Lonely Planet Europe on a Shoestring (Paperback)

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Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review
For years, Lonely Planet resisted pressure to cram the whole of Europe into a single guide. To the delight of backpackers everywhere, they've finally given in--with a vengeance. The first edition of Europe on a Shoestring packs 40 countries into 1,200 pages, while still finding room to brief you on all the aspects of pretrip preparation, from packing right to finding the best airfares.

Of course, given Lonely Planet's youthful irreverence, you shouldn't expect your grandfather's Europe. Coverage of traditional favorites like England is trimmed to make room for pocketbook-friendly destinations in Turkey, Morocco, and the Baltic states. The Eastern Europe coverage journeys beyond the tourist-thronged streets of Prague to lesser-known gems like Riga and Vilnius. Lonely Planet even covers the former Yugoslavia, as it slowly begins to emerge from its days as a war-torn no man's land. No matter where you are, the guide points out regional highlights to help you sift through its wealth of information.

As the name implies, Europe on a shoestring focuses on "budget" travel. Fear not--you needn't resign yourself to meals of bread and water and endless nights on the floor of a seedy flophouse. The 30-odd book contributors believe it's possible to travel cheaply without sacrificing style, comfort, and safety. Though the accommodations sections focus on hostels, there are enough bed-and-breakfasts and guesthouses to keep you a safe distance from rowdy spring breakers, if you so desire. Similarly, the entertainment sections offer everything from pubs packed with rowdy Australian backpackers to the finest theater, opera, and ballet in the world.

If you want to take on only a part of the continent, you're still better off with a less comprehensive guide. But if you're interested in exploring St. Paul's Cathedral, St. Petersburg's Hermitage, and everything in between, this book gives you all you need to see Europe on your own terms. --Andrew Nieland

Product Description
Europe has it all - from mountains to museums, beaches to bars, castles to cafs - and the best way to see it is with this essential new guide. Written by expert travel writers, with 40 countries and over 160 maps, this book will get you off the beaten track.

Features: plan your itinerary and budget with the first-time travellers chapter; cycle to the Loire Valley's chateaux, France; haggle in a souq in Marrakesh, Morocco; dance the night away at the hottest nightspots in London or Berlin; explore the city walls of Dubrovnik, Croatia; try the best coffee in Rome.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 1252 pages
• Publisher: Lonely Planet Publications; illustrated edition edition (March 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0864426488
• ISBN-13: 978-0864426482
• Product Dimensions: 7.5 x 5.1 x 1.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (35 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #334,315 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

52 of 53 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A good compromise, April 25, 2000

By	"matt_garrett" (Canberra, Australia) - See all my reviews

My sister and I have almost worn out our copy of Europe on a Shoestring over the past couple of years, and it has been invaluable. Lonely Planet only publishes travel-related books and this experience shows in the class, presentation and accuracy of their guides. If you are looking for a travel guide to Europe with a good balance of detail and portability, LP's Europe on a Shoestring will serve you well.

Positives: As well as a good, clear layout, good maps and an easy to use index, I like the fact that LP also gives you a lot of background information about each country or region. Whereas "Let's Go" will often just give you a line or two (or even worse, a joke) about each country, LP's summaries are accurate and of great interest (and invaluable for passing the time on those long train rides!). Also, if you are aiming to stick to a budget, the many tips for saving money scattered throughout the guide will definitely help you get there.

Negatives: Obviously, there are compromises in compiling such a broad volume: anyone looking for masses of detail about a certain country or planning to spend more than about a week in one region should check out LP's guidebooks to each country instead. Also, with the rapid pace of change in Europe, especially in the East, expect to find that some things have changed since this volume was published (something the editors anticipate in their introduction).

Anyone travelling for shorter periods in Europe will find this book a refreshing and valuable travel companion: it is almost certainly the best book of its size and one which will help you to get the maximum out of your travels in Europe.

32 of 33 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Too much, too little, too late..., January 4, 2005

By	Daryl Anderson (Trumansburg, NY USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Lonely Planet Europe on a Shoestring (Turtleback)

With 17 countries on a 102-day itinerary and a careful eye on our budget, my son and I needed a book like this for our recently completed trip. Although we stuck with it until the end, I gotta say, Lonely Planet's "Europe on a Shoestring" has lots of flaws and you should think carefully before buying it.

THE GOOD NEWS: This is a great alternative to buying a dozen country-specific books. You'll save on pack weight and on dollars (or Euros). Furthermore, since its from Lonely Planet, this book does a lot better job than most of the "mainstream tourist" books of recognizing that a $300-a-night hotel room and a $50 meal are NOT in your plans.

THE BAD NEWS: (a) The prices and lots of info are out of date and getting more so. (b) The maps will taunt you with enough information to get you going but not enough to keep from getting lost, and (c) Overall the book offers a weird combination of too-much and too-little information.

You should consider this book only if you are planning to visit at least 10 different countries in Europe - otherwise you are better off buying individual country guides while in Europe (or sneaking a peek at the freebies stashed at many Hostel reception desks.)

My rating is three stars because you have to realize that there is probably no book out there that does an adequate job of `covering' all of Europe - but there are still lots of travelers, like us, who hope to do just that!

* * * details follow

(A) Check the COPYRIGHT date of the book very carefully before you buy! The one currently for sale is copyright early 2003. This sounded pretty current to us but it apparently means LP wrapped up whatever research they did into updating prices and other information sometime in 2001 or '02; for a trip in 2004 this was WAY OUT OF DATE. For one in 2005 it will be worse. It just gets to be a drag `translating' the prices: every 15 Euro Hostel is really going to be "18 to 20". Every 7 Euro admission fee: "9 or 10". Even expecting this problem, it leaves you feeling like your "shoestring" is getting shredded even more than it already is!

And, of course, prices aren't the only thing that can change in 2 or 3 years! We ran into museums and sights that had been closed for months and even the very strange situation of the LP book saying a museum was going to be closed "until 2004" and then not offering any info about it... as we walked by its open doors! We also bumped up against some hostels and places to stay that were either listed but long-gone or unlisted but two-years-"new."

Consider waiting for a new edition.

(B) The MAPS are a very strange problem. LP has made a clear effort to give you map info for the major cities in most countries and that shows that they realize you will probably be spending most of your time "pounding the pavement." But you won't really need their maps for getting around and touring a city - most major cities have much better maps available for free or cheap and you can usually rustle them up at the train station or hostel.

The REAL REASON you will need the sort of map this book provides is for the tricky first hour in a new city. You've just gotten off yet another train in yet another city and face another new language that's burbling all around you and your first goal is to get to your hostel or hotel and drop your pack.

But the LP city maps are the worst possible compromise of providing not enough info to serve as touring maps but also not enough to get you from that first important point-A to point-B! They trim back on space and printing by only naming SOME of the streets. You'd be surprised how many different ways there are to walk out of a typical European train station! We were unhappily surprised how many times we did that and found ourselves on a street whose name did not grace the LP map.

OF COURSE ASKING strangers is a great part of the travel experience and most of the time it was fun to figure out the best sequence of gestures and pidgin English and pseudo-Eurish to ask someone where the heck we were! But you'll do plenty of that anyways and besides, if, like Blanche DuBois, you've "always relied upon the kindness of strangers", why bring a guidebook at all?

(C) Its hard to whack LP for trying TOO hard; but when you are ending a 20 mile hike knowing that the 4-pound guidebook in your pack has at least 2-pounds of info about countries you aren't ever going to visit, it tends to ring in your mind with every step! This book was TOO extensive for us and I can't imagine anyone with an itinerary that would include even 75% of the countries listed. Do you want to lug around all that info on Lithuania and Latvia and Slovakia and Slovenia ? Our answer was to take a good sharp knife to the pages and hack out about 600 pages of excess. If you're a bibliophile and that prospect makes you shudder, at least think carefully about their "Western Europe" or "Eastern..." books instead.

At the same time, we often felt that the book offered too little information. For most of the larger countries, the book feels incomplete once you venture out of THE MAJOR CITY. I realize that this is the "we can't include everything" problem again, but its no help to understand their editorial challenges when you are lost in Lubeck or trying to find out about a place that's listed in your hostels book but not LP.

(D) Minor but annoying complaints include (1) less focus on hostels than I expected, (2) limited info on money-saving "self-catering" (e.g. where to buy food to COOK) and (3) too much silly self-promotion (it became a joke with us to read the section for each country where they `recommend' other books about the country and somehow only ever recommend other LP guides!

(E) Minor but gratifying kudos for their (1) thoughtful and informative country histories, (2) limited but necessary language guides (you can go far indeed if you just memorize the words for "thank you" in most places)

I guess the fact is that traveling as we did, lots of countries, lots of cities and lots of short stays, isn't a reasonable way to see Europe. OF COURSE its better to spend two weeks in Berlin - and get a "Berlin Book" - or a month zigzagging through France - and buy a "France book." But unless you've got unlimited time (and unlimited money) you'll probably face the same dilemma that drove us to our wacky itinerary and this ultimately unsatisfactory book: how can you sit there and plan to just "skip Italy" or "pass up Vienna"? Like us, like this book, you will probably end up trying too hard to do everything.

Enjoy your trip.

21 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars essential for the backpacker, May 3, 2000

By	GD (Ohio, USA) - See all my reviews

I absolutely lived by this book as my travelmate and I backpacked across Europe during the summer of 1999. Lonely Planet did an excellent job of highlighting the best things to see and do throughout Europe, as well as giving good advice about things that are not worth seeing and doing. I found the information to be nearly 100% accurate including maps, directions, telephone numbers, addresses, and prices. In addition, the book gave useful travel tips including cultural practices, hazardous areas, directions on how to use the public phones, how to buy subway tickets, etc. Honestly, I don't know how I would have made it through Europe without this book - it is truly an essential for the backpacker!