Greekgazoo

I leave in a little under 3 weeks for Germany/Austria. Last year when I traveled to Italy I ONLY took a Rick Steves book with me and was fine for 3 weeks. For Germany and Austria can I expect the same from Rick Steves, or is it wise to carry another book. I realize its better to have too much than not enough, but it just gets to be too much looking from book to book.

hopscotch

Steves coverage is so limited that you are better off not carrying his volume. Get the Lonely Planet guide. It is far more comprehensive.

StCirq

Agree with hopscotch completely.

Pegontheroad

I always take a Rick Steves and a Frommers.

rlgann

On three trips to Germany since 2000 we have taken Rick Steves guidebook. On our trip to Germany in May we took Rick's guide, Frommers Germany 2007 and the DK Eyewitness Travel Guide to Germany. A lot of books to carry if you are backpacking or taking trains but not bad with a rental car. All three are very good in their own way.
Frommers is by far the most comprehensive with well written descriptions of the sights to see in the towns it covers.
The DK Series is much more colorful and I found the maps of town centers, the exploded views of museums and castles and the drawings of cathedrals to be very helpful. Plus, it includes many more small towns and out of the way places than the others.
Ricks book is hands down the best if you are going to an area that he describes. His detailed descriptions of the major sites such as Cologne Cathedral and the Residenz in Munich are both entertaining and informative. We have used his walking and driving tour guides in Bacharach, Trier, Salzburg, Munich, Rothenburg, along the Rhine and Mosel and many other places. Rick's books are the only ones I consistently carry with me when sight-seeing. Two problems, there are two million other Americans carrying Rick's book going to the same areas because he has made them extremely popular. The other problem is that he covers very little of northern and eastern Germany and the highways and quaint byways of Germany outside the major destinations. DK does a much better job of this. By all means take Rick's book with you.

Jake1

Agree that RS is very good IF you are going where he went. His books are a bit unusual in that they focus on places he has personally visited.

Vttraveler

I agree with those who point out that Rick Steves does not offer a comprehensive overview of the areas he writes about. He leaves out surprising places. I have also found that he dismisses places I have really liked (eg Cordoba in Spain)
I like the green Michelin guides for touring information, but if you use these guides you have to supplement with restaurant information from some other source.

smueller

Wow. A thread with almost total agreement. That is rare in this forum.

Rick Steves' books are great for the large cities like Paris or Amsterdam, as well as the extremely popular smaller towns such as Rothenburg and Brugge. His books are particularly useful for first-time travelers that are more inclined to focus on big cities and tourist meccas.

If you want to "get out" and explore, however, his books are essentially useless. I prefer the Michelin Green Guides for that style of travel.

SAnParis

I usually cross-reference the Green guides w/Fodors. You can plan a Steves trip where his books can be very useful, however, he misses & skips a lot. I agree w/the prior posters.

Gary_Mc

I like Rick S's books and use them as a source for hotels and for reference. I use Michelin Green Guides most to help me plan the trip. I take Lonely Planet with me as it has more practical information (laundry, book stores, etc.) and just enough historical information.

Regards, Gary

tcreath

We too always bring RS plus another guidebook or two. As mentioned above, Rick is great at giving details on places he recommends, with lots of helpful tips and advice. The problem is that its nearly impossible to use his books alone unless you are only visiting places he recommends.

Tracy

J_Correa

I have good luck with Frommers and Lonely Planet. We took those 2 to Germany and did pretty well. I like the Eyewitness guides for initial planning because of the color photos, but they are light on the details, so I just look at them in the beginning (get them from the library) but don't take them with me. Frommers and Lonely Planet have a lot of information for the weight and size of the books. I don't care for Fodors because those books don't include a wide enough variety of price ranges for restaurants, hotels, and so forth. I am not a fan of RS books.

Greekgazoo

I just hate to carry such large books with me. I guess i could do my research and write down the main places. thats why i was hoping to somehow choose one book. there are so many good books and everyone has given GREAT suggestions. It is just trying to narrow down the books and which is best. I only plan on doing Munich and Bavaria (Mittenwald, Garmisch and Fuessen) then over to Salzburg --> Vienna (melk and krems) --> Prague. Those are the main places that we plan on visiting. From what i have seen, Rick does a pretty good job on most of these. Maybe not Mittenwald so much, which is where we are initially staying. From your suggestions, i think i will take Rick Steves and another book, most likely frommers or lonely planet. Review some places at night from those books and just take Rick with me during the day. Only reason i like Rick so much is that i took 3 books with me to Italy last yr, it seems like the one i mostly counted on was Rick's, mainly because it was laid out nicely and very easy to follow. We had a great time in Italy. I guess that is why i lean toward Rick's books.

suec1

Well as long as you are going to places that Rick "hits" in his books that might be enough. In the past I have always taken too many guide books! Now I try to take just one - and I think Rick's are quite good - alot of very helpful hints about transportation and accessing the major sights - but I also print out alot of pages from the internet - many from this forum, train scheuldes, etc. - and put them in a folder, fondly known as the "vaction brain". As I go along I can throw out pages used, also then it is easy to carry just the info needed for the day at hand. Have a good trip!

TorontoSteven

I have often found that the hotels I am staying at have a collection of guide books in English. I usually just take one (the Fodor's Guide - of course) and then if I need another I ask my hotel. I have never been disappointed. Often they do not display them - they keep them tucked away.

twk

Put me in the camp that says if you're staying on Rick's preferred path, you can get by with just his book, but if you deviate off that path, you'll need something else.

norrisken

I use Frommers and a number of web sites to plan, but the Frommers comes with me. I enjoy reading Rick's books and watching his shows, but I don't carry his books. One thing we do is that each member of our travel group picks a location to be an "expert" on and they are responsible to be our tour guide for that area.

Gary_Mc

I was recently visiting one of the travel book sites. They were offering to selling individual chapters of one of their books, Central or South America I believe. I thought that would be a great idea.

You can already buy "Munich and Bavaria" from Lonely Planet and something similar on Bavaria from other lines. It would be great to just order a travel book tailored to your travel plans like chapters labeled "Introduction", "Baden-Württemburg" and "Rheinland-Pfalz".

In the age of computers that does not seem an impossibility. It would be like an AAA trip ticket plus area guides.

Books could retain the practical information and still not be so heavy to carry.

Anyone have an idea for physically disassembling a travel guide like Lonely Planet and then reassembling the desired components?

Regards, Gary

JN

I never take an entire book. I cut out the pages of the places/areas I will visit (the nuns who taught me through my elementary years would be mortified) and bring them along--much less bulk. I find Frommers to be the most helful, Rick Steves and Fodors second--with RS only good for limited locations.

aeiger

Hi
Last year in Germany, we used both Fodors and Michelin Green guides. I found them together, they complemented each other and made it better to travel.