Time Out Skiing and Snowboarding in Europe [Paperback]

Dominic Earle (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 2004 | Series: Time Out Ski & Snowboarding Europe

Covering 100 major European skiing destinations, organized by country, Time Out Skiing and Snowboarding in Europe includes information on facilities, accommodation, eating out, travel, and nightlife. Special sections cover traveling with families, luxury breaks, and equipment. Each destination is critically reviewed and assessed by an independent team, assuring objectivity.

Product Details

• Paperback: 200 pages
• Publisher: Time Out Publishing (October 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0903446979
• ISBN-13: 978-0903446976
• Product Dimensions: 10.6 x 8.3 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.9 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 1.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,873,968 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Not the Best Ski Guide for Europe, September 11, 2005

By 

John D. Sherwood (Washington, DC USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Time Out Skiing and Snowboarding in Europe (Paperback)

The Time Out group is well known for its New York and London entertainment magazines as well as its expanding list of guides to popular destination cities across the globe. The audience for this burgeoning media empire is the young urban professional ready to take on the world, but with a limited budget.

For 2004-2005 season, Time Out unveiled its first ski and snowboard guide ever: a 160-page magazine format overview of the top 74 ski resorts in Europe. For each resort covered, the guide offers 1-2 pages of basic information on ski slopes, restaurants, and accommodations. In some cases, a difficult-to-read piste map is included and in others, a photograph taken from the resort's web site. A sidebar column contains some information on ski pass prices, transportation services, lessons, and useful web sites and telephone numbers. The sidebar also rates each resort by snow quality, suitability for various ability levels, off-piste possibilities, scenery, resort charm, and apres-ski.

In addition to its "destination" overviews, the guide contains several feature articles on such subjects as discount airlines serving London, off-piste safety, and Europe's best terrain parks. There's also a chapter on hidden gems and skiing in Scandinavia, Eastern Europe, and Andorra. Like many English language ski guides of Europe, the Time Out guide caters to a UK-based audience, which is generally more price sensitive than the American audience and also on the lookout for shorter weekend getaways.

In terms of overall usefulness, this new volume is less informative than Where to Ski an Snowboard Worldwide: The Reuters Guide, edited by Chris Gill and Dave Watts. Whereas The Reuters Guide contains a lot fresh content about a resort written by real skiers, the information in the Time Out Guide reads more like a ski resort brochure. In it, you can find boilerplate information, but critical insights and fresh knowledge are rare. In some cases, I doubted if the writers had ever visited some of the resorts described. It discusses St. Mortiz, for example, without mentioning one of its greatest culinary institutions: the Chesa Veglia restaurant in Badrutt's Palace Hotel. When describing St. Anton, it does not provide readers with even a basic understanding of the mountain's layout and how best to avoid crowds and bottlenecks. Ischgl, one of the largest resorts in Austria, only receives a page of discussion. If that were not enough, the guide is full of grammatical errors and typos.

These shortcomings suggest that the guide may have been rushed to production. For next season, I suggest that its editors call a "time out," and re-evaluate this guide from the ground up. Skiers and snowboarders can always benefit from more guidebooks, but success in this competitive market demands fresh ideas, new illustrations, and better writing.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Its not a book, December 3, 2004

By 

Georgie (Ireland) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Time Out Skiing and Snowboarding in Europe (Paperback)

I recently received this in the post and although the content is fairly good i would like say that it should not be advertised as a book as it is really a magazine - this was a disappointment to me as I didnt feel it was worth the price.