DK's "Eyewitness Travel Guide Great Britain" is another in a terrific series of regularly-revised, comprehensive travel books. This guide is a colorful, well-arranged, and fascinating source of just the kind of detailed infromation needed to plan to a good vacation or business trip to Great Britain.

"Great Britain" opens up with maps and a short history lesson, then proceeds to cover the country by region, beginning with London, the UK's great city and most frequently visited location. The guide then works its way around England, Wales, and Scotland before closing out with some practical general information on arriving in and traveling around Britain, along with suggestions for places to stay and eat.

Each regional section offers a survey of the geography and suggested routes for touring. The short descriptions of the principal tourist attractions, whether castles, historic homes, museums, parks, cathedrals, or outside recreation sites, are accompanied by photographs, area or street maps, and in some cases, detailed cutaway diagrams of prominent buildings. The descriptions typically include useful details on hours of operation and telephone numbers. A visitor armed with this guide and perhaps a motoring atlas would be very adequately equipped to travel around Britain, and have no excuse for being bored.

Great Britain offers an astonishing array of historic sites and beautiful landscapes. Those looking for world-class shopping and culture can surely find it in London. Those seeking outdoor recreation will find it in the Highlands of Scotland, the Peaks and Lakes Districts in England, and in mountainous Wales. Most of the country can be reached by public transportation, for those uneasy about driving on the left on Britain's extensive motorways.

This guide is very highly recommended to travelors planning a trip to the British Isles. Great Britain itself is also highly recommended as a fascinating destination.

DK's "Eyewitness Travel Guide Great Britain" is another in a terrific series of regularly-revised, comprehensive travel books. This guide is a colorful, well-arranged, and fascinating source of just the kind of detailed infromation needed to plan to a good vacation or business trip to Great Britain.

"Great Britain" opens up with maps and a short history lesson, then proceeds to cover the country by region, beginning with London, the UK's great city and most frequently visited location. The guide then works its way around England, Wales, and Scotland before closing out with some practical general information on arriving in and traveling around Britain, along with suggestions for places to stay and eat.

Each regional section offers a survey of the geography and suggested routes for touring. The short descriptions of the principal tourist attractions, whether castles, historic homes, museums, parks, cathedrals, or outside recreation sites, are accompanied by photographs, area or street maps, and in some cases, detailed cutaway diagrams of prominent buildings. The descriptions typically include useful details on hours of operation and telephone numbers. A visitor armed with this guide and perhaps a motoring atlas would be very adequately equipped to travel around Britain, and have no excuse for being bored.

Great Britain offers an astonishing array of historic sites and beautiful landscapes. Those looking for world-class shopping and culture can surely find it in London. Those seeking outdoor recreation will find it in the Highlands of Scotland, the Peaks and Lakes Districts in England, and in mountainous Wales. Most of the country can be reached by public transportation, for those uneasy about driving on the left on Britain's extensive motorways.

This guide is very highly recommended to travelors planning a trip to the British Isles. Great Britain itself is also highly recommended as a fascinating destination.

This book is great if you're interested in touring Great Britain. It leaves nothing out that you could possibly have a question about & there are web sights for everything! Our son & daughter-in-law gave us this book for Christmas 2006 so we could familiarize oueselves with the history of the country & then decide what sights we wanted to visit. The book was invaluable to us as we toured London, & its outlaying cities, villages & countryside. It book was our constant companion. Now, other family members are planning their trip to Great Britain using the Great Britain book that we gave them as a gift! The book is also loaded with beautiful pictures & very useful maps!

I purchased this guide for a Christmas guest who dreams of a trip to the British Isles. He spent most of his time with us pouring over the pictures and information, lost in travel dreams. It was a perfect gift.

Great to look at, read, fantasize over. (Um...) No, these are a terrific concept in travel writing, and I love the entire series. Through this I was able to see sites other books just described, and I chose some places to visit in Britain strictly because after this book's angle of coverage I found them more enthralling than I'd thought I would, and so re-arranged my itinerary. And that's what the Eyewitness books are all about!

I recently spent 8.5 weeks in Great Britain, and I bought this book to help me plan out my trip... places I wanted to visit, particular sights I wanted to see, etc. It was perfect! The pages are filled with pictures and valuable information, making it very appealing to read - unlike many other tour books that are simply filled with text. This book also includes maps of many cities and city centres, which I found extremely helpful in the places I visited. A great guide all around!

We used this guide to plan a week in London which included trips to outlying places... Oxford, Windsor, Sussex. It was a big help while we were there but more than that, it was also a great "dream and drool" wish book, for the places we saw and those we hope some day to see.

The size is doable as a take-along guide, but perhaps best left in one's room and then consulted before each excursion (it is a tad heavy in the purse or backpack). But then again there is nothing like having the cut away perspective drawings of places like Westminster Abbey to add to the enjoyment of a visit. Ditto the National Gallery cut-away.

The London maps and street finder are very good. The section on the River View of London prompted us to take a river tour our first late-afternoon there and it gave us excellent sense of direction for where the landmarks were throughout our visit (even tho we ventured to them by tube).

Maps, photos, drawings, facts, all are first rate.

We've used this guide book for:
- Two trips to Scotland;
- Multiple trips to London and surrounding areas, both for business and pleasure;
- A recent trip to Oxford, with side trips to the Cotswolds, Windsor Castle et al.

For sites to see, the DK guide books have excellent maps, points of interest and "star sights", their recommendation of places you must see. I've found their Westminster Abbey and St. Paul's Cathedral sections in this book particularly well done, and the coverage of London plus maps have prevented us from having to purchase a separate London guide. The Blenheim Palace, Oxford University and Cotswolds section were very helpful on this last go round. Recommendation on places to stop and things to see in Scotland saved the day on a long road trip from Glasgow up Loch Ness, over to Perth, finishing in Edinburgh...the stop for sheep shearing save my kids and my sanity.

One site recommendation that was oversold in the book was the hillside chalk figures in the Vale of the White Horse (Thames Valley)...interesting history, not much to see.

The recommendations on eateries and hotels are well done, we've used them for Scotland and London. In Oxford, we stayed at the wonderful Remont B&B, which is not listed in the version of the guide we have but may and should be listed in new/future versions.

We will wear this guide out on future trips.

We've used this guide book for:
- Two trips to Scotland;
- Multiple trips to London and surrounding areas, both for business and pleasure;
- A recent trip to Oxford, with side trips to the Cotswolds, Windsor Castle et al.

For sites to see, the DK guide books have excellent maps, points of interest and "star sights", their recommendation of places you must see. I've found their Westminster Abbey and St. Paul's Cathedral sections in this book particularly well done, and the coverage of London plus maps have prevented us from having to purchase a separate London guide. The Blenheim Palace, Oxford University and Cotswolds section were very helpful on this last go round. Recommendation on places to stop and things to see in Scotland saved the day on a long road trip from Glasgow up Loch Ness, over to Perth, finishing in Edinburgh...the stop for sheep shearing save my kids and my sanity.

One site recommendation that was oversold in the book was the hillside chalk figures in the Vale of the White Horse (Thames Valley)...interesting history, not much to see.

The recommendations on eateries and hotels are well done, we've used them for Scotland and London. In Oxford, we stayed at the wonderful Remont B&B, which is not listed in the version of the guide we have but may and should be listed in new/future versions.

We will wear this guide out on future trips.

Excellent. Same quality content as the Fodder's guides, but with so many more illustrations, maps, etc.

This product exceeded my expectations, in its readability and quality. The book itself has thick pages and a nice laminated cover (not much of a pocket size though, and heavy). The illustrations, including the street maps broken down into neighborhoods are beautiful and easy to understand. The text and background is informative and concise, making a interesting reading experience even if you are not traveling to the UK.

I did not get alot out of the hotel and restaurant guide however, I think it should be supplemented with other information about hotels and restaurants, which is easy to find on the internet.

I suggest this book to anyone who is going, or wishes they were going, to the UK, especially England.

This product exceeded my expectations, in its readability and quality. The book itself has thick pages and a nice laminated cover (not much of a pocket size though, and heavy). The illustrations, including the street maps broken down into neighborhoods are beautiful and easy to understand. The text and background is informative and concise, making a interesting reading experience even if you are not traveling to the UK.

I did not get alot out of the hotel and restaurant guide however, I think it should be supplemented with other information about hotels and restaurants, which is easy to find on the internet.

I suggest this book to anyone who is going, or wishes they were going, to the UK, especially England.

If you are planning a trip to Great Britain this is a good guide to start with. If you are just going to London and Scotland I would buy their individual books as this gets a little overbearing at times. If you are taking a tour of the whole Isle I would start with this book and then get more detailed ones as you progress. Also don't miss picking up a top 10 London from this company. It will help out quite a bit.

As with most travel guides, this one starts off with a brief section that introduces the reader to Great Britain as a whole with info on weather, culture, history, as well as some maps. This material is interesting but not crucial. Next, it moves on to the meat of the book, which is the more detailed information by region. The guide breaks down Great Britain into 15 sections, and gives each one a reasonable amount of coverage.

The major attractions are all presented here including pictures and 3-D style maps and charts that really help give you a sense of what these areas and building are like. When planning my trip, I found this guide invaluable in helping me decide which areas of the country I most wanted to visit in the limited time available. Given that nearly all the other travel guides are solely text, this one is well worth buying for the hundreds of maps and photos.

The book also contains a listing of restaurants and hotels but this is the least useful section. There are no ratings, and only a brief description. Frankly, you will want to buy one of the more detailed guides for this type of information.

This guide is a great help if you are planning to tour through Great Britain. If your trip will be largely limited to London, you would do better to buy the Eyewitness Guide for that city as it is both smaller and cheaper and will have everything you need. It is ideal for getting a sense of what an area or particular attraction is like but is not very helpful for choosing where to stay or eat. I would recommend buying this in addition to a second guide, such as Frommer's, for a complete solution.

This is a very good-looking book and has good information. However, it is only recommended to those who only wish to see picturesque villages, Buckingham Palace and the like. It contains almost no information on anything modern or even slightly off-the-beaten-track and many major sights are completely ignored.

I love this book, and would recommend it to anyone!

I loved this comprehensive guide.The pictures and information are well presented. When planning a trip I first buy an Eyewitness guide.Its easy to understand and covers the history, food and other interesting areas.A great buy.

I've used some of the Eyewitness Travel Guides on a trip around Europe, they were so useful that when I came home I've bought some more. They are more than travel guides, they are also a souvenir. I totally recommend them. Great pictures, great 3D street maps with suggested routes, great explanations.

My work has provided me with the opportunity to travel a good bit. I am the type of person who wants to get a working background for my destinations, both in terms of history and geographic layout. Because I work, I don't have a great deal of time to spend reading and studying different, often lengthy, travel guides before or during my trips.

Because these guides are concise, beautifully illustrated, relatively compact, and impeccably organized, I cannot recommend highly enough the Dorling Kindersley Eyewitness Travel Guides! The DK Eyewitness Travel Guide is THE guide I buy for every destination. Not only do I get a quick history and background of the destination, but I also will be provided with a visual guide to everything. The visual detail is really what sets the DK Eyewitness Travel Guides apart.

The street maps of common destination points are drawn in dimensional detail so you will visually recognize when you "get there." The regional maps are colorful and concise. And the drawings associated with attractions like museums allow the traveler who is short on time to quickly see the best of the museum within the time the traveler has to spend.

Each DK Eyewitness Travel Guide has a good summary section in the back with practical information about where to eat, where to sleep, what to do, and how to get around.

While I may supplement the DK Eyewitness Travel Guide with others for a more detailed travel guide, the other guide is only more to read, not more to see. Buy the DK Eyewitness Travel Guide first for any destination.

I've spent a year in England and have made >30 visits all together.

Here are my reviews of the best guides....to meet your 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 and remember.....getting lost is the best part because that's where you get to relate to locals and have some of the best opportunities for spectacular experiences!

Eyewitness Travel Guides
Eyewitness is appropriately named as each book provides spectacular 3d aerial angled views of the primary tourists sections. The accompanying information has the full color photos everyone seems to want but what is great about these guides is that they do a fairly good job of providing details about sites, odd stories to perk your interest, and little known things to give you a decent background. The history timelines are visually interesting and do a lot for American perspectives as it helps us a lot to see the full spread of the centuries in order to understand where the sites we are seeing fit into the multi-millenneal scope of things. These are justifiably the best selling travel books for Americans.

Fodor's
Fodor's used to be the best selling guide among Americans. They have a bewildering array of different guides. Here's which is what:
The Gold Guide is the main book with good reviews of everything and lots of tours, walks, and just about everything else you could think of. It's not called the Gold guide for nothing though....it assumes you have money and are willing to spend it.
SeeIt! is a concise guide that extracts the most popular items from the Gold Guide
PocketGuide is designed for a quick first visit
UpCLOSE for independent travel that is cheap and well thought out
CityPack is a plastic pocket map with some guide information
Exploring is for cultural interests, lots of photos and designed to supplement the Gold guide

MapGuide
MapGuide is very easy to use and has the best location information for pubs, hotels, tourist attractions, museums, churches etc. that they manage to keep fairly up to date. It's great for teaching you how to use the underground and the double decker buses. The text sections are quick overviews, not reviews, but the strong suite here is brevity, not depth. I strongly recommend this for your first few times learning your way around the classic tourist sites and experiences. MapGuide is excellent as long as you are staying pretty much in the city centre. When you get to be an old London hand, remember that the classic Londoners guide will always be an A to Z (zed) map and guide. If you want to go a bit beyond the central core of the city (perhaps to Windsor, Hampton, or further away) you really need the proper AtoZ to be able to find exact routes and streets.

Time Out
The Time Out guides are very good. Easy reading, short reviews of restaurants, hotels, and other sites, with good public transport maps that go beyond the city centre. Many people who buy more than one guidebook end up liking this one best!

Blue Guides
Without doubt, the best of the walks guides.... the Blue Guide has been around since 1918 and has extremely well designed walks with lots of unique little side stops to hit on just about any interest you have. If you want to pick up the feel of the city, this is the best book to do that for you. This is one that you end up packing on your 10th trip, by which time it is well worn.

Michelin
Famous for their quality reviews, the Red Michelin Guides are for hotels & Restaurants, the Green Michelin Guides are for main tourist destinations. However, the English language Green guide is the one most people use and it has now been supplemented with hotel and restaurant information. These are the serious review guides as the famous Michelin ratings are issued via these books.

Let's Go
Let's Go is a great guide series that specializes in the niche interest details that turn a trip into a great and memorable experience. Started by and for college students, these guides are famous for the details provided by people who used the book the previous year. They continue to focus on providing a great experience inexpensively. If you want to know about the top restaurants, this is not for you (use Fodor's or Michelin). Let's Go does have a bewildering array of different guides though. Here's which is what:
Budget Guide is the main guide with incredibly detailed information and reviews on everything you can think of.
City Guide is just as intense but restricted to the single city.
PocketGuide is even smaller and features condensed information
MapGuide's are very good maps with public transportation and some other information (like museum hours, etc.)

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.

Frommer's
These are time tested guides that pride themselves on being updated annually. Although I think the guides below provide information that is in more depth or more concise (depending on what the guide is known for), if your main concern is that the guide has very little old or outdated information, then this would be a good guide for you.

Rick Steves' books are not recommended. They may be an interesting read but their helpfulness is very poor. They don't do well on updates, transportation details, or anything but the first-time-tourist routine and even that is somewhat superficial on anything but the mega-major sites.

This is the best travel book I've ever owned. My husband's family is from the UK so we travel there quite a bit. Every time we go we pull out our book find a new place to visit. Everything is very clear. I love the cut aways of the inside of buildings, the maps, and just about everything else about this book. We like this book so much we got the updated version of it this year as our was about five years old. It isn't really much different. There were a few more things in it, but basically the same. This year we're going to Scotland and got the Eyewitness Scotland Top Ten. Another great book. As we have children we looked up the top ten sites for children in Scotland. It's so much easier to plan your trip when you have a resource like this at your fingertips. A deffinite great buy.

First of all, for all those who are not familiar to the UK (Great Britain)the Britain this guide try to show you has not excisted since the end of the 1950's. The images are buetiful, in fact I will complement it on selling such a romantic vision of contemporary Britain. But alas this is all false. Verging on 99.9 percent of the UK's people have never eaten cream-cakes or had tea and crumpets with the Queen in Buckingham Palace, likewise nobody in the country speaks like the Queen (sorry to tell it like it is.) Roads are concrete and Burger King & McDonalds lurk in every town. I can say as a UK citizen that this guide is giving out mis-information. I would recommend reading this book if you are planning on visiting the countryside or a museum but otherwise they are selling you a vision of Britain that has been dead for nearly 60 years. If you buy this guide, belelive what you read, and visit the country you will (and we see this happening on a regular basis in Britain) walk into the roughest and most run-down area of London for example, ask the first person you meet in a bar for scones and tea and then you and maybe your partner will be beaten to pulp and have your possessions stolen. By no means is Britain a hell-hole, but its far from the Britain shown in this Travel Guide. Sorry to tell it like it it.

This book covers everything. I'm especially impressed with the History of Britain section. It goes through each time period, prehistoric, norman, tudor, georgian, victorian, each illustrated with a beautifully drawn diagram of a building of that period and wonderful photographs of artifacts from the period. It has a section, also illustrated by photographs, of English food and dozens of easy to read maps. This is invaluable if you are traveling to Britain, but also precious to the person who isn't, as it virtually enables them to from their armchair.

When I received this book in the mail, I was quite surprised at its size. It's thicker than some of the other Eyewitness travel books, but this should not discourage you! There is so much information that one can get very engrossed in reading and learning from it for hours on end. I found the maps extremely useful and the different sections divided up for easy referencing made locating places to eat, hotels to stay at, and things to see very quick and easy. What a wonderful guide! The pictures are superb and it really is a clever travel companion. I've found the Eyewitness travel books to be very smart and practical...a real asset to the frequent, casual, and even business traveler. I recommend it highly as a companion guide to other travel books you may acquire about Great Britain, however it could do the job quite well on its own also.

I'm only 13, but collecting travel books is one of my passions. I've got 35 right now. The Great Britain book is one of the best! I was just there actually last month as an 8th-grade graduation present. This book is just GREAT! Cool history info, stuff about the country, cutaways and floor plans just bring Britain into my life. The LONDON section is the best, with "tube" stations marked and many cutaways and floor plans! GREAT BOOK, INDEED!

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Summary:
Every Dorling Kindersley Guide has been a great and interesting book... and delightful to have and use, even if you are not traveling to that location, but are only interested in learning more!

The Guides are well organized in a logical and easy to follow manner. They are beautifully illustrated, well developed with accurate information (it is unusual for hotel and restaurant information to be that accurate), have enough history to help the reader understand the people and cultural background, and have a lot of useful travel information and useable maps in the appendixes.

But, the really great attraction to this book is several fold; it is:
............Very complete
............Easy to read
............Beautifully and artistically completed
............Good shopping, safety and other tips
............Gorgeous photographs too numerous to list.

Summary Negative:

The country books are too general to really satisfy all your needs in any given location. So, if your entire trip is spent in Wessex, for example, you will also want to get the specific guide for that city (but, the London Section is fairly good)

Guide Specifics:

The guides are organized as follows:

How to use this guide
Introduction to Great Britain
............Portrait of Great Britain
............History of Great Britain
............Great Britain Through the Year
London, Area by Area
Great Britain by Region
............Southeast England
........................Specific Cities / Towns
............West Country
........................Specific Cities / Towns
............Midlands
........................Specific Cities / Towns
............North Country
........................Specific Cities / Towns
............Wales
........................Specific Cities / Towns
............Scotland
........................Specific Cities / Towns
Travelers Needs
............Hotels
............Restaurants
............Shopping
Survival Information
............Practical Info.
........................Police, safety, buses, trains, etc.
............Travel Info.
........................Maps, tours, currency, etc.
............General Index
............Phrase Book

Discussion:
The book begins with "A Portrait of Great Britain", including a complete map, a review of Great Britain, it's history, and Great Britain's History (very interesting), and Great Britain though the Year - including events, etc.,

Region with an "At a glance" overview, then has subsections of Cities / Towns, then specific locations, churches, historical monuments, bridges, galleries, etc.

Architectural reviews include various views, and cutaways; given greater understanding and better perspective. They are all attractive, if not works of art - honestly.

The travelers' Info. offers good and valid info. on prices, currencies, customs, important words, etc. I used the reviews on resorts, hotel's restaurants and nightclubs, etc. and found they were useful and accurate, and helpful with my touring and site decisions

The books are so well thought out that it has multiple maps, with various lookup tables, and the book's flaps are designed to be used as bookmarks for map pages.

Negative:
The country-wide guides are by definition more general than the specific city guides. So, if you are going to Scotland, get the specific "Scotland" guide (another great guide). If you decide to get the "Great Britain" guide for your 3, or 4 city tour of England, understand that this guide may be a little to general for all your local travel needs.

Conclusion:
As the President, CEO of an International Meeting Planning Corporation we have many resources and techniques to learn about places we have meetings / groups at as well as the cities and sights. But, as a traveler, this book really is top notch and I would recommend it to anyone going on a personal trip, or wanting to learn about a city, or location.

This guidebook is essential for someone traveling to the UK, particularly for the first time. Of the 3 or 4 books I bought, this was the one I took along on the trip. Highlights include its detailed visual summary of all the major attractions, along with the practical info needed (hours/months of operation, etc) and detailed section on practical travel related topics (money, phones, modes of transport), contact info, and great area maps and overhead angled views of particularly interesting locations and buildings. The B&B and restaurant sections are also useful but need to be supplemented with the appropriate focused guides on those subjects. Color coded sections make it even easier to find what you're looking for fast. The only significant drawback is that it is heavy for its size due to the glossy, full color pages. These comments also apply to all the other Eyewitness Guides that I've seen.

When planning trips to Europe, I frequently consult Eyewitness travel guides, because of their great breadth of coverage and strong organization (regions in the specific country are divided into colors). It can sure make navigating through the pastoral Lake District and captivating city of London that much easier.

Of course, the strongest point is the massive coverage of London. There are about seventy pages devoted to this stunning capital. All the main sights are covered, with their hours, photos/remarkable drawings, historical insights, and all the other necessary information included. From there, this book goes off into all the intricacies of Great Britain, from Bath to Scotland. Coverage remains strong, be it Cambridge or Wales. This travel guide is a nice change from Fodor's dreary presentation on stark black and white pages; reading about and planning travel should be enjoyable, not like reading a textbook. This book, on the other hand, does a nice job of making that happen.

Another strong point, is the fact that the book is able to meld history, graphical representations, and all of the major sights, towns, and villages of Great Britain into its copious amount of pages. The introduction, with such information as a quick glance at British history and typical foods, is a nice touch. The countryside tours and stately home inserts are both informative and lavish, as are the "street-by-street" layouts, which are used for many of the towns and cities. This book disappoints, though, on the coverage of hotels; there is a rather slim representation of hotels available, especially in London.

Overall, this book is well presented, thoughtful, and edifying - a necessary guide through what can be the intimidating isle of Great Britain.

This book lives up to its slogan: it shows you what the others only tell you. The pictures are beautiful and the maps are excellent--much larger than you would usually find in other guidebooks.The guidebook also covers British history, food and money. Because of the amount of illustrations and pictures, however, it would not be the only guide I would buy if traveling to Britain. I would recommend this book as a complement to other guidebooks from which you could get more detailed info on lodging and prices.

I bought this book not for travel but to help me visualize places I was reading about in various historical novels. It certainly helped it all come to life! The graphics and photos are wonderful. Since that time, I've also used the book whenever I want to do "armchair travel" - stimulates the imagination and provides hours of interesting reading.

There is enormous coverage in this book. Maybe that is its main drawback. There is just so MUCH to Great Britain, that it is impossible to go into great depth. HOWEVER, what it does it does extremely well.

The house style of the Eyewitness guides is very attractive - beautiful pictures, cutaways and good maps.

It is not the sort of guide that is very comprehensive in restaurant and hotel suggestions - but in the UK there is such a good network of tourist offices that you rarely need a huge accommodation listings book. Each tourist office will book accommodation in any price range or category.

I wrote a rave review of the London guide. I suggest if you are spending an extensive time in London, it is worthwhile buying that book instead. And if you are spending significant time in Scotland, consider that book.

When I bought this book at a local bookstore to prepare for an upcoming trip to Great Britain -- it looked like the perfect book. Nice bright glossy photos made it interesting to flip though, and get good ideas of where and what to see.

However, I'm now in the planning stages of my trip and find the book is falling short. It is organized by MAJOR area, but the smaller areas aren't labelled well and are hard to find. And then, for the most part, both restaurants and hotels AREN'T in the section that covers a small area, they are jammed in the back like an afterthought. This means if you are planning to stay in one area, you cant look to see where to stay without flipping to the back. There are simple 1/2 line descriptions, with an address/phone number, and a ballpark price. Outside of looking at price, there is very little indication that says, "hey this is a luxury hotel" or "that hotel is overpriced" or "watch out, there is no air conditioning in that hotel"

The book does have nice pictures which is important, I find myself saying, "Hey, Id like to go to see that!" So for getting ideas on where to visit, it's good. It also has some helpful travel advice on what to do and what to pack, etc It includes pictures of local food, which is good so you know what you might run into.

Although I'll probably bring this book with me on vacation, there simply isn't enough information to decide where to stay and where to eat -- and the information that IS there isn't organzied properly.

I used a Frommer's guide last year for London and for Ireland, and it was incredibly helpful for planning that trip. I recently bought a Frommer's England 2000 guide which is organized much better -- but only covers England so I'll have to buy Frommer's Scotland 2000 too -- but I'll have the information I need.

I wasn't sure if I really liked this book when I first got it, but after reading many other London travel guides, I could find none better than this one. It has become my Bible and will accompany me every step of my trip. One suggestion for the publisher: I would have given the book five stars if a pull-out map of all of London was included!

This book features fantastic photos in high gloss and some great bits of information. But if you're looking for a travel guide with hotels and restaurants and practical information, stick to the Let's Go guide or the Lonely Planet guide or Rough Guide. All in all it's a beautiful book.

Covering every imaginable spot of interest in Great Britain and packed with maps and color pictures, this is a travel guide you could enjoy just reading like a novel. The attractive layout and photos of locations and attractions really help you decide what to include in your itinerary. Color diagrams of museums, castles and sightseeing districts makes you feel more in control and less lost. With this guide and a car, we traveled for a month and were never disappointed.