We just finished our annual guidebook review, as we plan our 2014 research (for the 2015 editions). The basic skills of travel are evolving, with the on-the-road technology available to all of us these days, in the form of smartphones, tablets, and widespread Wi-Fi. As we continue to update our many guidebooks, we have a few general questions:
- Do you find it helpful to have listings for Internet cafés (with actual terminals, not just Wi-Fi)?
- How are you finding hotels these days? My guidebook’s listings, websites (like TripAdvisor), calling ahead as you travel, local tourist offices and room-booking services, etc.? Our hunch is that people don’t use guidebook hotel listings while on the road as much as they used to.
- Is there any type of information we are missing in our guidebooks?
- Is there any type of information in our guidebooks that you do NOT use and would consider a waste of pages?
Thanks for your help.
Comments
1. I haven’t used an internet cafe overseas before….but I am from the techy generation who prefers just to whip out a smart phone and do a quick scan for Wifi.
2. I use your guidebooks suggestions as well as sites like TripAdvisor to get some ideas.
3. My first and immediate response to this was…”Color!” Then I was thinking about why there isn’t color photos graphs, diagrams, etc. I’m assuming its an effort to keep the price of a guidebook down. So I can’t fault you for that. However when I thumb through Snapshot guides…I think to myself why aren’t the guidebooks this way?
4. To me no information that you are willing to provide is useless. The only useless information is the stuff that isn’t in the book!
1. I don’t care about internet cafes and have never visited one. I just use wi-fi.
2. I find hotels using both tripadvisor and guidebooks as well as various travel forums. I always have hotels pre-booked so I don’t use the guidebooks for that on the road. And although we aren’t luxury travelers, I often find your recommended lodgings a little too basic for my taste.
We use a combination of your book and TripAdvisor, but we book our hotels well in advance of our visit. So we don’t find it useful during travel to have the hotels in the guidebook but it is useful during the planning stages.
Our favorite part of your guidebooks is your walking tours (we enjoy these on the audio guide as well). We also enjoy the tips you give about each location that would be otherwise difficult to know about prior to travel. Additionally, the restaurant listings are useful to have during travel.
The hotels are very important to me. I have always used the recommendation for the past 13 years. Now we can double check with Trip Advisor. But you always have to take that with a grain of salt because there are always complainers that will not be happy with anything. Now this year in London we have book Morgan House that you suggested because good price and the location we want. Hopefully RS has checked it out because I know that lower price London Hotel can be disappointing.
We use to use Internet cafe’s but now with the Ipad and Wifi at hotels don’t need that anymore.
I think restaurants are a waste. Most of the time we cannot even find the restaurant you suggest. Especially in Italy with nooks and crannies every where. we usually ask at our hotel or just wander and try something that looks good.
One thing that I think sets your guidebooks apart, besides the amazing amount of useful information that they contain, is that they are updated annually. Even if I have last year’s edition, I always buy the most current one. I also read every bit of info for the places we are going, and really appreciate your listing how to get from Point A to Point B, the excellent walking tours, the color city maps in the front of the books, your historical/cultural narratives, and the “at a glance” pages(to make sure we don’t miss a “must see”),etc. Internet cafes are not that important to me; I use hotel wifi and also enroll in a global data plan so I can use my smartphone when out and about. As for hotels, I always book before we travel. I start by taking a look at what you have listed for a particular city and also do some research on booking.com and tripadvisor.com. Over the past 20 years, we have stayed in some of your recommended hotels in England, France, and Italy. Most have been fine, but one was the absolute worst hotel my wife and I have ever stayed in (Grand Hotel Leveque on Rue Cler in Paris). I still get crap about that trip! Don’t know why you continue to list it, but there must be a reason. We rarely eat at one of your recommended restaurants, but when we have, we have found them to be as described. For ‘finer’ places, we ask at the hotel front desk or the concierge. But, hey, sometimes you just want a gyro. Taken together, I think that your guidebooks are second to none and commend you and your staff for your excellent work, year after year.
1. I used internet cafes in Ireland 4 years ago. Mostly, they were used to make cheap calls back home. I do not carry a laptop while traveling overseas. My wife carries a smartphone. We’ll try to find free wi-fi with it this year while in Germany.
2. I use your guidebook and TripAdvisor to find hotels. On TripAdvisor, I try to find hotels with as many current reviews as possible.
1. Do you find it helpful to have listings for Internet cafés (with actual terminals, not just Wi-Fi)?
I look for hotels with free wifi. We log on at night in our hotel, not while we’re out seeing the sights.
2. How are you finding hotels these days?
I use the guidebooks for hotels at home. I rely on these RS recommendations, and book everything before we leave. I don’t look at this part of the guidebook when travelling, don’t need to.
1. Never use internet cafes anymore.
2. Since we now do mostly apartments, your few listings are considered first. Then airbnb, booking.com. All verified with tripadvisior [ignoring obviously bogus reviews] and looking at building and neighborhood in Google street view. A few times have used book on the road to find an alternative when a pre-booked deal goes south.
3. A few times the exact street address for attractions was missing or not recognized by GPS. Maybe you could test them with GPS?
4.We always cut out and discard glossy color photos that seem to be there just to justified book price.
Also, please make chapter breaks so cutting the book apart keeps all of a chapter together…may sometimes require adding a blank page.
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Overall books are great and have resulted many many unforgettable gems. It is smart and commendable that you continue to do incremental improvements on 99% perfect products. Thanks.
1) Nope. I think you can take internet cafes out. See my answer to #3
2) I think your hotel listings are one of the most useful parts of the book. The fact that you ‘vet’ the places personally makes the guidebook more valuable than tripadvisor. Also, when we stay at a place you recommend, we know more or less what to expect (friendly owner, reasonable location, etc). I use your guidebook hotel listings all the time, and frankly it is something I miss when I’m traveling to somewhere outside of Europe. I feel the same way about your restaurant recommendations.
3) What about a brief section on how to pick up a local sim card to use in USA-based smart phones? I know this is tough because the market is constantly changing, but having the internet and GPS in your pocket is revolutionary when traveling (and I’m too cheap to pay for international roaming on my USA plan). You could talk about the general logistics even if you can’t include specifics.
4) Definitely remove the ‘hotel reservation form’. It is very antiquated. If you need to shave pages, maybe you could take some of the ‘know before you go’ stuff like safety warnings, packing tips, and recommended books and movies that currently occupy your Appendix and just provide travelers with a link to the same info on your website. Much of this info is not needed once you are on the ground.
1) I think that you could leave out internet cafes. A listing of known, reliable Wi-Fi spots would be helpful though.
2) The hotel listings are the most valuable chapter. I usually pre-book everything ahead of time, but there are times when I just call ahead as I travel.
3) I can’t think of anything that is missing. Your guidebooks are the best! I really miss them when I travel to non-European destinations.
4) I guess that the least useful information is the “Nightlife” section. Usually by nighttime, I am so tired from following all of your other wonderful selections that a soft bed and a quiet room is all the action that I am looking for.
View your base in the Jan. 18, 2014 montage. My guess is they pay the bills. Technophobes may be your future but probably not your present. So don’t get prematurely caught up in technology. At the same time, some of your recommended “quaint” hotels in guide books didn’t measure up. I’m sure you have heard about them from customers after the fact. There is a saying that to be really profitable, most businesses should stick to their knitting. Do what you claim to do and do it really well.
1. We haven’t used an internet café in years. Most accommodations have wifi and that’s enough for us.
2. Please continue recommending places to stay. While I search online as well, I trust your opinion. I would never have given Hotel de la Darse a chance based on the internet reviews but it turned out to be one of the most memorable stays of our lives. I prefer to book well in advance so research using your books and online copiously.
I’d like to add that the strength of your books is the instructions on HOW to do things. For instance, how to use the bus on the Riviera, where exactly to park in St. Cirq lapopie, things like that.
I would like to see your books evolve into a truly interactive ebook. So, if I buy your ebook, I don’t buy it from Amazon, but rather from a textbook type of ebook. Those type of ebooks have much better facility for note taking and highlighting. Then I would want it to link out to some video clips, maybe the live schedule, maybe an update list on your website. I’d have a link to the appropriate travel forum for questions. Start integrating your really excellent website into your guides. You can pick and choose what is available as download and what would only be accessible with a connections.
Pam
Some comments on your questions:
1.) I don’t use internet cafés, as I find Wi-Fi or even 3G to be so much more convenient and prevalent these days. I suspect that’s true for many people. Although there could be a few people that still use internet cafés, these seem to be decreasing in number so there may not be any cafés left in a few years.
2.) I use your Guidebooks extensively as the primary source of information to find hotels. Your choice of hotels is excellent, and I appreciate being able to stay at smaller, local establishments in the heart of each city. I should add that I don’t book hotels when on the road. Those are all arranged well in advance. I sometimes check Trip Advisor just to get some sense of the experiences others have had at a particular hotel, and I occasionally get good suggestions from other travelers.
3.) Not that I can think of.
4.) Again, not that I can think of.
1. I typically don’t have much use for internet cafe’s. Doesn’t hurt, is my guess.
2. We used your guidebook for numerous hotels (and specifically B&B’s) on our last trip. Lut’s place in Brugges was fantastic! However, we’ve been using more airbnb lately, which I’ve noticed you have started to recommend,
3. In terms of where to stay, it might be nice to know more about how to strategically plan the place where you stay to the type of traveler you are and how you might fit into certain neighborhoods, or areas. Don’t mind “tourist” spots, but want to be close to everything, try X? An area that is much off the beaten path to tourists, but is extremely popular to locals, try Z…
I think each traveler has certain interests they care more about than others. I feel your books spend more pages on art than others, such as history. Where can I find more places that are historically significant. I went to Brussels and ended up at Waterloo, which was barely (if at all) mentioned in your book. A very important historical place. You go over a lot of historical spots, but it isn’t balances. However, this is probably a personal preference, so I understand. You’re the expert.
1 – No on internet cafes. Always WIFI. Having WIFI has become the single most important factor in choosing lodging after cleanliness and location.
2 – I do look at your guidebook hotel and B&B recommends, but I focus more on the neighborhood descriptions and sometimes use TA to look for options too. I always pre-book. More recently I have turned to Booking.com as a resource and tool and have been thrilled with it. We also use VRBO.com for apartments. Maybe a section on booking sites/tools/resources and how to use them/why to use them would be more up-to-date than a list of just a few places. It is increasingly frustrating to contact individual places to ask for lodging and much more convenient to use a booking tool, but there are times of the year and reasons to go direct. It’s worth explaining.
3 – Love the walking tours and self-guides to museums, etc. Not in the book, but would enjoy even more audio tours especially of museums! Yours are so much better than the audio guides the museums issue/rent. Your maps tend to be rather Stylized and sometimes hard to follow. Perhaps a pilot group could be assembled to test them and give specific feedback.
Thanks for all you do to travelers, Rick!
Almost forgot: book on Sicily please!
1- no and as a whole i am done with wi-fi .. my #1 priority when i hit the ground is a local sim card with data.. add to this the EU laws on roaming are changing. a single card will get you a long ways with in the next few years
2. trip advisor+your book+google maps+price=good hotel
GPS coordinates: Very helpful for anywhere a traveler is likely to drive in a remote area, such as small Italian hill towns, agriturismos, remote monuments or sites without a physical address.
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1. I don’t need the internet cafe listings, or internet cafés either. Did one of your staff add the accent?
2. I rely heavily on TripAdvisor. I avoid your recommendations, I see too many wild eyed Steves’ acolytes, not enough locals.
3. I am planning a trip to a number of German towns that your book does not cover. Don’t change for me, you can’t be all things to all people. Your books are already becoming too big and heavy.
*Don’t care about internet cafes. iPad is for Wi-Fi!
*Perhaps a more extensive list of hotels, Name/address, website/phone number, price range. Kill the cutsie comments. Tripadvisor has best comments for selection. Booking direct is always best.
*Perhaps some more information on each country’s expressways, particularly on toll system nuances and best rest areas.
First of all, I love your guidebooks! only comment I have is that I do all my hotel bookings through booking.com and similar sites before I go. I think most people do it that way nowadays. I still find your recommendations useful because I get them from your books and then look them up online.
Don’t care about internet cafes. We use your listing almost exclusively and have only been disappointed once in Lucca. Don’t think Hotels.com would have gotten us to the fantastic apt at the top of town in the Cinque Terra. We have started using the internet sites and they are find, but you really need to do the research compared to using your listings. I have rarely run into other RS travelers, but we travel in shoulder season, but I wouldn’t dis a hotel just because RS followers were there. I do wish you covered Bologna.
I love your books. They have far more info in them, that I find useful, than other guide books. The hotel and restaurant listings are very useful for narrowing down a dizzy array of choices. I particularly like the mini maps of cities – most useful!
While hotels can be found on other sites, this has the time saving advantage of being prescreened by someone whose taste is similar to mine. I find them invaluable.
1. I no longer use internet cafés, but always look to see if recommended hotels offer W-Fi and whether it’s free or pay.
2. I find the hotel listings useful as I’m planning my travel, but can’t remember the last time I used them while traveling. Since your recommended hotels are sometimes fully booked, it would be good to know when there’s a specific alternate source to find reliable lodging that you could recommend.
3. A paragraph on dinning etiquette in the Introduction/Eating section would be a good addition – e.g. sharing tables is not uncommon, loud conversation at or between tables is considered rude, etc. It would also be nice to have links to other worthwhile destinations not covered by your guidebooks – e.g. Bologna for the Italy guidebook.
4. I don’t find the Introduction or Appendix sections as useful as other sections, but might think differently if I were a new traveler to the country or region. The History section is interesting, but not critical to planning my travel.
Echo on many of the comments about wifi and who has it – like each hotel and maybe if cafe has it… For many of us its key to have reliable wifi at the hotel or BB. It would be great to have a yes or no wifi available free or paid at each hotel listed.
An interactive Ebook as mentioned would be fantastic too if you can put in an itinerary and each day you flip or click on that place and it takes you to the chapter and highlighted sites hotels cafe etc that your marked when you read it the first time. A digital chapter ripping feature we do with your real books!
I like your hotel and restaurant listings but agree in some areas you can ask the hotelier or locals or wander. Tripadvisor is tricky since you get mixed feedback but its a good back up AFTER reading your review AND your helpline from RS followers who net there. That’s much better than tripadvisor since its reviews from your peeps!! But for less visited spots tripadvisor can be an option.
As for booking I always try direct or the private hotel website but sometimes they are too old school to Answer emails in a timely manner … But that’s getting more rare with the kids taking over.
Again any sections you take out like history or before you go – link it to the website for pretrip review as many times its helpful before the trip… PDF is easy and you did the work why waste it.?
1. I like listings of Internet cafes. I like to use them to send a quick email home. I do not lug a computer or tablet abroad because I have learned to pack light. However, my mobile phone service provider is a European company, and it recently informed me that my cell phone works in Europe, so I’ll bring it on my next trip. An Internet-enabled mobile phone, however, does not have the same capabilities as a computer or tablet.
2. I usually book hotel rooms ahead by looking at guidebook listings(typically, a Rick Steves book, Lonely Plant and-or other). Sometimes, I use TripAdvisor for a second option on a hotel. When I want flexibility in a trip, I use a tourist office to find a room at the last minute.
We are currently planning a trip to Spain, so I’m knee deep in the process. We do a lot of pre-trip reading and planning, so some sections of your books are used before the trip and some during. We prebook our rooms thru the internet before we go from a combination of sources, so the hotel listings aren’t important to us when we are there. The before you go chapter on weather and packing, etc don’t need to come along.
In general, splitting the content of the book into pre-trip planning and useful information while on the road would be helpful in ripping the book apart. Love the comment about making sure the chapter breaks support book destruction. There’s no reason to bring along a city or area I’m not going to visit. I really appreciate your detailed information about how to negotiate an area and get tickets and not waste time. No other guide books do it as well. We will try one of your smaller glossier pocket guides this year-a good compromise on photos versus weight.
3. How hard should I high five people? Should they say ouch afterwards or maybe not be able to use their arm for a day? Or should I maybe high five more softly
How are you finding hotels these days? My guidebook’s listings, websites (like TripAdvisor), calling ahead as you travel, local tourist offices and room-booking services, etc.? Our hunch is that people don’t use guidebook hotel listings while on the road as much as they used to.
My husband and I use your hotel recommendations religiously. We’ve used them in Granada, Vienna, and Budapest, and have always had a great experience. It’s really nice to have the price breakdown, list of amenities, and description of the staff/neighborhoods. It gives us a sense of reassurance to know what to expect when going to a new place, and it’s nice to know that you’ve actually stayed at the hotel and can give an accurate review.
We’ll actually be using your hotel recommendations in Dublin and Paris in a couple months! :)
Please keep the hotels. We’ve stayed at many of the mid-priced ones & loved them for their quirkiness, locations & generous supply of morning coffee. We have’t used the Internet cafés for a few years. Love your books, the how to instructions – where to park, where to get tickets, how to avoid lines & the funny, interesting stories like in Salzburg where the fellow heading to the brothel drove his tank into the wall. Keep up the good work.
No to internet locations, and hotels are not your sweet spot. The value of the “sleeping” chapters does not merit the expense of annual updates.
What makes these books superior for the reader, whether one takes a trip or not, is the “how to” information and the descriptions of sights, walks and experiences.
I would like to see more robust information on experiences. I think this is how travel is trending.
Thanks for reaching out to your readers Rick. Keep evolving.
We have used your guidebooks for 8 trips to Europe over the past few years. One recommendation – an item that I think is missing – is the coverage of sport. Who are the local sports teams? Where to buy tickets? How to get to the venue? When is the season for that particular team? History of the sport and the local team would be helpful also if printed in the guidebook. On most of our trips, we have made it a point to go to a soccer or rugby match. The reason behind this choice is that my family believes that at sporting events, you will have the opportunity to see the “real people” of a community and that the experience is totally separate from the wonderful museums and other tourist attractions. Each of our experiences at a sports event have been wonderful, exciting and colorful. The “Rough Guide” used to be a travel/soccer book that was helpful in locating information on tickets, venues, history of a team, etc. But I do not believe that is being published anymore. I am not aware of any other tourist guidebook that showcases information for tourists wanting to go see a particular European sports team.
We have used the guidebooks for all the great info like bus and train stations, some inns,location and times of major museums,castles,etc., tourist info locations and easy to use maps. We hardly ever go to the restaurants listed- usually not in that area at meal time. The one thing we don’t care about at all in both the books and TV shows are the lengthy descriptions of particular paintings,statues in museums- just a brief note of major works in them would be enough.
1. We have never used an Internet cafe while in Europe. Most of our hotels have Internet, and if they don’t, we rely on WIFI around town.
2. For big cities, we book almost exclusively through priceline. While the big chain hotels don’t have the same charm as smaller hotels, the price difference is worth it to us. We usually book 3-4 star hotels for less than the cost of a room at a budget hotel. For smaller towns, we rely on your recommendations as a starting point, but we also use tripadvisor.
3. I wish there were a bit more information on hiking. You often mention hikes in your books, but don’t give enough information to do the hike without further research. Some examples I can think of are the Wayfarer’s Trail from Varenna and the hike from Fira to Oia in Santorini. Both hikes were mentioned in your guidebooks, but I had to search for further instructions for these hikes online before attempting them.
4. None.
Thanks for all the work you and your staff do. The level of detail in your guidebooks and the how-to instructions are phenomenal. I follow your advice and recommendations on every trip to Europe and have never been disappointed. I am currently planning trips to Europe and Asia, and the Europe planning is going so much smoother than the Asia planning because of your guidebooks. They truly are the best.
1. We bring an IPAD and typically use it at night to check in at home and download some of Rick’s site/museum tours. I haven’t had a need for an internet cafe.
2. We book prior to leaving home and refer to Rick’s recommendations, other guidebooks and Trip Advisor. The mix changes depending on whether we are in a large city or smaller town. In the smaller towns, there are fewer reviews and so more opportunity to mess with the ratings. Rick’s recommendations are very helpful there.
3. We like to support locally owned businesses while we travel. Rick does a great job with locally owned restaurants, taverns, and lodging. It would be great if there was more on local craftspeople and artists so that if we did spend time shopping the money could stay in the community.
4. I think Rick’s guides are a great starting off point for European travels. I’ve purchased guides for France, Spain, Italy and the UK with a mix of country and city specific. The level of detail and addition of lesser known and out of the way places greatly enriched my travels. As an example, in Rick’s France guidebook, he has a brief entry for a ruined Abbeye outside Rouen. My wife and I went there and had the place to ourselves and it was one of the most memorable experiences in France and we wouldn’t have known without Rick’s recommendation. So, I would be reluctant to cut much as I’ve benefited greatly from parts of the guide that don’t get many visitors.
1. I feel it is useful in principle, just in case, but as I think back on my travels I don’t think I have ever actually used one.
2. I, for one, still use your hotel listings in the guidebooks. It’s one of the most valuable resources in the whole book for me because I have always had a good experience with your hotel recommendations. Maybe I’m just behind the times, but I don’t bring a smartphone when I travel. But even with the Internet, your personal recommendations are an irreplaceable part of my travel planning.
3. Can’t think of anything.
4. No, not really.
1) I don’t find listing of internet cafe’s useful. Almost all hotels, pensiones, etc. have wi-fi available which works with what ever device I happen to be traveling with (iPhone, iPad or laptop).
2) I have never used a guidebook to find a hotel. It seems once they are in a guidebook they either fill up fast, sometimes with groups, or raise their rates. I will use TripAdvisor or Venere usually.
3) When it makes sense, I like to travel by car. Information as to where to park would be helpful. Scenic, historic or just plain interesting driving routes would be useful too. I use a GPS to get around and it is not easy to tell with a GPS route what you might be missing if you took another route.
4) I don’t use the information on hotels and rarely use the information on restaurants. To me, listing a area that has many local restaurants is better than a list of restaurants scattered all about a city.
(1) Internet cafe’s are tricky. You are getting to the point where almost every one of your readers will have at least one wifi smart device, and cafe’s have almost entirely been a non-issue for us since 2010. Occasionally, though, you need to visit a website to arrange something for your trip that just doesn’t work very well from your smartphone. I think we ended up needing the one in Riomaggiore in 2011. Maybe your best bet is to keep the listings for cities which do not have widespread wifi (i.e. if you notice that 50% or less of your own hotel listings don’t have internet, list a cafe in town).
(2) So here’s the thing with TripAdvisor: it is invaluable for getting a read on value for money when there are dozens or hundreds of reviews. That system is basically foolproof. The weakspots for TA are (1) when there are few reviews (in which case they can be manipulated or subject to the usual small sample size problem) and (2) they do not account for how the hotel integrates with the tourist experience, they simply evaluate them on their quality and quality of experience. Rick’s listings do something TA will never do: (1) they represent locations that fit well with the sights and areas he recommends and (2) they summarize very important information that would be extremely annoying to hunt down on TA (is their parking? air-con? wi-fi?).
So I cross reference Steves with TA to make decisions, but the hotel listings are one of the most important parts of the guides, and in fact are the main reason I don’t start booking places until the new version of the guidebook comes out.
One bit of advice, though: you need to start cutting restaurants and hotels that have hundreds of reviews and are getting 3.5 stars or less on TA. You or your staff might have happened to order the best thing on the menu or happened to get the best waitstaff on a good day, but if hundreds of TA reviews are averaging out to mediocrity: it’s mediocre and should not be listed. The internet is giving you this amazing data for free, TAKE IT.
(3) Couple of recommendations for new information:
Recommendation 1:
Consider breaking out a special section at the beginning of each book for ‘stuff you should plan for well in advance’. You do a good job advertising some of this stuff (e.g. Last Supper bookings), but every year there is something that I encounter in the guide book that I wish I had known months before. These guide books are 1000 pages long now, it’s difficult to read everything far in advance. This includes two types of thing: (1) sights with limited booking that fill up early and (2) events that occur in specific places at specific times of the year or days of the week. Once an itinerary is in beginning to harden, it can be essentially impossible to move a visit to a specific town from (for example) a Tuesday to a Thursday. A one-page summary of the stuff that can’t wait (even if it’s only one-pyramid or zero-pyramid stuff), in the introduction would be fantastic.
Recommendation 2:
I have started annotating all the restaurants in the guide for places I will visit with the TA ratings and rankings. It would be cool if you guys could include those ratings in the listing. It would only take 3 characters per listing, and people are going to look them up anyway!
(4) We don’t have kids, so you don’t need to include any of the content specifically on keeping them entertained. However, if we do eventually have kids, please kindly put that content back in.
Hi Rick!
My husband and I just spent three weeks in France, The Netherlands, and Switzerland and we exclusively used your guidebooks. The were incredibly insightful and helpful. We used them for all aspects of our trip EXCEPT for your lodging suggestions. We stayed in apartments that we found on airbnb.com the entire trip. It was easy to book rooms and get complete information about the places we were staying. Just wanted to add my voice! Thanks for your travel research and for all that you do to promote the legalization of marijuana in the US.
Nicole
We pre-book some hotels. Those include our arrival and departure days, or when we have a known date for a mid-trip location. We book most of our hotels while travelling, and we travel mainly in the shoulder seasons so that we can do that and be confident about finding something suitable. In every case, both pre-booking and while on the road, we refer to your hotel listings. The reasons are simple, and are the same reasons that we buy your guidebooks — (1) we have learned that your comments can be trusted, (2) you look for the same things that we look for, (3) you are selective in the number of hotels that you list, and (4) you list them by areas within larger centres with good editorial comment on choosing those areas. We look at sites like trip advisor, but we rely on yours.
We often seek out (and find) the restaurants that you recommend. They have been great.