Customer Reviews

Lonely Planet Scandinavian Europe (Multi Country Travel Guide)

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This is a great little book providing most of the information you'll need to plan your trip to one or all of Norway, Denmark, Sweden and Finland. There is also a chapter on Iceland and very basic information non Scandinavian but very close by cities of Tallinn in Estonia and St Petersburg in Russia. If you are travelling beyond those cities in those countries you'll need other books, I also grabbed a copy of Lonely Planet Estonia Latvia & Lithuania which was even better than this book and pretty much the same thickness and weight.

Speaking of that this book is a pretty good size for carrying in a backpack. It's about half the thickness and weight of major competitor Frommer's Scandinavia which doesn't have any more info inside it than this. I also found this had easier to read maps (and ones you could find backpacker hostels on) and more durable paper than that book.

You've of course got a lot of information on the major cities of each of the countries, ie Bergen and Oslo in Norway, Copenhagen in Denmark, Helsinki in Finland and Stockholm and Goteborg in Sweden. Day trip ideas from these major hubs are also included for those not travelling to the more remote parts of the three biggest countries. If you are going to the more remote parts such as Lapland and Arctic Circle towns, there is information on how to get to each one and what you'll find there.

Like all Lonely Planet guides the currency exchange, prices and opening times aren't always correct so you need to be a bit flexible with planning these things. The majority of hostels in the major destination aren't inside but seriously do you really still use these books for that when you can read reviews of and book hostels online at websites such as Hostelling International and Hostel World (I would recommend looking at both sites before booking as a lot of hostels are only on one or the other). With the smaller towns they seem to be mostly listed in this book.

I would not waste your money on this guide. I am generally a huge lonely planet fan, but felt that I utterly wasted my money on this guide. It gives only cursory information -- essentially the opening times/entrance fees, and if you're lucky, a descriptive sentence -- about even the most major of the sites in a city, and would not even mention many common sites you would make a point to see in a city. Plus, the city maps were terrible. Basically, it spread itself too thin by trying to cover too much of each scandinavian country and only provided cursory information about everything -- rather than focusing on the major cities and surrounding areas. for example, if you were going to spend that much time traveling all around sweden, then you would have gotten the book on sweden, not a general scandinavia book. I hear the Rough Guide is supposed to be good for scandinavia, and if it's job on copenhagen is any indication, I would recommend trying that instead. Buying this book is only slightly better than having nothing at all.