Customer Reviews

The Rough Guide to Iceland

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

The ROUGH GUIDE series has produced some wonderful books -- I am particularly fond of the titles on France and Scotland, which I have used extensively. This is their first crack at Iceland, and it is a commendable, if not outstanding, effort.

As a result of a recent 15-day trip to Iceland, I can say that it is mostly reliable but far from exhaustive. For one thing, the emphasis is on sleeping bag accommodations exclusively. (Okay, maybe I'm not quite so "rough" a traveler: Two weeks in the same smelly down bag is not my idea of comfortable travel.) Also, the book omits many very viable accommodation options, such as the Bolti farmhouse at Skaftafell. Also many oustanding restaurants such as the well-known Bautinn in Akureyri are unaccountably missing.

What did this guide have to say about my guesthouse in Reykjavik (the excellent Baldursbra)? Only that it had "rather narrow beds and unfortunate floral curtains." Good grief! Firstly, the size of single beds in Iceland tends to be quite standard: No extra inches were shaved off. Secondly, the curtains were indeed floral but not so aggressively bad as suggested by the writers of the guide, who appear to have been suffering from a bad hair day.

On the plus side, the "Basics" and "Contexts" sections are both useful and entertaining introductions to travel in this most fascinating of destinations. I've always regarded a good bibliography as an asset to any guide, and this one has an excellent one. Included is a helpful summary of the key Icelandic sagas, a knowledge of which is essential to understanding the uniqueness of Iceland.

You won't go far wrong with this guide, but there is room for improvement in editions to come. For now, I recommend the 2001 Edition of the Lonely Planet Guide as being the most authoritative guide.

I've not used other Rough Guides before, but a friend swears by them, so I tried this one for Iceland. I also got the Insight Guide, which had pretty pictures and background info but little else. The Rough Guide was infinitely more useful, and I totally relied on it during a weeklong trip around Iceland. We drove all the way around the ring road and out to the Westfjords, and the only incorrect piece of information we found in the entire book was the price at one guest house. Plenty of info on where to stay and eat, what to see and do, and background information was useful and interesting. My one criticism is the maps, they are small and only of small regions of the country (but what are you going to do in such a small book?). It would have been nice to have a large, comprehensive map of the island, so we bought a large road map in addition. The book was particularly useful in the isolated parts of Iceland where 'towns' on maps consisted only of a single house or 2. It was comforting to know the Rough Guide contained accurate information we could rely on to find a place to stop on those remote roads.

We had a 3-day stopover in Iceland, and used the Rough Guide as our main source of information. The information in the book was accurate and very useful, especially when driving in the less populated areas. It was nice to know which towns had fuel stations, cafes, guesthouses, etc. It was a little confusing when we drove east from Vik, and the book was written as if driving west toward Vik, but we managed.

The sections on culture and history were also very useful when planning a trip to a place we'd never been before. This book and a good map (1250 ISK at the tourist information desk) is all you should need for a great trip.

Very organised and detailed guide book. Each section has a "highlights" introduction, allowing for an easy and quick planing of the next day tour.
All detailed we have used (phone numbers, email addresses) were up-to-date.
The context chapter, encompassing Iceland history and overview on geography is a good reading - just what you need when you have an hour to read, and would like to know more on the place you visit.

First of all, I must admit, this book contains a lot of information and if you study it really well, I suppose you can find a lot of interesting things to see and do in Iceland. The problem I have with this book is that there is too much text and too few maps and photos. Ok, perhaps this is more of a problem with the rough guide series, than exactly this book, as I've had a chance to take a look at the Rough Guide to China and it had the same problem.

Now, you might think, why is a lot of text a bad thing, which in itself is not. However, when there is text that gives directions to points of interest in stead of providing a map, I find it too hard to read, especially when I don't understand Icelandic language and basically all the names of the places mean the same to me.

Don't get me wrong, there are some maps in this book, but they are just too scarce and they don't give you a complete picture of what and where is and how to get there. There are some photos as well, but the same can be said about them. I remember having an Eyewitness Trevel Guide to China book, which I found very precise, it gave me a full picture of what was in one region or another or which roads i needed to take to get there. This is not it and unfortunatelly there is no Eyewitness Travel Guide to Iceland at this moment...

This brings me to my conclusion, which is that this is not a book to start planning your trip. I think this could be a great source of reference for example to find out historic facts of certain places or just to look up some interesting attractions around the place you decided to go to. But you need to have a trip plan beforehand.

The book is from 2007, so prices have changed so far, but other information is very accurate. I used it throughout all my trip in Iceland and I'm pretty satisfied. There could be more maps inside. Maybe that's the only disadvantage.

useful; accurate; yet in a plain, direct language; pity that the inside photos ( black and white; old )are so depressing;

This is an informative guide to Iceland. However the previous owner cut out quite a few pictures, I can't imagine why they would do that.Too lazy to take a camera?? Maybe they didn't go and this was all they wanted.

I recently used this book on a trip to Iceland and was very disappointed in what I felt to be a dismissive tone towards some of the locations listed in the book. By mid-journey, aside from referring to the guide for history or background info, I found I was in complete disagreement with reviews and descriptions of hotels and towns listed. The overall lack of enthusiasm and interest the writer had for Iceland was terrifically disappointing.

haven't been to Iceland yet so i have yet to test the knowledge and accuracy of the book. hoping to go this fall! will return with full report.