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Rating:  Summary: You can't judge a book by its cover. Review: "You can't judge a book by its cover." Truer words have not been written when it comes to "Let's Go Austria & Switzerland - including Prague, Budapest, Munich 2000".A lot of info on Austria and Switzerland but Prague, Budapest and Munich aren't to be found in this guide!
Rating:  Summary: Missing info Review: I bought this book for a trip I'm planning to Budapest, and unfortunately, while advertised as being a part of the book, my copy does not have the information on Budapest. I'll add it to my library of travel guides, as I will probably visit Austria and/or Switzerland at some point and the information will be useful. Also, I am a big fan of Let's Go guidebooks anyway, as the writing style and wealth of contact information make travel planning easy. I just wish the Budapest, Prague and Munich info had been included.
Rating:  Summary: Where's Prague? Review: I browsed through this book looking for the Prague section mentioned on the cover. I looked through another copy to make sure I wasn't wrong. I read the contents, read the index. Prague, Munich, & Budapest are NOT discussed in this book. Spend your money elsewhere if you want to see the area.
Rating:  Summary: Where's Prague? Review: I browsed through this book looking for the Prague section mentioned on the cover. I looked through another copy to make sure I wasn't wrong. I read the contents, read the index. Prague, Munich, & Budapest are NOT discussed in this book. Spend your money elsewhere if you want to see the area.
Rating:  Summary: Best value for the money Review: I've spent months in Austria and Switzerland, using a variety of travel books, and Let's Go is the best, bar none. They have excellent coverage of the outdoors, witty writing, and they find cheap, cheap, cheap places that nevertheless manage to be great finds. The maps have improved over previous years, but they could stand an extra one or two. Fortunately, the rest of the information is up to date, as it is the most-recently updated book (so far as I've seen). The other books, I'm sorry, .... Lonely Planet books are updated every eon, and they've got the prose style of a VCR instruction manual. Rough Guides, while quite literate, lack the phone numbers, dates, and times that are the bread and butter of budget travel guides. The Frommer's and Fodor's guides to Austria are a joke: they have few listings outside of 4 star hotels, and could have been written by the tourist offices! The point of Aus/Switz is its natural beauty, and appreciating that is facilitated by good info, not by spending cash. One note: the focus here is for the budget traveler. Those with money will benefit from this, as many of the most friendly places in Austria are cheap (like Privatzimmer and family-run Pensionen). However, the other, mostly older travelers who want to stay in posh hotels and would rather take a cable car than go hiking might want to get a book like Frommer's, or just do whatever the local tourist office tells you to do.
Rating:  Summary: Best value for the money Review: I've spent months in Austria and Switzerland, using a variety of travel books, and Let's Go is the best, bar none. They have excellent coverage of the outdoors, witty writing, and they find cheap, cheap, cheap places that nevertheless manage to be great finds. The maps have improved over previous years, but they could stand an extra one or two. Fortunately, the rest of the information is up to date, as it is the most-recently updated book (so far as I've seen). The other books, I'm sorry, .... Lonely Planet books are updated every eon, and they've got the prose style of a VCR instruction manual. Rough Guides, while quite literate, lack the phone numbers, dates, and times that are the bread and butter of budget travel guides. The Frommer's and Fodor's guides to Austria are a joke: they have few listings outside of 4 star hotels, and could have been written by the tourist offices! The point of Aus/Switz is its natural beauty, and appreciating that is facilitated by good info, not by spending cash. One note: the focus here is for the budget traveler. Those with money will benefit from this, as many of the most friendly places in Austria are cheap (like Privatzimmer and family-run Pensionen). However, the other, mostly older travelers who want to stay in posh hotels and would rather take a cable car than go hiking might want to get a book like Frommer's, or just do whatever the local tourist office tells you to do.
Rating:  Summary: missing info not that important Review: Yes, the editors made a serious mistake when they forgot to include Prague, Budapest, and Munich and yet advertised it on the cover. Those were only bonuses, not the focus of the book. I bought the book for my year abroad in Austria and found it extremely helpful. For the time I had it I did not get lost following the maps and the information was accurate. Unfortunately the book is now in a river in Luzern. Ran after it for a long time with no luck. I replaced it with the 2001 edition and was disappointed to find that they cut out a city that I was planning to go to (Cesky Krumlov). I thought the 2000 version was good. If you want the three cities they missed, copy the pages from a book in the library.
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