingeniously designed so that it folds out into a very heavy bond piece of paper that is about 8 x 11. You've got your detailed area map and comments about the sights in the area all in one handy place. We buy them for every major city we visit. They haven't been recently updated, so I don't reloy on them for hotel and restaurants, but if I've done my research ahead of time for the extgensive background reading, then these are so handy to use to get around.