crellston

Anyone have opinions or experience to relate as to which eBooks to buy for a long trip around Asia. We will be visiting maybe 8-10 countries with carry on I think I have narrowed it down Rough Guides or Lonely Planet. I did look at the hard copy SE Asia regional guides from each publisher but they lacked the detail of the individual country guides.

Any thoughts as to usability etc. We will be taking iPads and would prefer to use tjo sees or would a Kindle be better and worth the additional cost. Any thoughts or opinions would be much appreciated.

november_moon

You can use the Kindle or Barnes and Noble ap on either an Ipad or other tablet. There isn't really any reason to get a Kindle or Nook in addition to the Ipad - Ipads are difficult to read outside and the battery life isn't as good as with a dedicated reader, but otherwise they are great for books. The issue that I have found with travel guide books on any device (Kindle, Ipad, etc.) is the inability to just thumb through and flip back and forth between pages. But since you will be visiting so many places, you can probably live with this limitation in exchange for not having to carry extra paper around with you.

sparkchaser

I am the biggest Kindle proponent you will find but for travel guides that include maps and illustrations, a Kindle is not what you want.

The ease of flipping through and earmarking and flagging pages plus the ease of scribbling notes in the margins makes deadtree my preferred format for travel guides.

sparkchaser

I forgot to add that I have used Lonely Planet's pdf city-specific travel guides on my phone but I still prefer the paper version.

hetismij2

I have some Lonely Planet e-guides, but like sparkchaser I prefer the paper ones. Easier to find what you want and just easier to read for me.
DH has them in ePub form on his Samsung tablet. I tried them in PDF format on mine. Don't much care for either format but they were a cheap Groupon deal.

sparkchaser

The nice thing about the pdf is that you can print out the pages you want and just take those.

thursdaysd

I am with the paper works best crowd. On previous long trips to Asia I have taken the paper guides for the first two or three countries, and then bought - usually cheap, second-hand - books for other countries in Asia. KSR in BKK used to be good for that, as were Hanoi and Phnom Penh.

I have always been a big fan of Lonely Planet but think they have been falling off a bit lately. I have found Moon quite good for South America, haven't tried them for Asia.

Do you have an itinerary yet? Looking forward to the TR!

kja

I always take a guidebook or two on my Kindle, just in case I want to look something up or find out a bit more about something. I RELY on the paper guidebook I carry with me, usually the Rough Guide because I like its maps better than I like the maps in the Lonely Planet. (So the Lonely Planet is often one of my Kindle guides.) Which is my "primary" book and which are my Kindle ones vary from trip to trip, depending on what I find most helpful when planning.

crellston

Thank you all for your input.

Like most of you it seems, I too prefer paper to electronic. I downloaded the Rough Guide SE Asia eBook a few days ago just to see how i got on. Whilst it lacks any real detail. it is ok for working on an outline itinerary. One feature i do like is the ability to write the electronic equivalent notes in the margins.

After sparkchasers comment re Kindle i tried one out at a local store and can see why people love them for reading novels etc. but agree that I can't see it working well for guidebooks maps etc. so have taken that option off the list.

After some, not inconsiderable, deliberation, I think I will adopt Thursdaysd's approach and just pick up guidebooks as we go along. I was given a Fodors Thailand guide by Fodors which also has small sections on Cambodia and Thailand so that will cover the first couple of months. I am also finding www.travelfish.org exceptionally helpful in the planning process so will no doubt save some of their stuff for offline reading and printing.

I have yet to nail down the itinerary. I have managed to book some bargain flights to Singapore in November and from there will head straight to KL and Malaysia, work our way up through Thailand, into Laos and Cambodia and then Vietnam. the Philippines and Indonesia are places we haven't visited before and we want to spend a fair amount of time there, especially Indonesia (although I confess I don't know where to start with either of those places!

thank you all once again