Lonely Planet England (Country Guide)

 (11 customer reviews)

You're going to LOVE BRITAIN! I've spent a year in England and have made >30 visits all together.

Here are my reviews of the best guides....to meet you r exact needs.....I hope these are helpful and that you have a great visit! I always gauge the quality of my visit by how much I remember a year later......this review is designed to help you get the guide that will be sure YOU remember your trip many years into the future. Travel Safe and enjoy yourself to the max!

Lonely Planet

Lonely Planet has City and Out To Eat Guides. They are all about the experience so they focus on doing, being, getting there, and this means they have the best detailed information, including both inexpensive and really spectacular restaurants and hotels, out-of-the-way places, weird things to see and do, the list is endless.

Fodor's

Fodor's is the best selling guide among Americans. They have a bewildering array of different guides. Here's which is...Read more

I will soon be traveling to England and plan to trek around the country for a week on as little money as possible. I know that Lonely Planet produces the best kind of guides for this type of traveler - that is, a cheapskate drifter like me. I'm certainly happy I picked this guide up and I'm mostly confident in the data it provides. There's a treasure trove of information on how to travel cheap, especially in terms of bus and train transport between the major cities, plus inexpensive lodging - including hostels and even YMCA's and campgrounds. The problem with this guide is a general "cooler-than-thou" attitude toward tourist areas, with a real snobbish outlook on some popular attractions. An example is the Madame Tussaud organization, as their various museums are described as boring at least twice in the book (I've been to England before and I strongly disagree). Also watch out for the general "tacky" or "dull" label for many towns that cater to...Read more

Guidebooks tend to be hit or miss, and Lonely Planet's tend to be especially inconsistent.

I have used the Lonely Planet guides during my trips to Morocco, Japan, Australia, and New Zealand and found those to be excellent. So when I recently went on a two-week trip to England, I picked up this guide and figured it'd be very handy.

For London, it is very useful; It lists the major sites with phone numbers and hours, has a reasonable guide to accomodation, and the maps are very well-done.

For anywhere outside London, I found this book to be less than useful. I went out to explore the New Forest and drive around Cornwall, and actually found the AA Road Atlas more useful for finding popular sites and information about them. Many items listed in the AA Road Atlas had side-note paragraphs in the Lonely Planet guide, but these were not indexed so were nearly impossible to find.

Also, most of the smaller towns that are interesting were not even...Read more