The best travel guides – which guidebook is worth buying?
Although the internet has taken a toll on printed travel guides, good old travel guidebooks are still an invaluable aid to travel and especially to planning your trip – especially if you really want to get the most out of your holiday. Travel blogs on the internet often offer rather superficial information compared to books.
With the advent of the internet, the function of travel guides has also changed somewhat. Guidebooks are no longer really needed to choose and find hotels, as there are several excellent hotel booking websites on the internet where you can not only book hotels, but also read user reviews.
Instead, the voice of the travel guide writer has become even more important. Readers expect well-written, in-depth background information about the destination and its attractions, as well as honest reviews and tips for interesting restaurants and cafés.
Of course, the good things about travel guidebooks are that you don’t need an internet connection to use them and they don’t run out of battery in the middle of a long day.
But which brand of travel guide should you choose?
The reviews below are based on years of experience using (and a little bit of writing) different travel guides.
Finland's 500 best destinations – Once in a lifetime
Guides have also been published under our Once in a Lifetime brand. Finland's 500 Best Destinations presents the country's best travel destinations in a fun and storytelling way.
Northern Norway – A Guide to Mountains and Fjords is a comprehensive road trip to Arctic experiences. The book introduces over 300 attractions in Northern Norway and provides travel tips for motorists, hikers and fishermen.
Tripsteri – already established
Tripsteri is the newest Finnish travel guide series, but it also began publishing in 2017. There are several titles, such as Barcelona, Paris, London, Berlin, California, Tokyo, Lisbon, Ireland, Scotland, New York and Costa Brava. As well as Thailand and Prague, written by the undersigned.
Some of the authors of the Tripsteri guides are familiar with the beloved but long-discontinued Mondo travel guide series. So you can trust the quality of the guides.
Compared to the black-and-white Mondo guides, the Tripsteri's four-color and stylish layout is an excellent improvement. There are many photos, which of course takes up some space from the text.
Compared to Mondo, the information has been divided and packaged in a new, more straightforward format. Of course, there is still fun background information about the culture and customs of the destinations. The Thailand guide includes instructions for using amulets and tips on how to keep the spirits at home happy. It also teaches how to vacation in the authentic Thai way.
Like Mondo, there are few if any maps, but these days it is worth downloading the maps to your mobile phone anyway. Tripster's mobile app has been released for some destinations, which helps you take control of the map aspect. Not all books have apps yet.
Finnish Travel Guide – a meticulous classic
The Finnish Travel Guide series is an authentic and original Finnish-language travel guide series, a kind of Finnish Lonely Planet. Travel guides made with great care have been published for ages, and the series has its staunch fans.
Nowadays, guides from the Finnish Travel Guide series can be found for almost all the most popular travel destinations. Thailand was strongly represented in the series for a long time with several different guides, but now it seems that only the Bangkok guide is available. Other Asian guides include Bali and Vietnam – both destinations that are rising nicely in popularity.
The guides in the Finnish Travel Guide series have excellent maps and lots of pictures. The Lonely Planet comparison is also apt in that instead of storytelling, the guides are very fact-oriented and the hotels are introduced in abundance. Whether the reader needs so many hotel introductions anymore is another matter, since rooms are usually booked online, where you can also read reviews.
If you like Lonely Planet, you'll definitely like the books in the Finnish Travel Guide series.
Savukeidas has ceased operations
Savukeidas travel guides inherit the role of the forgotten Sankarimatkalija travel guide series as a publisher of special guides. Savukeidas has published guides to less common destinations such as Georgia, but there are also slightly more popular destinations in the series, such as Cyprus written by Rita Dahl. However, like Savukeidas, the Cyprus guide does not try to play with tourist clichés on the cover: the cover of the guide shows old men grinning!
The unifying factor is the authors, who are often poets and writers, and their passion for their destinations.
Unfortunately, Savukeidas ceased operations in 2018. However, some of the guides are still available.
Berlitz guides
There are many opinions about Berlitz guides translated into Finnish. The best thing about them is their size: Berlitz guides don't weigh much and they fit perfectly in your pocket. And that's probably how they should be judged: the basics are covered, but there's no point in imagining anything very in-depth about the destinations.
Berlitz guides are great for carefree beach holidays or short city breaks if you want to get a basic description of the destination and its attractions.
Map+Guide and City Traveler's Walking Guides
Another popular translated guide series is the Map Guide. The text content of the guides is even more limited than the Berlitz guides – the main part is the map, as the name of the guide promises. The map is supplemented by short descriptions.
Suitable for those for whom the map is more important than detailed information about the destination. The guide series is popular and new, fresh editions are still being published.
If you want a good walking map to take with you on your trip, but with clearly more in-depth information than the Map+Guide guides offer, a good option is the City Traveler's Walking Guides, of which Karisto has already published several titles in Finnish (including Rome, Paris, London, New York, Barcelona).
The City Traveler's Walking Guides are translations of the travel guide series published by National Geographic.
Poorly available: Kaupunkikirjat and Näe ja koe
Kaupunkikirjat was a very impressive travel guide series, the main part of which was visuals: almost everything told was illustrated, and there were many very illustrative visual maps of the sights. However, it seems that the guide series has been discontinued in Finnish. The latest editions are from years ago and can only be found in libraries instead of bookstores.
Another guide series that focused on visuals was Näe ja koe, which was, however, more confusing in content than Kaupunkikirjat. It seems that this series has also been discontinued.
Lonely Planet or Rough Guide?
Alongside Finnish-language guides, there are of course English-language guides. The market is dominated by Lonely Planet, for which Rough Guide is a good alternative. So which one should you choose, a Lonely Planet or Rough Guide guide?
Lonely Planet guides are generally very evenly matched: all guides are equally good, but no guide stands out above the others. Lonely Planet guides offer comprehensive basic information about destinations, but rarely if ever more. They are also made to appeal to the widest possible audience.
Lonely Planet has guides for almost every corner of the world, and Antarctica has even published its own guide.
Rough Guide guides generally give the author more freedom than the Lonely Planet series, and at best Rough Guides can be much better in terms of background information (history, culture and attractions) than Lonely Planet guides. That is why it is worth choosing Rough Guide if such is available at the destination.
The quality of Rough Guides also varies more than Lonely Planet, and sometimes Rough Guides can be a bit of a disappointment. But it's worth taking the risk! For example, Rough Guide's Thailand guide has been a great information package.
Blue Guides
Those who are more deeply interested in culture and art should gladly abandon Lonely Planet and Rough Guides and choose Blue Guide. It is difficult to imagine better cultural guides than this!
Blue Guides usually contain a lot of interesting background information about the history and culture of the destination.
Hotel and restaurant tips, however, are much more limited than in the guides mentioned above.
Experiences with travel guidebooks?
Tell us about your own experiences with different travel guides: what are your personal favorites among the available travel guides? What are good travel guidebooks, and which ones do you think are downright terrible?
