Rick Steves Scotland (First Edition)

This man knows how to travel and he knows how to advise. The best thing he does is cut through just the sheer volume of things to do, restaurants and hotels, etc. on which you need to decide. Will he list every hotel in a city? No, and that's a godsend. Instead he'll give you a list of 10 or so places that you can't go wrong with. It's nice to know you don't need to worry about picking places or things to do that might be a huge failure, scam or waste of time.In the case of Scotland, they actually have a very impressive and helpful tourism website. What I did, and what I would recommend doing, is going on Scotland's website and cross checking places to go and stay with Steve's book. If the website listed a place and Rick Steves said it was awesome, I felt pretty confidant that it would be a good place to explore. From that, you're pretty much guaranteed that you won't have any major disasters on your hands while you travel.His book is also great to have on hand while you're away. Oftentimes we'd have some more flexible day schedules and would look to his book to see what he recommended for a town we hadn't initially planned on visiting. It's also a nice small size so it's not super obvious that you're a tourist!

Rick Steves' books are invaluable and this is no exception. It is full of invaluable details and is the only guide book I shall take to Scotland. That says a great deal in itself.

アメリカ人旅行書専門家と複数スタッフの共著。個人旅行向きの情報全体のバランスが良く、ホテル/レストランの選択も結構いいセンスです。観光名所の説明は私には十分でした。写真が殆ど無いので星ひとつマイナス。

Strange book. Aberdeen, Scotland's third city after Edinburgh and Glasgow, is not mentioned (!!) despite having its atmospheric Union Street, Dundee however, as ugly a city as you will find in Scotland, gets five pages. Glasgow gets equal billing with Edinburgh, a judgment that only rabid Glaswegians would approve. On my only visit to Mull, Duart castle was the most prominent attraction but it's not mentioned at all in Steves.

I was fortunate enough to spend 3 weeks in Edinburgh last spring. Most of that time, I was there for work meeting with folks from the University of Edinburgh but I also took the train to Stirling and the bus to Peebles. I relied heavily on this book to find cheap (but tasty) places to eat, interesting places to visit, and wonderful history lessons. It's written in such a way that you can pull it out while sitting in St Giles Cathedral or wandering Doune Castle and get some backstory right there, or you can easily skip the history and just get the details -- opening hours, ticket prices, etc.Additionally, this book was wonderful in my pre-trip planning. Rick Steves explains all the necessary and perhaps dull details that one really needs to know -- Visas, money exchanges, ATMs (called cash points in Scotland), public transportation, etc. I purchased several guidebooks before this trip, but I used this book every single day during the 3 weeks that I was in Scotland.