The Bottom Line
European travel guru Rick Steves’ guidebooks emphasize seeing Europe through the eyes of the locals. If you’re looking for a guidebook series that offers European itineraries, tells you where to find the best traditional music, museums and cultural experiences and provides detailed travel information, head to your bookstore and grab Rick Steves' latest.
Pros
- Rick packs each guidebook with practical travel tips, hotel choices and sightseeing possibilities.
- If your travel tastes match Rick’s, you’ll enjoy the itineraries he suggests.
- Rick has a great sense of humor; read his books carefully so you don’t miss any jokes.
Cons
- If you want to visit a place not included on a Rick Steves itinerary, you’ll need another guidebook.
- The hand-drawn maps are not to scale, which can frustrate you when you try to use them.
- Nearly all of the photos in each guidebook are black and white.
Description
- Rick Steves guidebooks are typically divided into several sections.
- Each guidebook begins with an introduction, which covers trip planning and other practicalities.
- Most of the guidebook is devoted to Rick’s travel itineraries, organized by region or by city neighborhood.
- If you can only visit a particular sight or area by rental car, Rick will tell you that this is the case.
- The last sections of each Rick Steves guidebook are devoted to history and travel tips.
- Rick Steves updates his guidebooks annually. You can find post-printing corrections on Rick’s popular website.
Guide Review - Review of the Rick Steves Travel Guidebook Series
I started using Rick Steves’ guidebooks in 1986, a year after he published Europe in 22 Days. From the start, I liked his unique approach to European travel. First, Rick – that’s how he’s known to his readers and television viewers – focuses on the real Europe, not the ten-minute photo stop. He travels as a “temporary local,” staying in small, locally owned hotels, avoiding chain restaurants and finding parks and piazzas where you can sit and watch the world go by, and he teaches you how to do it, too.
Second, Rick doesn’t try to see all of Europe in 22 days or even 22 years. He selects itineraries that showcase the best sights and experiences in each country, city or region and writes up detailed travel plans. Having a Rick Steves guidebook in your daypack is like having your own personal tour guide along on your trip.
Rick Steves' guidebooks only cover European destinations. Rick has published 11 country guides, nine city guides and two “best of” guides, one for Western Europe and one for Eastern Europe.
The Rick Steves guidebooks are popular with first-time and experienced travelers, and with good reason. Rick's many decades of European travel experience shine through his writing. If he thinks a famous sight is overrated (Ireland’s Blarney Castle leaps to mind), he’ll suggest that you skip it. More importantly, Rick will show you effective ways to see Europe at its best, from art to architecture. Happily, he offers plenty of off-the-wall diversions along the way.
In SummaryThe Rick Steves European travel guidebook series combines practical travel information, cultural insights and insider experience. If you use one of Rick’s guidebooks to plan your vacation, you may not see every single sight in a particular country or city, but you’ll discover the best each region or country has to offer.
