Travel to Austria

Rick Steves' Germany and Austria 2006 (Rick Steves)

Format: Paperback
Author: Rick Steves
ReleaseDate: 08 February, 2006
Publisher: Avalon Travel Publishing
Rating:

The travel book I've used in Germany & Austria
Eyewitness Travel Germany; 2. I moved to Germany 2 months ago and came prepared with three travel guides: 1. Frommer's Germany's Best-Loved Driving Tours; 3. Rick Steves' Germany and Austria 2006. Two months into our stay here we now almost exclusively use the Rick Steves' book. . . . . It is fantastic! His opinionated travel advice always seems to be right on. I highly recommend this book or its upcoming update (2007) to any visiting or moving to Germany. .

Useful but limited and too patronizing
I really don't need someone to tell me what to think, even when in a foreign country. There is no denying it, this book has lots of useful tips and is easy to use but I did find the tone a bit patronizing at times. I also did not like the "show this book for x% discount" offers - I rather pay full price elsewhere and know the place is in the guidebook on its own merits.

The book covers only the most popular tourist destinations and is a bit lightweight to my taste on historical details. The author offers sensible advice by saying if you spend $3,000 on a vacation another $25 for additional guidebooks is money well spent.

I found the self-guided walking tours despite the not-to-scale maps very useful although I would follow the author's advice and rip the book apart and only carry the vital pages rather than be seen with this book in hand. Of the three guidebooks I used I liked this one the least.

Trite and conventional
Not only did it cover only the most touristy places, but it left out many more interesting, not as common, sites. Was very disappointed with this book. The real tip off is that he lists places that "guarantee the price listed here if you show them your copy of this book" or offer a "10% discount" with this book. That isn't really objective reporting in my opinion.

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