Customer Reviews

Fodor's Scotland, 20th Edition (Fodor's Gold Guides)

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"Fodor's Scotland" is heavy on facts for planning and light on wow factor. This guide, the 20th edition of the series on Scotland, contains an enormous amount of updated and useful information on planning a trip to Scotland.

The guide provides useful descriptions of Scotland's many natural and historical attractions, including breakdowns by regions that can serve as the basis of a travel itinerary. The regional breakdowns include suggestions for accomodations and dining, along with price ranges. There are inset notes about local history. The usual travel tips about traveling to and around Scotland are addressed at the beginning of the guide, along with a calendar of special events by month. The latter should be carefully consulted, as the presence of a music festival or highland games can easily overwhelm limited local room and board facilities outside major urban areas like Glasgow and Edinburgh.

Northern Scotland has limited road and rail networks, few large population centers, and correspondingly fewer tourist accomodations. Visitors planning to enjoy the wild and beautiful Highlands and Islands should plan ahead carefully. The inclusion of website addresses for many hotels and other facilities allows some useful comparisons.

Fodor's Scotland has no photographs or other illustrations beyond maps; visitors seeking a sense of place and scale should consult elsewhere. The level of detail even in a 400 page guide is necessarily limited. Travelers with particular interests such as hiking are advised to do additional research. Fodors does not include the rating system for hotels, guest houses, and B&Bs already in use in Scotland; these ratings are normally advertised on individual websites and are a useful comparison measure. This visitor to Scotland found them to be fairly accurate.

This guide is recommended to the traveler planning a trip to Scotland and needing lots of basic information with which to plan.

i love the few day must sees recommendations before each chapter
they give idea on what is important to see
and they also have plans for quick stops in 1-2 days to nearly 1 week for each place
layout and information as expected similar to lonely planet stuffs
personally i like the way the info was presented in this series better

Great book - I visited a friend in Scotland who had never been a "tourist in her own country" and we both found the book to be very helpful in choosing what sites to see. Will use it the next time I visit.

The only drawback is that it's hard to figure out exactly where the restaurants are in relation to the visitor attractions. Maybe a map with the the restaurants noted on it would help.

We buy Fodor's guides before we go to a new place. The guides give details tht make you familiar with your destination which takes a lot of anxiety away. Fodor's Scotland is no exception.