Guide & Other Books

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•   Travel Planning books

Whether you know exactly where you want to go or have no idea, the books recommended on this page are perfect for planning your trip and can save you a lot of time when on the ground. Not all the information will be useful, but a lot of it, especially the maps and routes. There are some brilliant planning guides available, that if you miss and find when you return you'll probably kick yourself. Click the above link to read more and see all recommendations.

•  Asia

Asia is a big one, so you will only find a selected few guides which are really the pick of the bunch we have come across. Also, the recommended reading in this section is not to be missed as are the planning books by Mark Elliot. Any one of the fiction books recommended are an excellent read and great background to life in Asia, with Indian based fiction/fact standing out. Click the above link to read more and see all recommendations.

•  Africa

With something like fifty countries its difficult to recommend guides without breaking the continent down into different regions. These regions are generally visited independently, the North, West, South and East (South and East sometimes combined) and since most of these regions are not frequently visited, the number of good guides are few and far between. Click the above link to read more and see all recommendations.

•  Australia & the Pacific

 Australia has long been the country of choice for year out European and American travellers, which means there are loads of guidebooks to chose from. The same goes for New Zealand. In both cases Lonely Planet guides are by far the most popular. Many would say because of this, there are some better options. Click the above link to read more and see all recommendations.

•  Latin America

Latin America takes in a fair few countries, so travellers tend not to stick to one. Apart from Brazil or Mexico it's quite common to travel in several countries on one trip and not uncommon to cover the whole region.

For this reason regional guide books have been concentrated on here, picking out the best and naming and shaming the worst. Fiction in this region is very strong and you could do much worse than reading all the recommended fiction listed. Apart from in a few places, books are hard to get on the ground in Latin America. Click the above link to read more and see all recommendations.

•  Europe

If you are just visiting one or two countries such as Spain or Italy, you will find either the Lonely Planet or Rough Guide and many other guides (although many are not aimed at independent travellers) to a very high standard. If you want quick facts and good budget recommendations try a Let's Go guide. Considering the expense of travel within Western Europe and the huge number of things to see and do in any large city, many travellers tend to restrict their travels within small hubs (e.g. London, Prague, Paris, Rome) in which case mini-city guides might be a better resource and are normally of a high standard.

•  Travel reading

Travelling is the perfect time to read and in all honesty you generally find yourself doing it in order to pass the time. Picking the right books can really help you get under the skin of a culture and to have a much better and more measured understanding of it. Take the excellent 'Wild Swans' for example, a book about life in China during the last 100 years. Anyone who has read this will know and understand China so much better than, you might venture, someone who has been there, yet not read it or something similar.

Not combining reading a book like this with a visit, is only getting half the wonder. Even if you are not a big reader, you are strongly encouraged to give it a try. If you are not sure what to go for then on this site are a number of pages recommending a few books that you can't go wrong with. None are deeply written or boring, many talk through a backpacker's point of view, many are funny and a good number are probably unlike anything you might have read before. To see these pages click on the links above to select the region you are interested in.

  Click here to learn more about the various different publishers of guidebooks. Their strengths, weaknesses and general background.