Customer Reviews

The Rough Guide to Toronto

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This book is ideal for a short trip to Toronto or for those who don't care to carry large, bulky books with them on vacation. Most of the information is short, to the point, with a minimum of color commentary. There is a section devoted to the history of the city and references to other books for those who want more information. The book is small enough to fit in a backpack or even a coat pocket so it can be carried with you. Probably not ideal for an extended stay, but overall helpful.

I have not used a more useless guide book.

1 - the pricing information for museums in this book are completely out of date! The prices they quoted for the AGO, ROM, Bata Shoe Museum and so on are often at least $10 less than the actual admission fees those places typically charge now.

2 - they make downtown financial district sound like the coolest area ever, with a lot written about Nathan Phillips Square. That square is over-run with homeless people and pigeon poop!

3 - The book has all of 3 lines about the West end of Toronto (Queen St, King St West, from West of Spadina). That's the coolest area in the city with so many good galleries and art spaces, independent businesses, great restaurants. It's a serious oversight of the book's authors to skip this area.

This item is the Rough Guide map of Toronto - not the related 'Rough Guide to Toronto' guide book. Reviews for the book should have been made elsewhere. This folding map doesn't cover as large of the city area as the larger and cheaper (but very good!) regular paper maps like Rand McNally. But it's strengths are that it is completely waterproof (not just water-resistant), and it shows many establishments (like hotels, restaurants, clubs, theaters, stores, tourist attractions and operating hours) that others don't. Public transit is shown quite well. And it's moderate size can be a plus because it's not too huge to open up in a car. The main map covers the downtown region in good detail (and it includes a good downtown closeup map), but it doesn't extend northward enough to show Highway 401. To see the 401 and the main highways in and around Toronto, you'll need to use the Toronto Metro Area mini map section - which is small and not very detailed - but might suffice for merely passing through the city on the highways.

I love using Rough Guides and this was no exception. However I would've liked more info on cheaper restaurants, but I guess in a city like Toronto you can just walk a few steps and find a gem among the rocks.
The information on places of interest was also quite good.