Prior to departure, I need to read as much travel guides as possible. Abundant information are available in internet, from travel articles, travel forums, to personal blogs. But most of all, I need good guidebooks that can help me prepare and plan my trip.
Three years ago, when I was just starting to work and ambitiously planning on traveling to Europe, I had bought a Europe guidebook: "Let's Go Europe 2008" from Borders. It was a guidebook intended for students and budget travelers, so most of the listings are for the budget and cheap stuff. It was never completely used, until now.
I then cut this book to pieces. I only took the pages for Netherlands, France, and Italy, which saved me a lot of space and weight. I figured, this book was already too old, so I wouldn't feel bad cutting it. And I am glad I did.
Around the same time when I bought the Let's Go book, I also bought a travel planning book: "The Rough Guide First-Time Europe" from Borders. This book is very informative because it explains what to expect, prepare, and do before, during, and after the trip. I like Rough Guide's writing style. It's easy to read and quite interesting, while still packed with a lot of information. This book was read before departure and will be left at home.
But that wasn't enough for me. I stumbled upon another travel planning book: "Rick Steve's Europe Through The Back Door - The Travel Skills Handbook 2011". This time I ordered online from Book Depository, which is a very good online bookstore and cheaper than Amazon because of its free shipping, although it took 2 working weeks for this book to arrive. This book is packed with much more information and with a lot of humor, but sometimes feels to chatty. This book was also read before departure and will be left at home.
At first, I thought I would bring only 2 guidebooks: one was the "Let's Go Europe 2008" mentioned above, and the other one was a new guidebook focusing on French Riviera region. For the French Riviera region guidebook, I checked at Kinokuniya and compared several guidebooks for the same topic, including those from Lonely Planet, Rough Guide, Rick Steves, Frommers, and Fodors.
I used to like Lonely Planets, which I used for my trip to Bangkok and Bali. This time I kinda liked the Rick Steves' better because it explained more on the transportation, getting around, and how-to-get-to-and-from information. So, I decided to buy the "Rick Steve's Provence & The French Riviera 2011" from Book Depository. But I probably won't follow his suggestions for places to eat, as the restaurants listed are still above my budget. I have read the French Riviera part of the book, but I still haven't finished reading the Provence part yet.
Rick Steve was the one who "discovered" Cinque Terre and made it famous to travelers. Back in 80s, when he was younger and a backpacker, he stumbled on these five rustic and picturesque villages along the Ligurian coast, on the Italian Riviera. I planned on going there but I didn't want to buy a whole Italy guidebook. So from Book Depository, I bought the "Rick Steves' Snapshot Italy's Cinque Terre", which was an excerpt of Cinque Terre pages from his Italy guidebook. It's small, lightweight, and cheap, and I have finished reading it.
However, after looking through the pages from the cut-down version of my "Let's Go Europe 2008", I realized that it only contained small information for the big cities I would go to, as it was from a guidebook which covered the whole continent. There were not very much information about Paris, Rome, Florence, or Venice. It's understandable that this kind of book will not be too detailed.
I struggled whether or not I should buy country-specific guidebooks for France and Italy. But then I found another Rick Steves' book: "Rick Steves' Best of Europe 2011". It covers all the cities I will travel to. I compared the pages for the cities in this book to those cities in the individual country book and the individual city book. They are roughly the same as that of the individual country book (only few paragraphs were removed), but (of course) much less than that of the city book.
I then bought it from Book Depository. It is, however, big, bulky, and heavy, and I haven't finished reading it yet. I wish I could cut the other countries' pages in this book which I won't visit, but this time I felt bad to do it because it's a brand new book. I guess I will have to live with this decision. I also realized that Cinque Terre is also covered wholly in this book, thus making buying the "Rick Steves' Snapshot Italy's Cinque Terre" redundant. But I will still bring both because the later is easier to carry around when visiting Cinque Terre.
In conclusion, I will bring three whole guidebooks: "Rick Steves' Best of Europe 2011", "Rick Steves' Provence & The French Riviera 2011", and "Rick Steves' Snapshot Italy's Cinque Terre". Plus, I will also bring the pages from "Let's Go Europe 2008". Sadly, when combined, they are not lightweight anymore. There are still much to read. I will only read the Amsterdam part briefly right before or during my flight. Those which I have read will be reread when visiting.
UPDATE: read the eighth part here.
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