Favorite Travel Guides

One of my favorite travel guides to buy for a city and actually take with us are the DK Eyewitness Top 10 books. I think own or have owned about 12 of these compact books that make the perfect tour guide for many popular cities (areas) around the world.

The first useful feature on the book is that the front and back flaps fold out to show various maps- both downtown detail and area overviews. This photo is the back cover of the Boston book and shows the downtown area detail. On the back of the map are generally transportation- bus, train or subway routes.

The front cover is a larger overview of the Boston area and Massachusetts in general.

I adore how these books are laid out. They tell you the Top 10 must-see sights in the city and have a full page spread devoted to each one. Then they get further broken down into specific categories where the Top 10 restaurants, bars, shops, cafes, festivals, local specialties and many more things are listed on a page each. Then to help you find recommenced things once you are in a neighborhood or part of town, the books lists hotel, dining and bar recs for each of the big areas. Finally, they offer some practical tips about getting around in the city and what might make each city unique or present unusual challenges.

One of the great features that I find very useful is the inset map on most pages telling you where the Top 10 on that page are located. I can't wait to check out the Top 10 beaches in San Diego.

In the Los Angeles book, this is a sample of the Hollywood area page with recommendations for bars & clubs and for dining options. The brief description is usually enough information to make a decision and the pricing guide is helpful too. I've got quite a collection of these books going- mostly free from Paperback Swap.

One of my other favorite travel things is the popout map series. They are small enough to fit into a pocket, but contains tons of useful information. Plus they are just too cool!

The inset maps shows major freeways into the city and a map of the local public transportation.


Keep opening and the map pops out to reveal all sorts of good travel stuff.

There is a left popout map and a right popout map that contain different areas of the city and different levels of detail. You can find all the available Popout Maps here.
Happy Traveling!

GOOD NEWS OF THE DAY: Back from Disney with lots of good photos to share!