London Travel Guides - What I Use to Plan

Last week I told you about some London Travel apps that I was trying out for my upcoming trip (only 6 months away!).  Well, as much as I love an app I am still an old school travel book kind of girl.

Travel books are my favorite kind of book. I love looking at the maps, pictures, restaurant recommendations. It doesn’t take much to make me excited to travel. Now everyone has their favorite place in the world – and goodness knows I have plenty. I have truly never hated anywhere I have traveled to – and I think that is because I like to do so much research. London is my ultimate destination – if I could travel there every year I would. So even though it is a huge city – I somewhat have a handle on what to see or do, but that doesn’t mean I know it all. Goodness I don’t think anyone could know everything there is to do in such an eclectic city!

With that point tucked in the back of my mind I tried to be as diverse as I could when it came time to make my London travel book purchases. Right now I have 3 London specific books, 1 for the Cotswolds, and 1 for travel in general.

The book I am enjoying the most is London Style Guide by Saska Graville.

The author assumes you know what the big tourist attractions are in London and therefore breaks the city down further by neighborhood. I really love this as this is my third time in London, and I want to zone in on some specific neighborhoods and get to know them better.  As you can see I have flagged a lot of pages!

I found the Cool London book in a little specialty shop in Savannah, GA.

This is a cute little book to look at, but out of 182 pages I only flagged 4 places –still a neat way to pass time before drifting off to bed and dreaming about London.

The first travel guide for London I bought was the DK London guide – the Millennium version! 

Ha! Over ten years old, but I will never let it go. It was my first. I love looking through it and seeing what I have flagged. I can always go back and revisit that place. Or try a new place that I didn’t research the time before. And always DK has some nice walking routes that I like to build upon.

For the Cotswold portion of the trip I bought the Cotswolds Rough Guide.

This little book is a gem in my opinion. It has so much information – which I feverishly digest. Then once I have a plan in place - like which villages to visit and what pubs to try – I find even more information in the book that causes me to re-work the plan! That is a good problem to have!

And finally there is the 1,000 Places To See Before You Die

I am slowly checking off places inside the pages. I am 100% sure I won’t get to everything, but it has been fun trying! It is always interesting to look up a place that you will be visiting and see what is or is not on the author’s list.

What about you? Do you have a favorite travel book or guide? How much do you prepare for a trip? A little? Or a lot?