Lonely Planet, home of excellent travel advice and an active travel community, has been publishing some new books, both of the coffee table variety, and of the road trip guide variety. Their latest offerings include books to guide you around places in the United States, such as California and New England, and around European countries like France and Ireland.
Lonely Planet’s full color Best Trips series has many books to help you plan your trips or whet your appetite for a dream vacation.
It has long been my opinion that the best way to experience a location is by car. Public transportation is great, but doesn’t let you get to the smaller towns and out of the way sites like National Parks or a friend’s house. Cruises are a heck of a lot of fun, but usually the boat itself is more the destination, with only a sprinkling of experience with the geographical destination. With a car, you have spontaneity, flexibility, and often a cheaper overall cost, even if you have to rent the car.
Each of the books in the Best Trips series is organized to help you best plan for your road trip. You can start from a hub city, or just follow along the marked roads. The detailed maps of all of the trips let you see how long you should allow for each trip, and also how close different trip ideas are to one another. Plenty of planning help is there, including when to go, if visas are needed, where to rent cars, how much gas will cost, and what kind of experience each of the trip ideas will give you. The European books each come with a pull-out map for use while driving. Not everyone’s smart phone will work in Europe, so the old fashioned method of navigating by map is still important to plan for.
Each trip also gives you driving directions, so you won’t feel lost. It also points out interesting things to see along the way. The best-of-the-best places to eat and sleep along your route are also highlighted. All the guides also come with Essential Driving Guides, which help you drive in Europe or avoid problems in the U.S. For the non-English speaking countries, there is even a Language Guide helping you with some basic tourist and car vocabulary.
Summer is a great time for road trips, so start your planning now!
Lonely Planet’s Best Trips books retail for $22.99 for the ones of the United States and $24.99 for the European versions. Available now are the versions for California, New England, the Pacific Northwest, France, Italy, and Ireland. Figure out your destination now, and get the book!
Note: I received several of these books for review purposes.
