Do the different countries in Europe have agencies that are equivalent to our Chamber of Commerce/Travel Bureau's here in the states? Has anyone had any luck using them for info?

Virtually all countries have Tourism Offices. Iraq is one possible exception, perhaps Afghanistan. You'll find a directory of same at http://www.mbnet.mb.ca/lucas/travel/ <BR> <BR>Some are more helpful than others. You'll also find, though, that principal tourist cities and regions have tourism offices. These tend more often to be more helpful, and have more detailed information avaialable. <BR> <BR>In some countries, e.g. Switzerland, Germany, virtually every village, certainly those in heavily touristed areas, has a tourism office. These, too, are usually quite helpful. <BR> <BR>Ed

I am planning a trip to France in March and on the advice of other Fodorites, Elvira in particular, contacted the tourist bureau for almost every town on the tour. I did this via the web and Google. Got extremely good response and a wealth of information down to the detail of bus schedules in the Cote d'Azur!

I have found the tourism offices in the US wonderful. Stopping in NYC to visit each of them is great as you can browse hundreds of folders and pamphlets, hotel information, maps, etc. --nearly all for free. There are offices for some countries in other US cities as well, but I haven't used them. Or a call to the NYC office for each country will result in their sending you tons of info. On the other hand I have been extremely disappointed at most of the tourism offices within cities in Europe. They mainly seem to be geared towards getting you a hotel room (for a commission, presumably) and as soon as I mention that I already have my hotel, no one seems very helpful. They want to charge you a small fortune for even the most insignificant of maps. I have paid as much as $10 for a "hiking trail map" for the area and received nothing but an unreadable single mimeographed sheet with a few dotted lines on it. Take this with a grain of salt as I have pretty much stopped trying and maybe my experience was not the norm, but the most recent disaster was in Amsterdam (right across from Central Station) where they wouldn't give me the time of day when I tried to find out how to travel "independently" to some nearby attractions -- they only wanted to sell me tours. In Vienna, I gave up trying to find some basic travel information at the tourism office, so went to an internet cafe and did better on the internet!

All European countries have tourist offices, most with offices in major US cities, Los Angeles, Chicago and New York. Any European guide book available from libraries or book stores should have a listing of these offices with addresses, phone and fax numbers. <BR> <BR>All have websites as well in English and invariably with links to regional or local offices. <BR> <BR>Local and regional European tourist offices offer a wealth of information though not necessarily in English. The VVV, a network of over 400 offices in the Netherlands is probably Europe's finest tourist office. Located throughout the country, even in small villages, these offices can arrange accommodations on short notice, provide schedules of festivals and cultural events and in general satisfy any concerns of the tourist. <BR> <BR>If you do a text search here, you can find postings listing any number of websites operated by national and regional tourist offices, most of which have the ability to accommodate Email requests for brochures. <BR> <BR>To answer your initial question, European countries and regions have a far more sophisticated and comprehensive system for providing information for tourists than you'll find in the US and at no or little cost to the traveler. Chambers of Commerce are as common in Europe as in the US but not a prime resource for travel information.

to the top for Jackie - - to give credit where credit is due. <BR> <BR>

A good source of information is www.visiteurope.com.

While they all want to be a profit center of some sort, tourism offices in Europe vary in their eagerness to do so. I had different experiences getting maps. I had best luck getting very good free city maps in France. In UK, I got some heavily advertised free ones. Detailed ones were for sale only. Similar experiences in Switzerland, Germany and Austria. <BR> <BR>I had also had good experience getting printed materials over the net (that is actually have materials sent to me by mail.) Larger cities/regions have promotion budget to lure foreign visitors and are willing to spent good money sending fat packages to you, even though they won't give you anything worthwhile for free once you get there...

Spain, and particularly Andalucia, have great tourism offices in town - with detailed free maps. The only problem is that because they are so good they tended to be extremely crowded (especially Sevilla's).