redpill me on the travel books, are they worth it? what are the best ones?
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redpill me on the travel books, are they worth it? what are the best ones?
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They become outdated quickly, they're expensive, and you can always find more interesting stuff online to explore. They are for normies and boomers. They are very similar to programming books.
I still buy them because I dislike using the internet when I travel and I try to avoid using it as much as I can except for finding something very quickly (e.g. one restaurant in the middle of nowhere) and they're a bit useful when you do road trips; and that's what I mostly do anyway, always renting a car and go somewhere.
I still like them because they're alright when you're doing a road trip, and it gives you a quick idea for where to stop, thanks to quick introductions and some nice things to see (mostly cultural).
For large cities I don't use anything anyway.
they cut through the noise. the internet is pretty much the worst place imaginable as a travel resource since anyone and everyone is always putting in their two cents and reviewing everything.
the guide book generally will ensure you miss nothing big, perhaps give you a few interesting tips. its funny but since the internet took over form guide books about ten years ago you'll notice some place the books used to pimp hard and were overrun are now kind of off the beaten path. what the book prioritize is not what the internet prioritizes.
the books also have some massive blindspots. you should not trust them implicitly.
LP, even with the pretty stark drop in quality, probably rules the roost. I do like the rick steves guides if you want to do couple travel in europe.
>borrow guide books from local library
>get inspired where to go and what to do
>make notes based on current information on the internets
>return guide books
Bradt, Lonely Planet, Footprints, Rough Guide are all good. There's probably a couple other decent ones. National Geographic guides have lots photos but not much info. There's another series whose name I forget that isn't great cause it only focuses on high end places (ok if that's what you're into).
If you want to go somewhere just look at as many different guides as you can for free at the library, bookstore or online previews. Then if you're gonna buy one, buy the one(s) that seems the most useful.
>There's another series whose name I forget that isn't great cause it only focuses on high end places
i guess you might mean the wallpaper series. louis vuitton also publish their own travel guides for some major cities so that also falls into that category
the problem with "high end" type guides is that they usually focus on shopping. they are all about "boutiques" and stuff. i am interested in slightly more exclusive experiences but i am not into shopping- what i want to know about is stuff like out of hours tours of places where you get the whole place to yourself instead of mingling with crowds. that kind of stuff is quite hard to find in any guidebook, you have to go to a place and work it out from there
> what i want to know about is stuff like out of hours tours of places where you get the whole place to yourself instead of mingling with crowds. that kind of stuff is quite hard to find in any guidebook, you have to go to a place and work it out from there
Well, you also won't find that kind of thing online either. At least in way that feels replicable and reliable.
A real nice thing about the guidebook is that it never runs out of batteries and nobody is really looking to steal it. I'm not going to shill them, but the one I use always has decent maps of most places that are in the book. I have very rarely been steered wrong by a starred restaurant or hotel, not never, but its very rare for their highly recommended stuff to be shit.
>redpill me on travel books
you can go to the bookstore and flip through the pages to see the cool pictures but then just put it back on the shelf and leave
I pirated like all the books and guides on Glacier national park I could find and absolutely none of them had any kind of usable map for hiking. kinda ridiculous to buy a trail guide without an actual map
Online recommendations are cancer. It's always "top 10 things to see" and the top 10s are always the biggest tourist traps. Books are nice. Yes they get outdated, but at least you don't have to sift through shit travel guides online
they are enjoyable for the anticipation of the trip, all the info can be found online but some people enjoy the aspect of reading a book, or having something to familiarize yourself while saving batteries/not on wifi when on the road
buy them used. preferably from 2000-2010 when they had the better writers and were really sending people out.
a lot of the really great stuff to see hasn't changed
right
my choice where lonley planet. not bad for what you pay.
Don't sleep on Rick Steve's guides or Moon for the USA.
But yeah, Lonely Planet is the only one sending people to Malawi or Bolivia. Which is actually silly since there is a lot of profit to be made in these books.