Travel to Great Britain

London For Dummies (Dummies Travel)

Format: Paperback
Author: Donald Olson
ReleaseDate: 06 March, 2006
Publisher: For Dummies
Rating:

Worth the purchase
Since we were only going to be there from Dec 26 through Jan 1 we wanted to see as much as possible. I read this book before we left for London and took it with me. The maps were a great help in laying out a logical route for each day. Each place we wanted to see had a description, price, hours, and especially the tube stop in the book. We travelled everywhere by tube (London Underground) so there was no guesswork. Buy a day Travelcard for Zone 1 and 2 and you are set. We never found any mistakes in the book. You must see the fireworks from the London Eye on New Year's Eve. We were on the Waterloo Bridge and it was spectacular.

Buy a real English guide
So when an American friend asked me to have a look at this book, I was intrigued. I've lived in London my entire life and you might say that I'm a typical Londoner.

What I found was a lot of nonsense. So many of the "insider secrets" are simply not true.

For example, not a single Londoner would ever call the royal family 'The Firm'. Cheers doesn't normally mean goodbye, but is instead used to say 'thanks' (e. g. "cheers, mate - it's just what I needed") - oh, and mate can be a female friend too. Nobody - and I mean nobody - says 'kew instead of thank you. It's either thanks, cheers, ta or thank you.

The book may be fairly useful for finding cheap hotels etc, but I really wouldn't put much faith in some of the other 'facts'.

If you are visiting London, why not use the guide that we English rely on, "Rough Guide". It's written by people who actually live here, and is also likely to be much more up-to-date. When you arrive, pick up a London A-Z, which is FAR, FAR better than any fold out map or street plan in the back of a book. And finally, buy a copy of "Time Out" magazine. We use this to find good restaurants, shows, cinemas etc and it comes out once a week.

Sorry this has been rather negative, but I thought I should set the record straight. .

Great travel Book
My husband and I took this book with us on our trip to London in the fall and it helped us out tremendously. This book is wonderful. The recommendations for hotels were great as was the information for all the sights to see. It has great information as to the hours and prices of different attractions. I highly recommend this book.

Related products:
click image or link for details on these Great Britain travel books.

	Paris For Dummies
	England For Dummies (Dummies Travel)
	The London Mapguide, 4th Edition
	Ireland for Dummies
	Frommer's London 2007 (Frommer's Complete)