In 2010, Is an Electronic Guidebook Packing Too Light?

59 Replies to “In 2010, Is an Electronic Guidebook Packing Too Light?”

1. I will never, Ever, use a Kindle or any other Electronic reader. If they cease publishing books, I will cease reading anything new, not that this would be a bad thing as one could spend ones life reading the classics and not be able to read them all.. I hope you stick to Paper, If more publishers had any balls, the Kindle wouldn’t even be worth a sneer, let alone actually giving ground to it. The Saying used to be ‘ Make Mine Marvel!’ but I say ” Make Mine Paper! ”

2. The Kindle is wonderful for travelers. I can take 40 books along, fiction, non-fiction, whatever I choose to read on any given day. It is also great for a person like me, who travels alone, and reads as I dine. No worries about pages flipping over or using the ketchup bottle to hold the pages down. BUT, I would never use my Kindle for a guide book–much too difficult to flip back and forth to various sections when I need to find specific information. I vote for continuing printed books as guides.

3. I’m all about paper books but I can see the benefit of a Kindle. However for guide books no way. You need to flip back and forth, mark down pages, mark down things you’ve seen and haven’t seen. Not to mention that the chances of a Kindle being stolen – especially in Europe – are pretty high; I’ve had two cameras stolen including one right out of my hands. Much easier to replace a book. I must admit one of my favorite things about looking at my bookshelf is looking at those worn out old guidebooks that have been shoved in backpacks, had coffee spilt on it in a cafe, etc., etc. Stick to paper books Rick.

4. Kindle may be great for reading books at your leisure. It can be awesome for reading on a plane or train ride. However, for guidebook travel, I think it is a bad idea. As great as technology is, there are limitations. It’s harder to flip pages quickly or chapters to find what you want. I think we tend to use technology too much. Ironic that I say that since I am in my early 30s and work in IT. Whether for guidebooks or fun reading, I prefer the book in my hand. Technology is a great space saver for your bookshelf but there is just something lost when reading on a screen. I have to say a definite “no” for guidebooks.

5. So often this conversation makes people want to take sides — it’s either e-books or paper books. I like both. For travel, it’s easy to see the potential benefits of a lightweight e-reader — you can carry multiple guidebooks, magazines, newspapers, and books. But there’s the inconvenience of recharging and not being able to easily navigate guidebooks in e-formats. I fall on the side of bringing the paper guidebook, but I do love my Kindle at home. Why not make both formats available and see what sells? Maybe get your publisher to offer e-book access for a reduced fee if a customer buys the hardcopy. I’ll bet there’s a market for both.

6. Rick…I find on long trips 6 weeks or more I need to take 6-7 of yours books to cover everything…much info repeated from book to book due to overlap but unique parts only individually in the books…..so need to buy all of them ………you have fragmented them too much for me and they are far to many pages…i.e 1000 in some …..I didn’t know about Snapshots until this post so that may help… I cut out pages etc and give away books as the trip progresses but at the start my backpack is very heavy …..not to mention the cost of all the books….I prefer paper for now….would like to be able to order CUSTOM books with the chapters and countries I need printed on demand and mailed to me…that may be too much for now but maybe in the future……..your books are great and made my trips more fun easier and cheaper…..

7. Rick, Although I’m somewhat “older”, I’m a big fan of technology and usually an early adopter of the latest gadgets. However, I have to agree with the majority here in suggesting that you stay with books. While the Kindle (and similar devices) are fine for reading on airplanes or whatever, they’re a bit awkward and cumbersome at best when used as Guidebooks (as your readers Charlie & Mary discovered). There’s also the issues of theft or damage to electronic devices, as well as the battery going flat at an inopportune moment. Electronic Readers are NOT really the best in that application. My suggestion would be to adopt a “modular” approach for your Guidebooks, using perhaps a custom-designed Binder (preferably more than 3-rings so the pages don’t tear easily). The Binders would be the same size as your Guidebooks are now, so easy to pack. This approach would eliminate the problem described by Bill27 in the previous post. Your readers would simply buy the “modules” they required for each trip and place them in one or more of your Binders (with the ETBD blue & gold cover of course). Tabbed dividers could be used to separate chapters by country or whatever. These modules would be updated every year as your Guidebooks are now. You would continue to sell paper-based Guidebooks, but the format would be slightly different and these would be much easier for your readers to “customize” for the particulars of each trip. Each module would have the date listed, indicating the revision date (ie: Italy 2010). However, in addition to your existing IPod & IPhone app’s, it might be useful to make specific information available in electronic format. For example, Hotels or restaurants in various cities, etc. That way travellers would have useful reference information at hand when arriving in a new city, without accessing the Guidebook and this would add to your sales from the App. Store. I’ll be interested to see what you decide!

8. Rick – I love tearing your books apart and putting just the folded up relevant section in my shirt pocket for the day’s touring. Kindle is not a consideration.

9. Charlie and Mary sound like very inexperienced travelers. Rick’s Venice guide book is available in many book stores there. You just have to walk in and look or ask for it.

10. The negative comments about the Kindle for guidebooks apply also to my Sony Pocket Edition ereader. Finding the right page would be a nightmare. Page changes are slow. Selecting the proper chapter and then paging back and forth, either one page at a time or ten pages at a time, would be a nuisance. Bookmarking would also be cumbersome. I prefer to read print books if the print is not too small and if the book is not too dusty. I use my Sony to read out of copyright books (Twain, Dickens, Cather,Wodehouse, etc) that I download for free from Project Gutenberg, http://www.gutenberg.org . I will probably pay to download SuperFreakonomics for my upcoming travels.

11. Studies by internet usability guru Jakob Nielsen suggest that reading on a screen is 25% slower than reading on printed paper. Therefore the format of the content has to be more scanable in electronic form — bullet-pointed, and shorter and more to-the-point. That takes away from Rick’s style a bit, which is informative and entertaining. However, it’s utilitarian, and there are pluses to that as well. I like the paper guidebooks, but I find them unwieldy as well. You’ve got to flip back from one page to the other. They’re big and heavy, and there’s no way to carry one around and be inconspicuous. Sometimes, quite frankly, they’re almost like a ball and chain. I know Rick suggests tearing pages out, but you never know when you’ll need one again, or have to go back and find a page that you didn’t tear out. I loved Rick’s guided tour podcasts of the different sites in Rome. You could go and really enjoy the sites without having your nose stcuk in a book reading about them.

12. I study the guidebook before I go. When I’m there, I either tear pages out of the guidebook or use a one page “cheat sheet” of addresses I may need (restaurants, shops, etc.). And I always have a one page orientation map, usually torn out of the guidebook. I don’t like to refer to a guidebook in public; I prefer to lean on a wall or sit on a bench and look at my one or two pages of notes. I use a handheld PDA (currently a Blackberry), and when I travel in North America, I keep my daily cheat sheet on the PDA. I also use it to pull up websites on the web; before I leave, I bookmark websites of restaurants, attractions, etc., that I may need to adjust to problems or to spontaneously change my plan for the day. That way I can check museum admissions times, find an alternative taxi or bike rental company, etc. I don’t think that the future of guidebooks is in electronic books like Kindle. I think that guidebooks will be supplemented by web-based information. In the future, I do see myself in a European city getting information off the Rick Steves website while my Rick Steves guidebook is back in my hotel room.

13. I ve used RS books since 1996 and I’ve had a Kindle 2.0 since Feb ….. i enjoy the kindle for traveling for my fun reading ..nothing beats sitting in the cafe on the main sq with a nice local drink and enjoying a good read after a great day of sightseeing and knowing i can carry a hundred books or more in the same device however i would never never use the kindle for guidebooks. I need my guidebooks to be quickly searched , ripped up , highlighted, notes made in the margin etc and weather proof ..things the kindle just isn’t good at…

14. I work in hi-tech but I have a hard time picturing myself (or anyone) using a Kindle-type device while in a museum looking at a Gutenberg bible! Give me your guidebook, with its pages worn and dog-eared, the odd smudge of food or beverage dotting the paper. Your books are a traveling companion. Bits, bytes, and plastic have a place, but not in this context.

15. Rick – I have about every electronic gadget and are pretty technical plus love to travel! The Kindle is great for reading while commuting and on a plane or train. But when I’m walking around Barcelona for example do I really want a $300 Kindle in may hand that a pick pocket may grab or a book? I can’t see travel guidebooks being beneficial on a kindle. My guidebooks either get pages torn out or post it notes attached and you just can’t do that on a Kindle.

16. Kindles are too big and fragile for me to seriously consider using them regularly. I wouldn’t mind seeing an iPhone version of a guidebook, particularly since I’m already carrying the phone with me. At the end of the day, though, I’m still fine with the paper books.

17. I will not be carrying paper books with me when I travel any more. I will only be using the Kindle app on my iPhone. I travel light — one carry on bag no matter how long the trip — and I just don’t have room for books. Although I love paper books and my house is full of them, they are just not practical for me when traveling. I am so thrilled to be able to pack so many books onto my iPhone with no extra weight! The only paper guidebooks I use on my trips are the local In Your Pocket guides that I can get locally. All of my other guidebooks are pre-trip reading and they stay at home on the book shelves.

18. Flipping through guidebooks requires an application (with menus and buttons and so on). iPhone apps work, but simple page-turning on an e-reader does not (especially the excruciatingly slow ones like the Kindle and Sony’s reader). There is plenty of room for an electronic guide book, provided it is made into an application. It’s much easier to flip between sections of an application (say, from a list of sights to the relevant map) than it is to thumb through a guidebook. That said, an iPhone or iPod Touch is the best traveling companion you can have after your guidebook, whether you have a guide on there or not.

19. I’ve said it before on this blog and I’ll say it again. I would happily purchase PDF versions of Rick’s guidebooks. The advantage of the PDF format is that you can use it on almost every decent mobile device, whether that is a smartphone, netbook, laptop, whatever. I believe there is even a PDF reader for the Kindle. I know Rick says “tear out the pages” from the guidebook but that is really wasteful (and so are photocopies). What if I visit a country frequently where I use the book multiple times? Or maybe I want to donate it to the local library after I return? From a weight perspective alone, it would be great to have a PDF on my Blackberry instead of carrying around a heavy book. History is full of countless examples of companies that did not adapt to changing times and I think you should listen to your “futuristic” employees.

20. Having not used a Kindle (or other such device) I would most likely no bother with them as I think paper is easier to use. Perhaps these devices need an easy way of indexing that could ease moving back and forth through the content.

21. I’m not sure I would write off technology quite yet. While I’m not a fan of the Kindle and agree that flipping around the pages of a Rick Steve’s book would definitely take too long…… I’m wondering about a Rick Steves App for the iPhone or program for a netbook that is a customizable Rick Steves Europe, or Rick Steves Paris. The Apps currently available are OK, walking tours are OK although I found the “podcast” tour of the Louvre a waste of time (too fast……just my humble opinion….. don’t crucify me). But if there were a customizable App where one could edit or add additional information, web-links, add information we find from other websites……. I think since the iPhone (or a netbook) has it’s own OS as opposed to a Kindle – there is a very real opportunity to use technology to customize our travel experience. Like leaving pages blank in the middle of a printed book so one could write their own notes…… a Rick Steves guide with customizable tabs and links (to other websites/pages like Zagat or SNCF or a particular restaurant’s webpage….. etc) could be the Swiss-Army Knife of European travel! The solution is out there somewhere, it just hasn’t all come together yet for mass adoption……. I’m looking forward to my next trip with my iPhone, it WILL be loaded with sites and pages from other sites, and I’ll probably buy all the Apps for the places I’m visiting anyway…….

22. A Rick Steves app would kill it. You can make serious $ doing that. That being said I love Paperback Guidebooks. They don’t break.

23. I use Kindle reader for my iPod and love it, but I can’t imagine it replacing guide books. What I think would be really useful is an iPod app that created downloadable aural tours. The Met in NYC is talking up downloadable (to your MP3 player) guides… what if Rick Steves produced downloadable aural guides that could be played on any MP3 player, like the guides used in museum tours? (as you stand here in the central square, you see around you a number of good restaurants. try X for the best beer….) It would very easy to keep those guides up to date with the latest info… so they could be a just-in-time update to the books.

24. There’s room for both. As an avid, and frequent, traveler, I cannot justify the weight and loss of packing room for all the books I take on an extended trip. For that, I stock up my Kindle, and am ever so thankful that I don’t have to pack 2-3 books for each week of travel. I love print, too. I prefer paper guidebook, even though they can add weight, and I often rip them apart to take along just what I need. The two sides of the publishing spectrum don’t have to be at odds with one another. There’s plenty of room for all of us to find what we prefer.

25. Rick, I have shared my thoughts on this and say keep the paperback. Kindle might me a way to go for some so make it available. But books are so much easier. With that said, I just wanted to pass this along to you (hope it is ok). You love what you do and have a passion for it. We are all here because we love what you do and have a passion for Europe. I have met you in person a couple of times, read numerous guidebooks, been on a couple of your tours, and believe in your travel philosophy. I just became a budget travel writer and wanted to write about your 2009 tours that you have left. I hope it is ok to advertise your company and tours. If not, let me know and thanks for all you do (even when we disagree)! :)

26. Lonely Planet has PDF files of their guidebooks broken out by chapters. You can purchase by chapter or the entire book and print out what you need. You can have paper copies handy for notations and reference during the day and the full guidebook in the electronic device of your choice. This worked out great for me while in India since I didn’t need to carry the entire paper guidebook with me.

27. Somebody named Helen provided an excellent suggestion. Give people a choice. The U.S. has more flavors of ice cream and more paint colors than anywhere. Why? Because we like choices. And consider your audience always. Personally, I like books with ink printed on white pages – for aesthetics, for easy reading, for page turning back and forth. But i am not everybody. Do what you are doing Rick. Ask your customers and ask your employees. You will never go wrong that way. Bill Kester, Pendleton, SC

28. I like to paperclip/dogrst or post note and highlight. But I do like the digital thought as well except I am not a fan of the Kindle.

29. Rick, remember that you core competency is gathering, organizing and presenting accurate information. You need to find a way to not let the technology warp your presentation style. I believe you have significant, unique requirements. Of all the current technologies, the cell phone with a big screen is the closest fit. I recommend you approach a telephone designer with your requirements. (By the way, in addition to document handling, include an expanded bluetooth-like capability so that it can double as the closed network currently used by tour guides in museums.)

30. Rick, I’m surprised you got such feedback about your Venice book! I wonder what made their Kindle usage difficult since you can search fairly easily. I’d even be interested from a business standpoint, to help come up with ways to resolve difficulties they encountered. In May, my fiance & I went to Greece. I have a Kindle & I planned to go without printed books or paper. I practically begged your office for a way to buy some digital form of your Greece book that was coming out within weeks. Your office was very nice, but couldn’t accommodate. I ended up making my own documents and I downloaded pdf files from Lonely Planet. But I’ve wondered about your eReader plans ever since. I didn’t take any paper books along & everything went well. I love printed books, but I loved this lightweight change even more.

31. Hi Rick, Straight to your question, I was very happy to see your guides available for the Kindle. I bought the Paris (both paper and kindle) and the London (kindle only). We just spent 20 days in Paris and 2 in London. I had the Kindle editions on my iTouch and the paper edition for Paris, in our rented apartment, never took that out on the road. We had plenty of extra information about Paris, but I still used your tour guides and some museums and I found it very easy to use on the iTouch. For the 2 days in London, the Kindle edition was just fine, we had an older paper edition that we read before departing. There are significant navigation issues, especially referring back to the map of the tour while approaching the end of it, but I got around it in various ways. I hope you don’t stop offering this option, but actually expand in offering packages that would include all this. For example I didn’t pay $5 for the iTouch application for the louvre since i already had your book and the electronic book and the free podcasts. But, while spending 5 days in the Louvre, I would have paid a bunch for an extension of your 2 hour guide, if you’ve have had a more expanded tour available for download. Hope this helps, thank you, Mihai

32. As an avid reader and recently an avid Kindle user I say keep your options open and continue to offer both versions. I believe that, like it or not, e-books will continue to have a heavy presence in the publishing industry. With book sales generally down, the steady increase in e-book sales has been a bright spot for the publishing industry. Barnes & Noble has recently announced their own e-reader, the Nook and Amazon recently revamped their Kindle to work internationally. Just imagine a poor Kindle user has arrived in London for example only to realize they have forgotten their copy of your book. Hard to believe, but I’m sure this happens. Thanks to the Kindle, a quick download later they have their guidebook and you have one more sale. To those who are reluctant to embrace technology a live band was once the only way to hear music, then records and 8-tracks, cassettes, then CDs and now digital downloads. There were naysayers at each step in the evolution of how we enjoyed music but, as they say, time marches on. There will obviously always be a place for the paper book. As e-readers gain in popularity I also feel that there is the place and the market for e-books.

33. I would recommend making multiple options available to acommodate different preferences. Gen X and Y have very different media preferences than other generations. In newspaper industry for instance digital formats are on the verge of surpassing print versions for these two generations. (Pew Research has some great articles on the differences in media usage). While I can see that there are certain advantages with the print versions of guidebooks, these will undoubtedly get refined over time.

34. I am a devotee of paper books. I love their tangibility and the feeling of getting to know a book in a way that electronic images cannot provide. However, where I think electronic guidebooks could one-up printed text is incorporation with GPS. If I could open my Rick Steves Kindle, iPhone app, etc. to the page that talks about where I am actually standing? That would be incredible! Or even have options like: map, sights, restaurants, and transportation that would take me to a listing targeted on my location. Sign me up! I would buy a web-enabled device just to get that functionality!

35. Personally I am VERY disappointed with the failure to provide the 2010 Guide Books electronically. The “guidebook” overload was one reason I bought my Kindle. I find it very easy to use while traveling and have no problems. In Paris last week I used the 2009 version of Rick’s book on my Kindle extensively. Your failure to provide this current technology is disappointing. It’s like you have decided “only my way” is right and those of us who want another way will have to use guidebooks by companies that are willing to support the technology.

36. I’ve used RS Guidebooks & materials since 1996 and would not travel anywhere without their vaulable information. Upon retirement, I am planning a 5-6 month European trip next year, and will have my 13 year old granddaughter with me during the summer months. I have looked at the Kindle and have decided on the B&N Nook if the Rick Steves guides are made available for the Nook. I currently have twelve of the 2009 RS paper guides that I have been reading for my trip preparation. I don’t want to carry them. They’ll make excellent resources upon my return home when compiling my photo albums and DVDs. However, the weight is not practical to take. The 2010 editions will be available before I leave. I’ll purchase the electronic versions of those editions. My e-reader (hopefully the Nook) will contain all my guidebooks, pleasure reading, old photos, documents, etc. IN 11 OUNCES!! On my first trip, I didn’t heed Rick’s advice about packing! Now that’s a consideration in everything I plan to take. In addition, I will take about 6 reporters notebooks (looks like a steno notebook cut down the middle). Each evening as I finalize my itinerary in advance, I’ll make my lists and notes in these notebooks. I find them convenient, less obtrusive, makes me appear less like a tourist, and I absorb the data as I write my notes. In addition to the guidebooks, I have photos, pages of old letters, and other ancestral data that I can convert to pdf and load to this gadget from my pc — it will carry all my data. I have 8-10 RS maps that I will also carry with me–these are invaluable! 30-45 minutes of prep time the evening before, my notebook and my RS map makes for a very organized day. Although I will carry the e-reader in my day bag, I plan to pull it out only if absolutely necessary. YES, YES, YES for both paper and electronic, as I will purchase both versions.

37. I LOVE my Kindle – when I went to Europe I literally stressed out for weeks beforehand about how many books to take vs traveling light – I read a lot and I read fast, and we were going to countries where I didn’t know if I would be able to find English books! I ended up taking one fiction book (over 700 pages) and parts of several different guidebooks AND (thank GOD, since one person I traveled with ended up spending the night at a hospital) Rick’s multi-language phrasebook and a French-English Dictionary. The Kindle would have been very useful to me…I hope that BOTH versions will be available, as well as audio tours on the iPod. I could easily see myself buying both the paper version and a ebook version of some guidebooks for certain trips – my first (and so far only) trip to Europe was for 3 weeks, and included multiple cities. Frankly, even the torn out pages were weighty and awkward! I had to stop myself at the Louvre – I was spending more time reading the torn out pages out loud to my companions (I was responsible for research, etc. on that trip) than looking up and appreciating the art! A couple of times in the evening I remembered reading something useful in a guidebook, only to find out that I had left those pages at home – in this case, the Kindle versions would have been absolutely lovely, while the paper version torn out pages or copies would have been more useful while out and about (coupled with the iPod tours!) The couple that wrote in about the Kindle do need to “play” a bit – the Kindle does have a “notes in the margin” function, a search function, and a turn the corner of the page down function. Rick – why not be revolutionary, and if someone buys a copy of the book through your website (or Amazons), you could get the ebook version for an extra dollar or two????

38. A news clip on TV, BBC I think, featured a bookseller who said something to the effect that the limited Kindle was simply ‘not ready for prime time’; they’ll end up being discarded when Steve Jobs’ Apple, Inc. comes up with its own ergonomic, simply elegant version. The Rick Steves’ app idea mentioned in an earlier blog might be the cost-effective way to go for now. The bookseller saw the future as being electronic, but not via Kindle.

39. I agree with most of the comments below. I bought the entire series of book as I have moved to Ireland from the States for 4 years. Carrying an expensive Kindle in some countries would be scary, also the ability to move back and forth on pages is not there yet. But I would encourage you to re-think the model, I would love a service where I could download the guide to my kindle wirelessly once I arrive on the country, maybe download the sites and restaurants and not the hotels, etc. Think of different business models if not somebody else will. Remember the first versions of printed books had to be carried on your back, multiple copies took months to do, so expect an electronic book to go trough the same development.. my 2 cents

40. As I live in Canada, where we cannot get things like the Kindle due to copyright laws and other random things and we have very expensive (compared to elsewhere) costs for Blackberry/Iphone, I still want paper guidebooks! I think things to load onto Ipods (podcasts etc) are much better if you are going that route. As well, with a paper book, my boyfriend and I can write in the book as we plan. I don’t think you can do that with the electronic ones.

41. We took a paper copy of the London (Rick Steves guidebook) in March, as well as an iPhone. Although I am an enthusiastic iPhone user, I refused to pay the exorbitant charges to connect over the 3G network and figured I would try and just use public wireless networks, as I could find them. Suffice to say, had we relied on this for “help”, we would have been disappointed. London seemed to have a lot less free wireless than the little city we are from. Fortunately, my bookstore employee travel partner had bought the guidebook weeks earlier so having both skimmed it beforehand, we were able to dive in and out while on our trip and navigated to the sites and the food places we needed, without any problems. I can’t say if Kindle is ready for prime time or not but iPhone, as an international travel partner for those on a budget is certainly not. We got excellent value for our $15 paperback investment.

42. I would LOVE to have digital editions of your books, Rick, so that I can print out just the pages I need for a certain location, and leave the paper copy intact! This can’t come soon enough.

43. I use my iPhone Kindle app for reading books most anywhere. Having a library in my pocket means at any train station, any line, any bus I have just the book I want to read. I downloaded one Rick Steves guide book so I would always have it with me. Not bad for a glance, but flipping is hard, the maps are way back at the end of the book (easy for pulling out on the Avenue, though). I like both.

44. I just returned form Italy and Spain on October 31st. I used the paper version of Spain and the Kindle versions for Rome (which included Naples where I also went) and Tuscany. There are pros and cons but in general I was very happy with the Kindle versions. So much easier than packing heavy guidebooks. I have an Apple I-phone and used the Kindle versions exclusively in Italy. They were always in my pocket. I even found my way across Naples with only the Kindle – and that was some accomplishment. My only complaint is that when I wanted to move around the guidebook – say go from a museum tour to a restaurant recommendation it was hard to guess where to go. So I found myself going back to the table of contents and then jumping to where I needed to go. Also, I had looked at the paper versions before my trip and it seems like that the Kindle maybe left some paragraphs out. But overall I was very happy with the electronic version and wished I had one for Spain. I will definitely use them in the future.

45. I just returned form Italy and Spain on October 31st. I used the paper version of Spain and the Kindle versions for Rome (which included Naples where I also went) and Tuscany. There are pros and cons but in general I was very happy with the Kindle versions. So much easier than packing heavy guidebooks. I have an Apple I-phone and used the Kindle versions exclusively in Italy. They were always in my pocket. I even found my way across Naples with only the Kindle – and that was some accomplishment. My only complaint is that when I wanted to move around the guidebook – say go from a museum tour to a restaurant recommendation it was hard to guess where to go. So I found myself going back to the table of contents and then jumping to where I needed to go. Also, I had looked at the paper versions before my trip and it seems like that the Kindle maybe left some paragraphs out. But overall I was very happy with the electronic version and wished I had one for Spain. I will definitely use them in the future.

46. As I enjoy your guidebooks, I also use Lonely Planet’s books, and have come to use their approach to the digital age. I buy the guidebook eg France and then when I travel, I purchase the individual chapters pertinent to the area I am traveling to in PDF format. I can take the file on my notebook, print it out or put it on by Ipod Touch. Much lighter than taking the whole book or perhaps I am not buying the whole book if not traveling extensively in that region. A good compromise.

47. I am a long-time Ebook reader (9 years) and purchaser of ebooks. I still prefer the Palm TX over any dedicated Ebook device. That being said, I have used travel guide programs for Palm TX and on my Treo 680. They are just “OK.” They are great for searching on keywords, but not for quickly going to a particular page (assuming you don’t have the page bookmarked). Another limitation is these devices break, books don’t when you stuff them in your back pocket. Now, the wild card for you is not whether these devices are easy to use, it really comes down to how “cool” they are perceived to have over books. Regardless of their limited use as a guide if coolness is winning over usefulness (ie. Iphone) then what can you do? BTW, Conde Nast’s Traveler Magazine had a test of devices over books in last February’s edition.

48. A tough choice as most of us are so use to the RS paper and we love to tear the sections we need. I suggest you do both for now, I can’t imagine not being able to rip out those sections I want to make notes on, etc. The other problem is what if my battery runs out? I can’t imagine being stuck without my paper book!l Your books have made traveling for us an extraordinary adventure! BTW we have a Kindle and love it for reading.

49. Just as a reminder, there are other ebook readers besides the Kindle and other smartphones besides the iPhone. It would be nice to see your books in other formats for other readers and the travel apps for other phones. (I am a technological iconoclast, what can I say.) I definitely think you should keep making paper books, but it would be cool to be able to download the snapshots or other bits of the books, perhaps as a value-added bonus for purchasing the paper version. I do think that for actual travel use, a smartphone app is better than something for an ebook reader–it’s just easier and less conspicuous to take out and carry around; though one can read certain formats of ebooks on certain smartphones as well.

50. P.S. ETBD seems to me a good candidate for electronic–for me, it’s more of a read-at-home-before-you-go type of thing. Of course, I’ve lent my paper copy to so many people, it would be a shame to lose that ability.

51. I’m a Kindle fan too, and the first Kindle book I ordered was your 2008 London book. It was great for preparing before we left the U.S., and I was able to “bookmark” some important sections, but for day to day use it was insufficient. A technological dimension of yours that I have come to love is the downloads of walking tours and museums on iTunes. These are fun and easy to use, and a bit like having Rick as a private guide. I especially like the musical selections that accompany them and the guest appearances of local guides.

52. Rick — My husband (and a few of our friends) are huge Kindle evangelists. My husband purchased the first model, and liked it so much he upgraded to the second generation version when it came out. He’s always been a voracious reader, often keeping two or three titles handy depending on his mood or convenience (nonfiction, fiction, etc.). The Kindle is an abso-fantastic device, but it has its limits. Part of the fun of travel guidebooks is one’s ability to flip around, enjoy photos and illustrations, make notations… and for light travelers, tear out chapters (or photocopy them) to keep in our purses. To be honest, I don’t think you have to worry about the Kindle taking the guidebook market away. In my view, guidebooks like the Moleskine City Books or even the Passporter series for the Disney theme parks, are the way to go… lots of room for people to use for planning their trips and jotting down memories! PS: After going on your 7-day Rome city tour, we spent a few days in Paris, and REALLY enjoyed your Paris walking tour podcast! My husband and I each shared a single earbud on my earphones and sat together in front of the steps of the Notre Dame admiring the architecture… and your talk! Thank you so much. PPS: My husband forgot his Kindle on the airporter bus in France! He was in a blind panic at first, but after calming down, he was able to call the bus company from our hotel, and was able to meet with the bus driver on his next drive back. He swore up and down he’d never lose it again (he’s lost it again since, although lady luck is with him and he got it back safely). He DOES love reading that thing; he often falls asleep with it–it reminds me of Schroeder’s blanket! :-)

53. Rick- I would love to see pdf copies of your actual guidebooks. I’m planning a trip in may and my idea (though time consuming) is this- I’ll pull out the sections of the guidebooks as you have recommended, but I am also planning a 3 day scan-a-thon, in which I will be scanning many of the pages from the books into my computer as photos, and then organizing them with the included photo app on my iphone. For instance, there will be a folder for ITALY and inside it will be ROME and then VATICAN and then VATICAN MUSEUM that will have all the pages about the Vatican Museum and all the Maps, and I can see them individually as thumbnails or swipe through them as you would any other photo. I will do this for each city that I plan to visit. This sounds rediculous, but it’s a convenient way to have the actual pages electronically, and I can zoom in an out of the text and maps as I need to. As they are scans from my actual paper guidebook, they have my highlighted portions and notes intact! I can look at the map of, say, the Louvre walking tour on my iphone while listening to the audioguide through the headphones. This is obviously for only important information. Recommended restaurants, hotels, etc will be typed into a list as a .doc that I can just scroll through (though the maps of where the restaurants and hotels are will be scanned). It would be great to have this sort of thing available as a pdf book. It is the best solution that I have come up with yet, and I recommend it to anyone who wants to have the actual guidebook with them electronically in edition to their “edited” paper copy.

54. Before I had a Kindle I thought it would be fantastic to have guide books in electronic form, saving myself all that room and weight in my bag. Now that I have a Kindle I wonder how well it would work to have a guide book on it. (So far I’ve only used it for pleasure reading). My reason is that with a guide book I tend to flip around a bunch – for example – if I’m in X neighborhood in Paris, and I want to know what is there to do, see, eat here? With the Kindle it’s not so easy to “flip” through the “pages” to find various parts. I also have an iPhone, not sure I’d use that for travel reading either, it’s great to check email or look something up really quick, but I think I’d come up with the same problem. It’s so much easier with a book to look up Rue Cler in the index and find that page quickly rather than having to scroll through everything to find what I am looking for. I do have to say I *LOVE* your podcasts & city walking tours and wish you had them for more cities (I’ll be in Turkey and Greece next summer, any chance you can get on that? :)).

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56. Rick, I took a three month tour of Europe, mostly based on your itineraries (your “Best Two Months”, “Best of Eastern Europe”, and a bit more of Spain and Italy). I visited 20 countries, and though I did take your “Best of Europe” guidebook and it was immensely helpful, I noticed that it cut back a lot of what was in your city or country guidebooks. Because I couldn’t carry all of those books, I had to try and find them in foreign bookstores and overpay for them (€25 for your Italy book in Milan). I was lucky the times I could actually find them, many times I could not. I spent five hours in London in every major bookstore in the city and could not find a single copy of your London guidebook. I looked everywhere in Europe for a copy of either your “Best of Eastern Europe” or “Slovenia and Croatia” books. Ultimately, I was resigned to finding them in hostels, from people that had left their copies behind, or buying them from Americans I saw toting them around. Then I had to sadly ditch them when done due to weight issues. While in Paris I found that the Kindle app had just come out for the iPhone, and I bought your Paris guide for $10. It was AMAZING. I consider my time in Paris the best and most efficiently traveled of all the 50+ cities I visited, thanks to having those walking tours that DID NOT EXIST in the “Best of Europe” book I already had or your country guidebooks. I will be doing another two month trip of Greece, Turkey, and Bulgaria. I also plan to do a trip for Russia and the Baltics. For both trips I plan to take any and all material you have written in electronic form, and IMPLORE YOU to please make PDF or Kindle versions available of all your work. I don’t like Lonely Planet and Rough Guides, I am a Rick Steves guy, and I want to stick with your guides, but physical guidebooks are dead to me. The benefits of ebooks are just too great.

57. We have been using your guidebooks for years. This year we are going to France staying in Paris and Vaison la Romaine. We are also spending part of the trip on Lake Como, staying in Varenna with a day jaunt to Milan. We are finishing up in Switzerland at a friend’s hotel on Lake Lucerne. We would LOVE to be able to take all the your guidebooks that we have accumulated to cover this trip. To do so would take us over our luggage weight limit! It would mean that we would have France, Paris, Provence, Italy and Switizerland guidebooks. If they were all in ebook format (preferably on the iPad that is being delivered next month) we would have it all. Otherwise, it is time for me to get the razor blade out and cut up the guidebooks again.

58. Last year, we made a trip to Prague. We downloaded all the manuals we could find to our iPhone before we left. It was a very rewarding experience, as we referred to them throughout the entire trip. Unfortunately, none of the Rick Steve’s books were included. Now we are planning to return to Ireland. Again, nothing from Rick Steves.

59. Need it be either/or? While I would prefer a dead tree book, I tend to go all over europe when I travel. I also am now contending with a tighter and tighter weight requirements for my carry on. I will look at kindle versions… really wish you guys would just offer your clients options. Why do kindle users deserve to read on an e reader, but not nook users?

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