Advantages: Great restauraunt recommendations, useful price guides etc
Disadvantages: Maps not great, little short of detail

...you can only do if you know where you are! So we ended up hopelessly lost and wandering the streets of Rome with luggage! Which would have been fine but the maps in the Rough Guide are, most definately, rough! If you have to rely on them alone for any length of time, take a compass! It is impossible to know which direction on a road you are going for hundreds of metres because the little roads aren't named - very frustrating! Eventually we found our hotel (not mentioned in the guide so can't tell you if their hotel reviews are accurate I'm afraid), and collapsed exhausted after our long walk! The next morning we set off to see the sights armed with the book and a better map courtesy of our hotel! The descriptions of the colloseum, vatican, panthenon, roman forum and various museums provided a good starting point for a tour. They give... Read review

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Advantages: Detailed, informative, great website
Disadvantages: Go out of date fast

...... which to choose? Pretty much every backpacker I know has faced this dilemma and generally, once they have made their choice, they stick with it. This may just be because they don't want to admit they wasted their money on something crap, but it is striking how the choice between Lonely Planet and Rough Guides divides travellers. At this point, I should nail my colours to the mast and say that I'm an RG girl myself. For a while there, I flirted briefly with Lonely Planet and even ventured into unknown guidebook territory with one unfamiliar Indonesia guide that I thought had a really nice cover, but again and again I realise that the RG is my true love. In an ideal world, of course, I would take both - this may just be because as a journalist and historian, I am always loth to trust just one source on anything, but that's just me... Read review

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Advantages: Loads of useful info, well written, easy to use, durable!
Disadvantages: Don't rely on it too much - in fact, put it away for a while when travelling and explore, some of the maps are dodgy, for special attractions don't always trust the opening times

...Ok, so when you travel you really do need a guide book, and the Rough Guide is a good one. The reason, however, that I am writing this opinion is because I think that people when travelling often run the danger of becoming run by the guides. Firstly, they really don't contain very good maps (fair enough - the fact that they contain so many maps in the first place is great). So, if you are going somewhere you don't know at all, can't speak the language, has unpleasant areas and/or you are on a tight schedule - buy a nice, full street map! If you are just out for wondering about, then the Rough Guides maps are great and show most of the major attractions. Secondly - there are (forgiveably so) mistakes. Usually the guide is good at telling you what is and what is not open. However, if you stay in Berlin an extra day and travel (with... Read review

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Advantages: Useful suggestions as to what to do
Disadvantages: Beijing is being developed so fast that a lot of the book's information is out of date.

...Like all the other Rough Guide volumes, this book gives a very good, well-rounded guide to the city. Starting off with a "must-do" list, it can very quickly give you an idea of what you really have to experience. If you have a little longer in the city, a more in-depth reading of the book will give you a nice idea of what curiosities and little-known places lie in store. I was worried that once certain "out-of-the-way" places got in the book, they'd become much more mainstream and by the time I got there, the place itself would have completely changed from what was reviewed by the Rough Guide researchers. Fortunately, this was not the case. Either no-one takes their Rough Guides to Beijing, or simply the lack of any English people out there means that this simply doesn't happen. The one thing that notably does change quite fast... Read review

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Advantages: Has got just about everything you need in it
Disadvantages: Too much detail in places

...Having been to Thailand and used the rough guide book as a guide in conjunction with other travel guides, such as Lonely Planet, it was very useful. Unfortunately, it was printed in 1998, so obviously some of the stuff in it was out of date, which was annoying, as it’s about time they bought out a more up-to-date version. This guide contains a lot of information and there is no way you could sit through and read it all. Yes, the essentials, such as visa info, accommodation, flight info and medical advice are explained well and useful contacts are given. However, when it comes to reading about the islands and cities, just too many sites are explained and in too much detail. The average traveller doesn’t have the time or space for such detail! I’ve always believed with recent experience that Rough Guides need... Read review

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