Every traveler knows that all guidebooks are an exasperation. They send us miles to see some boring old dustpit, and put stars next to dreadful rococo horrors. They ignore good restaurants, and get all misty-eyed about ordinary ones. And their practical information is often out-of-date or too vague to be of any use. But how could it be otherwise? The world is huge and ever-changing, and no two travelers have the same tastes or expectations. The perfect guidebook is the one you write yourself; in the meantime, for that first voyage to an unknown land, you're going to have to make do with what is out there. Like the travel industry, the guidebook industry has grown and improved beyond measure in the last few years. Visit a good bookshop and you'll see that the choice is now phenomenal. There are publishers who do nothing but guides for gay travelers, for women travelers or for specific regions or tastes. One French publisher, Parigramme, does nothing but guidebooks to Paris; another huge Australian concern, Lonely Planet, has more than 400 titles in print, including detailed guides on Tonga and Slovenia. The biggest step forward in the last decade has been the invention of visual guides. These get around the problem of personal taste by showing you pictures of the sites. The slogan of the most successful series, Eyewitness, published by the British editor DK (and in French as Hachette Guides Voir) says it best: "The Guides that show you what others only tell you." The first Eyewitness guides to London, New York, Paris and Venice appeared in 1993; there are now 40 titles. They are beautiful to look at, with up to 2,000 color images, including masses of excellent photos (of everything from churches and street scenes to bus tickets and typical meals), building plans and intricate cross-sections of monuments. They seem to work best for cities; one of the most useful features are the detailed maps with cross references that allow you to pinpoint every site. The same idea is found in the only serious rival, the Guides Découvertes series, created by French publisher Gallimard and available in English as the Everyman guides (Knopf/Everyman). These books are more poetic than the Eyewitness ones, with stunning design and beautiful use of original illustrations and old photos. The architecture sections are especially good, and there is a great emphasis on art and culture (they are French, after all). But as guidebooks they are rather confusing, with poor maps and little practical info; you are generally better off reading them on the plane than in the street. The main drawback of both series, other than the lack of text, is their weight; "Eyewitness France," with 672 glossy pages, is the size and mass of a good brick. It makes you think twice before popping it in your backpack every morning. The leading series for the independent traveler is still Lonely Planet. Started in 1971 by an Australian couple, Maureen and Tony Wheeler (whom The New York Times once called "the patron saints of the world's backpackers"), this huge outfit now has offices in Melbourne, London, Oakland and Paris, producing and updating guides for most destinations under the sun. They also produce phrase books, atlases, travel literature and videos, and their web site (lonelyplanet.com) gets a million visitors a month. Lonely Planet is also popular in French; in France, it challenges the hegemony of the Guide du Routard series. (You have to admire these books for keeping the famous cover, featuring a mustachioed hipster in jeans with the globe for a backpack, more or less unchanged for 25 straight years; it must have looked ringard even in the early '70s.) It's hard to argue with the Lonely Planet's claim to provide the most accurate and up-to-date information available. Their books are mines of information, though sometimes the dry approach and tiny type remind you of a phone directory. They also suffer from their own success; every hotel they recommend is crammed with Lonely Planet readers. Which is why I prefer their most able rival, the British Rough Guides. They have fewer titles a mere 150 but are growing fast. They work hard to find authors who really know their destinations well, and it shows in the text, which delves really deep, especially on the cultural front. The Rough Guides also have a witty, journalistic style and a healthy skepticism that most others lack. You have to love a guidebook that recommends a hotel (the Moon Valley in Luxor, Egypt) after this description: "Roaches, Michael Jackson posters and a drunken manager; the rooms are okay otherwise." The Rough Guides have also ventured beyond traditional travel, especially since their Internet guide, with its hilarious ostrich cover, sold half a million copies. They now do music CDs, guides to music ("The Rough Guide to Rock" is a wonder) and soccer, and have a thriving web site (roughguides.co.uk). The other strong contender for best independent guides is Footprint, whose first title, "The South American Handbook," appeared 75 years ago, and is still the bible for backpackers to that continent. It is a monument, 1,728 pages long, with paper fine enough for rolling cigarettes. It ends, fittingly enough, with advice on the ultimate getaway: "Antarctica, the 5th largest continent, is 99.6% covered with ice. Although very inaccessible..." Footprint publishes 36 other titles, all to third-world destinations, and have just branched into publishing in French (with Cuba) and Europe (with Andalucia). For Americans coming to Europe, the standard backpacker's guide is still "Let's Go!," written for students and by students (in Cambridge, Massachusetts). The classic orange Europe tome is the centerpiece, complemented by a whole range of country and city guides. They are snappy and competent, but don't go very far; you will only use them once, the first time. More original are Rick Steve's Through the Back Door guides. He encourages first-time travelers to avoid the obvious and discover Europe's treasures on their own (with his book in hand, naturally). As well as the classic "Europe Through the Back Door" and a dozen country guides, the series includes "Europe 101," an irreverent and entertaining introduction to European history, and "Mona Winks," the same for the continent's major museums. Like the trendy listing guides their creators are known for, Time Out Guides are strictly for urbanites. There are 22 titles, all to groovy Western cities, all updated annually. They cover history, hotels and all the usual sites, but their strength and weakness is their love affair with art, movies, music and hipness in all its forms. Also of note are the Blue Guides. These can be a bit frumpy, but their coverage of classical art and culture is second to none. Their best rivals on this front are the green Michelin guides, not to be confused with the red guides, which give stars to hotels and restaurants. Also notable in French are Casterman's Mon Guide series, excellent introductions for young teenagers. This brief survey has ignored many traditional guides, like Fodor's, Frommer's and Berlitz, which are aimed at more traditional travelers and are strong on listings. To browse through some of the thousands of other guides out there, visit a good bookshop (WH Smith and Brentano's have the best English selection in Paris). |
