Travel to Washington

Frommer's Seattle 2006 (Frommer's Complete)

Format: Paperback
Author: Karl Samson
ReleaseDate: 04 January, 2006
Publisher: Frommer's
Rating:

Disappointing for a travel guide

The book is more like a short reading about the city, rather than a travel guide. I have been living in Seattle for 5 months and I got this book to navigate around, but this was disappointing. I would not be able to navigate myself around if I were traveling Seattle using this book.
I think this book is for people who read other standard travel guides such as LonelyPlanet, and want to know more.
I did buy LonelyPlanet after buying this book.

sleepless in seattle
I find that I still prefer Let's Go in terms of the writing style, amount of detail and organization. This is my first Frommer's travel book, I've always used Let's Go before, and the only reason I brought Frommer's is because Let's Go doesn't have a Seattle edition. Let's Go organizes in terms of area, for example, if you're exploring a particular neighborhood, you can just mark a chapter and you'll find everything in that chapter, i. e. sights, dining, accomodations, nightlife, etc. On the other hand, Frommer's organizes in terms of things to do, so you need to go to a different chapter to find a restaurant, and another chapter to find a hotel. Even the maps are organized this way - there are different maps for the same area for dining, accomodations, etc. I found the constant flipping through the pages very cumbersome. Also, Frommer's maps are not as detailed and harder to follow. For instance, we were exploring the Pike Place Market area and the map says there's supposed to be a restaurant there, but it wasn't. Frommer's doesn't provide detailed instructions on how to get from one place to another. Frommer's does provide categories with a varying range of prices - from very expensive, to moderate, and affordable. However, for the budget-minded traveler, I highly recommend Let's Go.

On the other hand, if you're only going to stay in Seattle and the surrounding areas, I would still pick Frommer's out of all the other books available because the other books include the entire Northwest area and only has a small chapter on Seattle. I do like the best things-to-do or eat lists.

Fairly Good...
I liked the fact that it gave day trip suggestions from the Seattle area (San Juan Islands, Mount Rainier, etc. I found this guide book to be relatively helpful in my Seattle travels. ), had some nice color pictures in the front, and gave some good summary itineraries in the beginning for people with varying degrees of time to spare. I don't refer to this as religiously as some other guidebook series I have for other cities, though. I found that it was lacking in quirky things to do or restaurants to eat at and really just summarized the overwhelmingly "normal" tourist things to do. It's a good first reference especially if you don't have a lot of time to see the city, but you might want something more detailed or a little less mainstream if you're going to have a substantial amount of time to explore the city. . . .

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

	Frommer's Vancouver & Victoria 2006 (Frommer's Complete)
	Top 10 Seattle (Eyewitness Travel Guides)
	Streetwise Seattle (Streetwise)
	Best Places Seattle: The Locals' Guide to the Best Restaurants, Lodgings, Sights, Shopping, and More! (Best Places Seattle)
	Frommer's Washington State (Frommer's Complete)