I use Lonely Planet and just tear out the cities we are going to and take those along.

My husband always buys one with pictures, like Eyewitness, for the large cities we go to and lugs it around and tells me about the history of places we are at.

I do like lindy does - tear out relevant pages from guidebooks so no hefty books to lug around and I also go to the local library which has many different guides and may Xerox relevant parts from several guidebooks just to have different takes, etc.

I always use and heavily consult guidebooks before travel. I usually buy Frommer's (more often) or Fodor's (sometimes) and at least look at others, such as Lonely Planet and Let's Go and Time Out and Moon for supplemental material. I also go online to fill in the cracks.

When I actually travel, I make copies or printouts of the attraction entries and carry them with me for reference. It's much easier than carrying a book.

I like having a guidebook (if available) that covers each place I've traveled in my book collection at home. It's fun to reread and reminisce with them (along with the journal I wrote) sometimes.

before i go i like to read as mug as I can, and use search engines/TA etc.

when I'm there, I prefer to have ne guide book [hopefully not too heavy] and one map with me; recently in florence i had a fold out map that I could out in my pocket that worked very well, and my trusty 25 year old green guide to italy that still had as much info on the sights as i needed.

i just don't see myself walking around holding an ipad.

that should be "read as MUCH as I can," obviously.

I definitely use Fodors guidebooks for the initial planning. Next I search Fodors on line for reseach. Then of course I get on Fodors website to fine tune with the Fodorites---after all, we do love to comment and give advice on the places we've been, and good advice it is! Do you detect a pattern here? The only other site I check is Trip Advisor, and that's after the Fodorites comment.

Then when we actually travel I rip out (sorry Fodors) the section of the guidebook that I will need on the trip. I figure that when I use the book again, it will be time to update to the new year of travel.

Did you ever read "If you give a pig a pancake" or "If you give a mouse a cookie" to your kids or grandkids?

Suddenly I feel the need to plan a European adventure.

Like TPAYT, I use guidebooks for initial, comprehensive overviews first. I love forums like this for narrowing down choices and for asking very specific questions, but the forums and the online guides are just not as easy to use until you have a good grounding in a destination first.

I'll check every guidebook I can get hold of but I'll take
a Cadogan guide in my luggage. I think they are by far the
best on the market.

I still have my Frommer's Europe on $5/Day book used on some of my very first trips - and at that time I did not even spend $5 many days - incredible but true!

I read heaps when planning a trip. Not only "guide books", but any books at all about a destination or country. Some of the better ones I've even bought (Ian Norrie's "Next Time Round" series covering Provence, the Dordogne and Tuscany, for example).

Sticking with guide books however, I like to absorb general information from the likes of Cadogan or Rough Guides, and pick out practical tips (accomm etc) from Let's Go, Fodors or Frommers. The picture-book guides like Eyewitness, Insight, DK, etc I find lacking in depth and substance, and Lonely Planet not as helpful or reliable as the others mentioned.

Apart from the first trip we ever did, I don't take guide books with me. (On that first trip we had a Let's Go and ripped out chapters as we completed them - so it got lighter as we went)! Sometimes I'll photocopy stuff I think I'll need. For example Bob Gilbert's "The Green London Way" has some wonderful mapped walks around the green belts of London, and on our last trip I took a copy of 2 of these with me. It was well worth it, and only 2 A4 pages!