Frommer's Switzerland

Rating:
Summary: Frommer's Switzerland, 8th Edition
Review: I find this guide to be well organized and comprehensive.
The walking tours of the major cities is the feature I like
best, but there are also descriptions of major attractions
which help one decide which to see and which to miss if time
is short. I had an older Frommer's Switzerland guide and find
the format improved in this edition over the 1994-95 one.
The one objection I have is that in the listings of side
trips such as to neighboring villages, too often the only
directions given are by car. Perhaps there are no other ways
to get there, but I would have liked it if they had said so,
such as "No access by train or bus."

Rating:
Summary: We Review Six Guides to Switzerland
Review: I have been to Switzerland at least six times. Recently I sat down with my daughter who has worked at a hotel at Interlaken in Switzerland during her years in Business Administration at McGill - up to last summer - and we went over the Switzerland guides to see how they ranked, and what was currently the best guide in our humble opinions. We are not experts but have certain requirements and preferences. It helps if one can get a feel for the area in advance of a trip, and generally that is helped by good maps and color photos. So those guides do better in our review. We like to make reservations by internet and telephone and just use the Guide as a "guide".

Generally it costs more to publish a book with color photos so when all else is reasonably equal, one feels that they get better value with a guide with photos. Also we wanted to see if the ambiance at certain hotels and resorts was accurately portrayed in the text based on our knowledge. So those aspects of the guides determine our ranking. Incidentally all the books are excellent. When we did our review the new DK Eyewitness guide was not yet available, but in any case it will be short, under 400 pages.

For the Swiss guides we separated the guides into three groups, 5, 4, and 3 stars.

5 Stars (this group has nice color photos plus maps and text).

A. Green Guide to Switzerland published February 2001 by Michelin, 395 pages, $14., ranked 24,380 on Amazon.com, 0.64" x 9.4" x 4.7", lots of photos, maps, text, accurate portrayal of areas. Gives a nice idea of what you will find. Goes right down to small villages in detail even though it is just 395 pages. First choice.

B. Lonely Planet Switzerland published July 2003, 335 pages, $ 14., ranked 29,913 on Amazon.com, .69" x 6.42" x 6.5". Solid effort, lots of good photos and descriptions.

4 Stars (this group mainly text and maps).

C. Rough Guide to Switzerland published June 2003, 704 pages, $13.27, ranked 30,209 on Amazon.com, 1.08" x 7.8" x 6.38". Solid effort lots of things to see and do and best "text and maps only" books.

D. Frommer's Switzerland published February 2003, 512 pages, $15.39, ranked 47,638 on Amazon.com, 1.1" x 8.5" x 5.08". Similar to Rough Guide but shorter.

E. Fodor's Guide to Switzerland 42 edition, published December 2002, 448 pages, $14.7, ranked highest in group on Amazon.com at 3,172, 1.2" x 8.98" x 5.01". The smallest in the group, do not know why it is so popular?.

3 Stars

F. Michelin Red Guide published in 2004, 563 pages but in four languages: Italian, French, German and English so English sections are just a fraction of the book.

Rating:
Summary: Good as reference, not for much else
Review: I purchased a copy of this book to help with my summer research internship in Switzerland in 2001, and found it to be less useful than the Rough Guides.

The Fromer book is written as a fairly terse reference book, listing a few restaurants, hotels of various price ranges, and not much else for the different cities. Sure, there are listings of attractions for the different cities, but the way they are presented is not very helpful to plan trips. On the other hand, the Rough Guides have suggestions on things to do for the different places.

So all in all, it depends on your style of planning but I feel that this book is more suited to business travelers.

Rating:
Summary: Worth taking with me
Review: I recently purchased this book from a local bookstore and found it very informative. It had a balanced view of history and was entertaining reading. I am planning on taking the book with me as I travel Switzerland. It seems to have a good selection of hotel and restaurant offerings and I can't wait to get there. I find that the Frommers books as well as the on-line site at frommers.com are very valuable to the budget minded traveler. I paid more for the book than Amazon is selling it for so it is a good value from Amazon.

Rating:
Summary: Good, but lacking some detail
Review: Just visited Switzerland this past April 2003 and used this guide to get around from Fribourg to Geneva, Zurich, Bern, Montreaux and Gruyeres.

This guide provides a lot of useful travel details like AMEX offices in Switzerland and directions by car, train and plane to cities in Switzerland.

In general the guide is good and the walking tours reccommended are well done. I personally followed some of them and they are up to date.

The only part lacking in the guide is the fact that the maps require more detail. I had to use the visitor's maps available at the tourist office to get around with more detail.

The restaurant options may be outdated in some cases as my Fribourg friend pointed out, but this is a good guide to take along with a more detailed city map.

It has good background information on the places visited, but I would reccommend another guide or a map to be really complete.

Rating:
Summary: OK - but double check the info
Review: This book clearly provides some useful information - but more often than not we found that the places referenced may be somewhat lower standard than expected when you read the book. So use the book - but be flexible and prepared to change your ideas when you reach your destiation

Rating:
Summary: Frommer's Switzerland (Frommer's Switzerland, 9th Ed)
Review: This was a great guide for us while driving in Switzerland. Frommer's recommendations and descriptions for places to stay and site-see were fairly accurate. When they list a five star hotel as such, believe it. They also included mini walking tours in various cities ... it was great!!! What a fantastic way to get aquainted with unknown spots!!!!