Let's Go 2004: Europe - European Travel Books

Paperback - 01 December, 2003 - Let's Go Publications
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By: Inc Let's Go
ISBN: 0312319843

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Reviews by readers

great guide

I would recommend this guide to anyone who is planning on backpacking. It contains up-to-date information on trains and buses and their prices. The book also provide detailed maps of large European cities and public transportation maps in the front. This book saved me alot of money on my recent trip and is definately worth its price.

Not as helpful as Lonely Planet

Let's Go is the college student classic. Without a doubt, if you are looking simply to party Europe, this is your most helpful tool. But if you are looking to experience Europe, understand that Let's Go is the most popular European travel guide. Virtually EVERYONE has it. This fact does have its advantages: you will never be far from the American crowd. But the disadvantages are the same: the bars, the clubs, the hostels and resturants are all on the Let's Go circuit.
In all, my recomendation is to buy the Lonely Planet guidebook that I found much more informative and better written. You can better avoid the American Party crowd when you feel like it, and when you want to partake in the happenings - don't worry they are easy to find.

The other advantage of everyone having Let's Go would be that it can be found almost everywhere (hostel bookshelves, your roommate's backpack) and you will not have any trouble borrowing it for a while. Lonley Planet offers a slightly different perspective, and allows you to more fully enjoy your trip abroad.

The myth of the backpacker

Overweight, overpriced, inaccurate and misleading, this book should not be considered a reliable guide to Europe for people on a strict budget. The first and probably most significant problem is the book's estimated costs for a first-time, under-26 backpacker. Let's Go estimates $2000 (for 2 months) in addition to airfare, railpass, a backpack, and emergency funds. Realistically, however, many travelers will find that figure ridiculously low. Particularly for the under-26 traveler who is not a student, and thus not eligible for discounts at museums and attractions, that $33/day starts to buckle under the reality of $15-20 dorm bed prices, $10 museum admissions, $7 daily grocery bills (for a barely adequate diet from supermarkets), $1.50-2.00 public transit rides, etc etc. Of course, you're not always going to be able to find a bed as cheap as $15 or even $20, and presumably you'll occasionally want to call home, use an internet cafe, or have a beer. Certainly, people have done (and are doing) Europe on $33 or even less. But do you need supplementary overseas travel insurance? A hostelling card? Any new clothing (jeans are bulky, heavy, hot, and take forever to dry)? A sturdy pair of shoes? None of this seems to be included in that magical $2000 figure Let's Go gives.

More broadly, Let's Go claims to represent backpacker travel, a kind of budget travel distinguished from Tourism (with a capital T) not only by its relative cheapness but by the flexibility, cultural sensitivity, and travel savvy of its practitioners. But, using this book as a guide, when you end up packed in some building with a bunch of sweaty, obnoxious tourists you'll begin to wonder if you've been duped. In addition, keep in mind that to some people backpackers are indistinguishable from other tourists except in that they are poorer and thus, perhaps, even more worthy of contempt than usual tourists. You will not necessarily earn any respect from the natives for stumbling through a few half-remembered phrases from high-school French, German or Spanish (but you may need to do so to survive; Let's Go does not, unfortunately, emphasize the extent to which the myth that all Europeans speak English is just that; a myth).

And don't expect the information about hours, prices and locations to be terribly accurate, either. Although this is the 2004 edition, the information for it was gathered between May and August 2003, and opinions about places are the opinion of one researcher (who, in the case of some of the places I visited, must have been drunk, stoned, or otherwise insensate when forming an impression of a place).

My final criticism (since we are limited to 1,000 words) is the size, weight, and price of the book. At over 1,000 pages, this book is festooned with advertisements, researchers' idiosyncratic blathering, listings of clubs and bars with ridiculously high cover charges/drink prices, and shopping and accomodation with prices well out of reach of anyone who could be accurately called a budget traveler. There is some good information here, particularly for someone who has no idea what to do in Europe, and other travel guide series have their problems but, as always, caveat emptor.

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