Guidebooks - How Do You Choose?

[artnbarb]

I don't have any old England guidebooks! I haven't been since 2006, so altho much remains the same, there are new sites, new locations, and certainly new prices, so I'd like to buy a few (new) guidebooks. I haven't yet gone to my local B&N, but I know that I will not get nearly the selection I want, and without actually looking at the physical book, without holding it in my hands and flipping the pages I find it near impossible to select guidebooks online!

Generally speaking I like certain guidebooks for certain things - Rick Steves has a lot of city guides and regional guides, but the biggest problem with RS is that he only tells you about what he wants to tell you about, and if you actually want to follow his philosophy and trek out off the tourist track, his guidebooks are useless! The Eyewitness Books are great for the art and the history and the museums - but they're also heavy, and too pretty to slice with an exacto knife, which is what I usually do with my RS books.

I currently plan to visit London, Bath, and spend 1+ weeks in the Cotswolds, so that's the info I'll concentrate on - no need to by a guidebook for all of England, but it probably won't be that simple! Frommers? Fodor's? Lonely Planet? Eyewitness? Rick Steves? Cardogan (if I can even get them here)? How do YOU choose a guidebook?

 

[Pauline]

In guidebooks for England the Cotswolds gets a couple of paragraphs. Rough Guides recently put out a Cotswolds guide. Rick Steves has a small guide, for the kindle only I think. I have a few books listed here: http://www.cotswolder.com/guidebooks/

The Towns and Villages section of a Cotswolder has good basic info.

There are a few Cotswold guides where they list every town and village and what is there. Goldeneye puts out one I think. I have two others. I got these books in England. They are good reference books for when you are driving around.

The tourist offices put out good info and, I think, will mail brochures to you. They used to have brochures for the different counties, e.g. Oxfordshire Cotswolds, but are merging them now.

You will find guides for Bath, and their tourist office will have brochures.

For general guidebooks I always use Cadogan or Rough Guide. I like them best.

 

[artnbarb]

I did see that list and looked at a few of the books, then I found this one: http://www.amazon.com/dp/1495429172...TF8&colid=22UJWYLLSG1UW&coliid=I3OO5FEXOXVMYJ . It was updated this summer - most of them are several years old, and I'm not sure how important that is.

I thought I'd need/want a specific Cotswold guidebook, because we'll probably want to see/do more than what's listed in the Cotswold section of an England book.

 

[jonathan]

My favourite book on the Cotswolds is Susan Hill's Spirit of the Cotswolds. Not a guidebook: more a portrait of the area (with gorgeous photography). Quite old now; very cheap secondhand copies available through Amazon.