America's Best Bed & Breakfasts : Over 1,600 Delightful Places to Stay in All 50 States [Paperback]

Fodor's (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 30, 1999 | Series: Fodor's Best Bed & Breakfasts

Fodor's Bed & Breakfast guides cover more that just the B&Bs, they also recommend great things to see and do, places to eat and shop, and more.

The best vacation spots in the United States

This guide covers B&Bs in the top travel destinations on and off the beaten path in all 50 states.

Covers more than 1,600 handpicked B&Bs

From a world-class 14-room San Francisco hotel with views of the Golden Gate Bridge to a yellow clapboard inn on a Maine island where you can watch windjammers sail by, this guide will tell you about the inns you won't want to miss.

No inn can buy its way in

Some B&B guidebooks only include inns that pay to be included.

Inns are described by professional critics

In some B&B guidebooks the innkeepers get to write their own reviews.

All inns visited anew for each revision

Detailed at-a-glance charts comparing inns' facilities, activities, and services

All price ranges covered

"The only unbiased guide we could find." -- St. Louis Dispatch

"Models for any B&B guide: user-friendly, well laid-out, with lengthy
descriptions." -- Travel Books Worldwide

Honest...If the wallpaper is peeling, they say so." -- Cosmopolitan

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Comprehensive bed-and-breakfast guides are hard to come by, and that's what makes Fodor's America's Best Bed & Breakfasts so outstanding. With detailed descriptions of more than 1,600 inns and B & Bs in 50 states, and candid, informative write-ups on each, this is one of the most extensive guides to B & B's we've seen.

Headed for Spicer, Minnesota? Then you'll want to know about Spicer Castle, a Tudor-style country mansion on the shores of Green Lake. With pedestal sinks and claw-foot tubs, a full breakfast and afternoon tea, a Spicer respite costs $75 to $140. If chance (or careful planning) finds you in Delaware, there's the William Penn Guest House, set by the marker that claims the spot where William Penn first "stepped on American soil" in 1682. The guesthouse itself, a restored Colonial structure with lots of pine antiques, charges a mere $60 to $85, Continental breakfast included. And in San Francisco, the Chateau Tivoli is as ornate a fin-de-siècle chateau as you're likely to find in an American setting, with a remarkable history; carved oak paneling; a chaotic, museum-like interior; and a large Continental breakfast of homemade pastries and breads, cereals, juices, and fresh fruit, for $99 to $225 a night. The secret to all these unusual lodgings, of course, is knowing about them, and that's what Fodor's America's Best Bed & Breakfasts excels at. --Stephanie Gold

From the Inside Flap

Fodor's Bed & Breakfast guides cover more that just the B&Bs, they also recommend great things to see and do, places to eat and shop, and more.

The best vacation spots in the United States

This guide covers B&Bs in the top travel destinations on and off the beaten path in all 50 states.

Covers more than 1,600 handpicked B&Bs

From a world-class 14-room San Francisco hotel with views of the Golden Gate Bridge to a yellow clapboard inn on a Maine island where you can watch windjammers sail by, this guide will tell you about the inns you won't want to miss.

No inn can buy its way in

Some B&B guidebooks only include inns that pay to be included.

Inns are described by professional critics

In some B&B guidebooks the innkeepers get to write their own reviews.

All inns visited anew for each revision

Detailed at-a-glance charts comparing inns' facilities, activities, and services

All price ranges covered

"The only unbiased guide we could find." -- St. Louis Dispatch

"Models for any B&B guide: user-friendly, well laid-out, with lengthy
descriptions." -- Travel Books Worldwide

Honest...If the wallpaper is peeling, they say so." -- Cosmopolitan

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 624 pages
• Publisher: Fodor's; 3 edition (March 30, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0679001816
• ISBN-13: 978-0679001812
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.5 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,829,803 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

23 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Not for everyone and not everywhere, May 31, 2000

By 

Odilon "odilon" (Oak Park, IL USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: America's Best Bed & Breakfasts : Over 1,600 Delightful Places to Stay in All 50 States (Paperback)

This a Bed & Breakfast guide which assumes that the Bed & Breakfast itself is a signficant part of the vacation. It tends to focus on accomodations in quaint and stately houses in quaint and stately locations. For this reason, you will find listings for historic Galena, Illinois (a small town, nearer to Iowa than any major center in Illinois) but none in the Chicago area (even the more historic older suburbs). Although there was nothing for Chicago, there were listings for B & B's in New Orleans and San Francisco.

This is also not a budget guide. The examples mostly seem to be top-of-the-line. There isn't any attempt to identify best buys, for example. These are accomodations for major vacations, not improptu stopovers.

That said, the descriptions of the various B & Bs are very thorough and attractive- they make you truly want to go there. They include historical information about the buildings and information about what the owners bring to their businesses that makes them special. The editors take pains to note that the entries are not paid advertisements but included only because of the writers' judgement.

One detail I often found to be missing was information that would help me orient myself quickly in a major city. There wasn't a whole lot of "close to downtown." I've been to New Orleans, so I know what "near City Park" means. By contrast, I could sort of tell that some of the San Francisco listings were in urban neighborhoods but it was often hard to tell how convenient to the center of things one would be. A map, of course might quickly resolve this problem but it's even more helpful to have it right there in the text- especially since the book has no maps of its own.

0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars America's Best Bed And Breakfasts: Over 1600 Delightful Places To Stay In All 50 States, August 3, 2010

By 

SW - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: America's Best Bed & Breakfasts : Over 1,600 Delightful Places to Stay in All 50 States (Paperback)

This is a wonderful book. Lots of details. Just what we needed to help plan our trip.