Customer Reviews

Time Out London 9 (Time Out London, 9th ed)

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When you arrive in London, your first step should be to buy the weekly "what's on" magazine Time Out. Now you can go one better, and before you leave home buy the Time Out London guide.

Updated annually, it covers all the usual topics -- where to stay, where to eat, what to see -- but it is particularly well-written, includes clear directions, and has the wonderful bonus of URLs to an astonishing number of the places it reviews. Want to see the menu of that charming pub in Soho? There's the URL. How about checking on the availability of tickets for a Football match?

An absolutely invaluable guide, to read and research ahead, and to take with you when you go.

Having read most of the guidebooks on London, I'm inclined to say Time Out's is the best. Reader-friendliness is much improved over previous editions now that they have full-color photos and graphics. With typical British candor, they reveal the truth behind tourist junk like Madame Tussaud's and the Rock Circus (i.e. they should be avoided), and they offer some excellent primers for checking out sights beyond the standard tourist realm. On the other hand, they seem to forget that this is primarily a guide for travelers visiting the city for perhaps a week or two, not a throw-in-the-kitchen-sink book for locals. The guide is perhaps a bit *too* comprehensive, going into levels of minutia that are far too detailed for the average tourist. It also may be a bit too "British" for some American tourists, focusing too much on things of interest to Brits that Americans don't particularly care about. Finally, I intensely dislike two things about this guide: that they employ the same tiny font used in their weekly Time Out magazines, which is difficult even for strong-sighted people to read without squinting, and that (like a number of other guides) they accept ads from businesses listed in the guide, which to me seriously undermines their journalistic objectivity.