Four Things That You Should Look For In a Travel Guide
A travel guide is basically a compass that tells you where to go to achieve your goal, which in this case is to enjoy your vacation to the hilt. In order to enjoy your vacation, you need to know what are the places that best suit your temperament and pleasure and what are the places which offer you the best prices. If you know these two things, your vacation is a success.
Directions
The first thing that a travel guide would offer you would be travel directions. It should be able to give you complete details on how to reach the destination you plan to visit; the shortest route that makes it possible and the cheapest offer available. Life can be very easy if someone handholds you this way when you are heading towards a new and unknown destination - however charming, picturesque or famous this place is.
Attractions
The next thing that you would learn from a travel guide is about the main attractions your destination offers. This would preferably be indexed for easy reference and give you complete details - such as address, how to reach it by public transport (or whether it is better to use the private transport for this purpose), what is the historic importance of the place or any other significance for which it has become a tourist attraction.
This information would help you plan which places you would like to cover and what would be your time and financial budget to do so. Without a travel guide you would have to count on local people or other sources which might or might not have been accurate.
Accommodation and Food
The third thing that you should expect from your travel guide is information about accommodation and food outlets. There should be an up to date listing of budget, medium and high-end hotels with their tariff and coordinates so you could make your bookings in advance. This information too is a life saver as otherwise you might end in places where it is not safe to stay, too expensive or too inconvenient to stay in.
Seasonal Travel
Lastly, a good travel guide should be able to tell when you should visit - the top tourist time is well known to everyone, and that is the reason why there is a stampede of people during that time. There are many other opportunities when you could enjoy your destination very happily - at a fraction of the cost charged during the peak season. This is very privileged information - yet you should expect it from a good travel guide because that would cut the bills by almost half.
