Fodor's Travel Talk Forums

geri: This might be a little disappointing, given you're at this site, but I find Fodor's guidebooks to be the most thorough and polished. They cost about $15.00. Fodor's has a series of books for each major city, but the best is the annually updated city book. It will be called "Fodor's Washington D.C. 2000" (or "Fodor's New York City 2000," etc.). For a New York trip, I also bought a second guide--a Frommer's guide. I didn't like it as much, but the maps were a little better. Keep in mind that various reporters/authors are used for any particular brand of guide book. What I usually do is this: I go to Barnes & Noble, picked out several, and spent a few minutes leafing through each before selecting one or two. It becomes pretty obvious which are good. Now--here's more than you want to know: I've visited D.C. as a tourist three times, and it has become one of my favorite cities. Rather than bore you with things you want to learn on your own, here is the single best thing I found: when you enter the Capitol Building, the people-flow moves in the direction of forming tours. BUT...I discovered immediately that tours are not mandatory. One can walk the entire building and nobody will say a thing. I took a leisurely two-hour walking tour and saw exactly what I wanted to see, no less and no more. Have fun.