Let's Go Europe 2012: The Student Travel Guide

From Portugal to Hungary, from Great Britain down to Greece, Europe is a lot to take on. Luckily, the student adventurers behind Let’s Go Europe 2012 think you can handle it—with a little help. Whether you’re whipping through London, Barcelona, and Prague in five days or spending a leisurely year abroad, you’ll get all the info you need from us. Our wit and irreverence can brighten even the drabbest Renaissance museum—if you didn’t take our advice to skip it. From German beer halls to Roman ruins, Let's Go Europe 2012 is your ticket to adventure.

Let's Go publishes the world's favorite student travel guides, written entirely by Harvard undergraduates. Armed with pens, notebooks, and a few changes of underwear stuffed in their backpacks, our student researchers go across continents, through time zones, and above expectations to seek out invaluable travel experiences for our readers. Let's Go has been on the road for 50 years and counting: We're on a mission to provide our readers with sharp, fresh coverage packed with socially responsible opportunities to go beyond tourism.

 (19 customer reviews)

I was very disappointed in Let's Go Europe 2010 and wrote a 2 star review for it last year. In short: 2010 was the first year for a new company producing these books and it was an almost exact rehash of 2009 with about two thirds of the content. In fact, I wound up using 2009 on my trip last year.

I was looking forward to seeing if 2011 would recapture the glory of this once proud series.

At first glance, the new company seems to have gotten its sea legs: the page total has jumped back up and a cursory look at some of the cities I visited last year showed that hostels are up to date and the writing is original. Some countries are still painfully bare (Ireland has only Dublin and, surprise, Let's Go happens to offer another book for you to buy with more detail) but at least this new outfit doesn't seem content to rehash again.

I then started paging through some of my dream destinations for accommodations and was astonished to see that while hostel...Read more

Admittedly, this guide had omitted some major cities, and the maps didn't have the hostels or restaurants labeled.

However, to be honest, the listings for stuff like accommodations and nightlife are just UNBEATABLE, so I'm willing to deal with the flaws in order to get those recommendations.

I was trying to keep to a budget, so maybe I'm biased, but when I opened the Lonely Planet and Frommer's guides in the bookstore, their idea of "cheap" was like...65 euro a night. Even the "shoestring" book was borderline. That's just not the sort of budget I'm operating on.
Let's Go, on the other hand, listed hostels and cheap mom-and-pop places that got me through most of Western Europe on 20 euro or less a night. No complaints about those prices.

And nightlife? My friends' guides had maybe 3 awkward ex-pat bars listed each. And I found that it's super-tough to come upon a fun, hoppin' nightlife place that isn't just full of American study-abroad students...Read more

As someone who is well past my college years, I was somewhat amused by the content of this travel guide. It is highly focused on drinking establishments, where to find affordable lodging near drinking establishments, and how to avoid ending up in an area of Europe that has a lack of fun places to drink.

However, I wasn't surprised. This is a guidebook written by college students for college students. I can't be too critical of this book's focus because I am certainly not among the target audience.

I will say that, since Let's Go Europe is written by Harvard students, I feel kind of bad for the college kids without trust funds or a parent's credit card in hand who try to live the lifestyle expounded on in the book. I wouldn't recommend that kids take out thousands of dollars in student loans in order to finance a "Let's Go-Style European Vacation."

The book is written with the expectation that the reader is going on a months-long grand tour of...Read more