Over the years I have amassed many travel guides and they are not the same. Each has their quirks and good parts and bad parts.

We belong to Triple AAA and I find them as a quick reference to hotels and cities. I like the fact that attractions are listed with costs and hours, which is not as easy to find in other travel guides. The guides include a long list of restaurants. I usually go by the Triple AAA office, which is close by home, and pick up a map, which helps with navigation. If you are a member it is a good reference to use.

I have become a fan of Moon travel guides which are good for a listing of attractions and some hotels and restaurants. Older ones were not as good but now they are better about putting in easy to use maps, which really helps in finding what you need on your destination.

Fodor’s and Frommers are pretty similar. They include a good listing of attractions, restaurants and destination information. I do like Fodor’s a bit better, again better maps and easier to reference. I also think that both are better guides for out the United States travel. I find the Moon guides better for the US. I’m not sure if they also cover Europe.

Insiders and Explorers are two colorful guides with lots of photos and insider knowledge on attractions. Yet, I find Explorers better than Insider. Explorers is also really good for added references on destinations and attractions in foreign countries. Explorers many times when have easy to use reference guide for let’s say a museum that is floor by floor. This is very helpful in a foreign country when there is not always English shown on a display.

Rick Steve’ s is a great guide for European travel. He provides good insight into what to see and why to see it. It does lack photos and not as much internal attractions guide like Explorers, but still does a good job. I think when it comes to foreign travel I use Rick Steve’s for fun advice; Fodor’s for general information and Explorers to round it all out.

I sometimes use Off the Beaten Path for American travel, which provides other sites and restaurants not always shown in your standard travel guides, like Fodor’s or AAA, but I wish they would improve their maps and I sometimes have trouble finding the page where I was interested in an attraction.

I have struggled to use Kindle versions of travel guides. It is not always easy to pull up a map and it is harder to find the page that I am looking for. I know that you can do highlights and such, but I have not found the experience satisfactory. I would rather have the guide in hand and be able to flip to exactly what I want to know about at that moment and not have to search for it on my Kindle!