Customer Reviews

Camping Europe 2 Ed: Includes Scandinavia and Eastern Europe (Camping Europe: Includes Scandinavia, Central & Eastern)

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

This book is relatively worthless. Not only does it try to cover too much territory by doing all of Europe, it strays from it's intended purpose as a camping guide book. Most area descriptions are only a short paragraph long and have more info on area attractions than on the campgrounds (just check out all the activities listed in the index, unfortunately insufficient detail is provided for the activities as well). When I want info on area attractions I consult dedicated guide books such as Rick Steve's.

As such only 1 or 2 campgrounds per area are covered (typically w/ only 1-2 sentence descriptions) and no info as to the size, quality, costs and exact locations of the campgrounds. No attempt is made to distinguish or recommend certain campgrounds; nor is any particular area covered in enough detail to give you a range of campgrounds to choose from. I found more campground info through local tourist organizations and the internet than I found in this book.

Carol Mickelsen's Camping Europe is an impressive and "user friendly" travel guide that is enhanced with detailed directions on how to drive to campgrounds and major sights in twenty-one European countries. Ideal for "car campers", this affordable and informative compendium offers a wealth of tips and techniques for traveling inexpensively, seeking out of the way places, even sharing everyday experiences with local residents in order to get a true feeling for the amazing variety of lifestyles that can be encountered away from the heavily traveled tourist traps. Mickelsen's easy-to-read text is enhanced with more than 250 maps. If you are planning on an extended European vacation and are looking for more a more intimate and memorable experience than those prepackaged tourist routes and routines offer, then begin your planning with a copy of Carol Mickelsen's Camping Europe!

We love to camp and think it's a great way for families to be together. I read about the book Camping Europe in a popular budget travel magazine. The campgrounds sounded so inviting that we thought we'd at least try it once. We had a great trip! We chose The Netherlands and Denmark because many of the campgrounds listed rented bikes and we like to cycle together as a family. We rented a car and took our tent like the book suggested. It made the trip very inexpensive compared to other ways of traveling. Our son loved playing with the other kids at the campground's play and swim areas. We enjoyed meeting other parents and relaxing with them. We found the things recommended in the book to do interesting and fun, particularly since there were driving directions on how to get to them. Campground lists usually just give an address. The book gave detailed directions on how to drive to them. We would have had a hard time finding them without the book. I highly recommend the book and camping as a wonderful way to enjoy Europe.

The book has several major flaws. I cannot recommend it.

First, it is full of typos. It appears the book had no editor, or at least no competent one. On the first page I opened to, I found two obvious typos in a table that didn't have much text to start with, and a problem with "its" vs. "it's"--an inexcusable error for any competent writer and editor.

Second, the book uses $, $$, $$$, etc. to indicate campground pricing, but nowhere could I find any key to what these numbers mean. Expensive to one person is cheap to another person, and expensive in one country may be cheap in another. So with no key--or at least no findable key (and I checked front, back, at the start of chapters, as footnotes, and everywhere else I could think of)--the price information is useless.

Third, I mainly was interested in the book for Norway but the author focuses only on southern Norway--the region between Oslo and Bergen, mainly. While these regions are fantastic, so is the rest of Norway and any book on camping should include the entire country. (I have stayed at wonderful campgrounds, in a tent, throughout Norway so hoped to use this book to find additional ones along the coast and up north.)

Very disappointing book. I haven't gone further into the book as these three major flaw areas are significant enough to have my questioning the author's abilities.

This books says it does Eastern Europe, too. But it leaves out most of it only doing as far as Hungary. There was no way to tell about these limitations before buying it and so I'm very disappointed since I wanted Romania and Bulgaria too. And, of course, there is no Russia or other Baltic places. Phooey!!!

After reading Camping Europe my husband and I decided to try it. We decided to go to Italy. It worked out great. We followed her suggestions on what equipment to take, how to pack, and how to take our bikes. It was much easier than we anticipated. We didn't realize how sophisticated campgrounds were in Europe. They are very popular with Europeans. It was lots of fun to meet people from so many different countries. She gave lots of helpful hints on how to drive in a foreign country. Getting directions from locals wasn't hard even though we didn't speak their language. Her written directions and the maps made finding the campgrounds easier than we thought it would be. We loved her ideas on what to do. She also gave directions on how to go to fun out of the way places that you couldn't go to without a car. It was wonderful to have our bikes and our a bike rack. It was so cheap and fun to camp that we are going back to Europe again next year. Every country she writes about sounds like lots of fun so it is going to be hard to decide. We met a few Americans in the campgrounds. Several were having a great time using her book too. Too bad more Americans don't know how easy and fun camping in Europe can be.