Travel Guides: Electronic or Paper?

[Ian S]

These days, most travel guide books are available in paper or electronic form. I've always been old school in that regard but have dipped my toes into the electronic format recently (Big Island Revealed in Nook format.) With an upcoming trip to Europe, I'm curious what has worked and not worked for others in our demographic as they travel the globe. Last time in Europe, we had some full sized guides and some pocket versions. Maybe dispense with the pocket versions now in favor of elecnic or go entirely with online info - although, the internet is not always available especially with suitable speed.

One thing I do try to do is get the most recent guide available as opposed to sticking to a particular author/publisher.

 

[COcheesehead]

We take screen grabs and save them to our photos. We capture maps, guides anything we think we need and store it on our phone. You don't need internet access, just pull up your photo and enlarge as needed.

 

[Ronstar]

Up until a year ago, I always bought paperback versions of travel guides. Now I get the kindle versions. The kindle versions are easy to read at home and while traveling. And they lighten the travel load. I still bring hardcopy maps in addition to digital/gps.

 

[davebarnes]

We start with a lot of paper.
Buy more than one guidebook for an area. I like buying used from Alibris.com as the Sistine Chapel is still in the same place.
Read the books.
Prior to departure, rip out all the useless pages.
Leave book somewhere along the trip.

On the other hand.
For restaurants we use TripAdvisor and/or Yelp while we are standing in front of the restaurant.
Use CityMaps2Go from Ulmon on both iPhone and iPad. The offline versions are better than Google Maps in my opinion and don't require an internet connection.

 

[audreyh1]

Ebooks. So easy and weightless. Absolutely won’t travel with paper books.

 

[brett]

IF we are spending a month or more in one country we will take the paper version.

We also have ipad notes from research.

We will also copy, or rip out, relevent sections of guidebooks and discard them as we leave the area.

We have spent five winters in Thailand but we still refer to updated guidebooks. The challenge is that we often travel to places in some countries that are not well covered by guidebooks.

Reading Lonely Planet Mexico at the moment. We will take it with us at the end of this month. We only travel with carry on. We are there for up to eight weeks. Not entirely sure of our itinerary yet...only that we start in Cancon/Merida and then move to the Oaxana/Pacific coast. We only plan a few days in advance to it is very handy to have to guidebook. We will leave it for someone else at our last stop.

 

[Lsbcal]

Last trip to Italy we used the Rick Steves Kindle version on our iPads and iPhones. If you have a larger screen iPhone (like the XR) then it formats very well on that ... including maps. Very good in the sun and light weight for moving around a city.

For me it is not about saving paper but about convenience and portability.

 

[Bamaman]

I don't do so well with the fonts on many IPhones, etc.--despite my wearing my reader glasses. Call me old fashioned, but I still like books in paper.

I am really big on Wikipedia and Google Maps, however. Before we leave for any trip, I know just about everything about where we're going--including the streetscape in the neighborhood we're staying in. And I take careful travel notes.

 

[Lsbcal]

I don't do so well with the fonts on many IPhones, etc.--despite my wearing my reader glasses. Call me old fashioned, but I still like books in paper.

I am really big on Wikipedia and Google Maps, however. Before we leave for any trip, I know just about everything about where we're going--including the streetscape in the neighborhood we're staying in. And I take careful travel notes.

Is your iPhone a smaller screen one? Mine is an XR (iPhone 10) and very readable I think. But it also does depend on one's eyes. I carry around a small glass case in the same pocket as my phone.

 

[Chuckanut]

I have a hard time reading screens on sunny days so I buy the book. Then I cut it up into smaller sections, and take only the section I need for that day, plus a good map, and a day’s worth of spending cash. And a transit pass if in a big city.

 

[2017ish]

We buy hard copies for planning and they get marked up and annotated/highlighted-- although DW also uses many online options for planning. If we have a lot of flexibility built in, we may tear pages out for international trips. On domestic trips, which we drive, we take the books intact.

If it matters, our trips are 1-3 months and DW will generally have the international ones pretty planned out. Domestic, we tend to wing it a lot more.