|
Rough Guide Egypt
Nearly
everyone I talk to loves the Rough Guide guidebooks. Rough
Guide has great information, a free-and-easy style,
and some of the best travel suggestions for "off
the beaten path" places of any guidebook series
that I've found.
And, lest you think that I'm basing the review on
this book alone, I'll shamefully admit that I have
something like twenty Rough Guides, from Europe to
Asia, Scandinavia to India. They're my choice for
armchair travel and dream-vacation plans. Rough Guides
has also branched out to hip reference guides to everything
from music styles to pregnancy. Rather an odd range
of titles, but each one offers crisp, opinionated
writing (something that I value in a travel guide,
especially -- I want to know what you liked, not the
vanilla, wishy-washy review that says everything is
"wonderful" or tries to find the silver
lining in every cloud...sometimes a town just stinks)
and up-to-date information. I know that the latest
book will be accurate and that I can reliably base
my travel expectations on what they say for prices,
times, and travel suggestions.
Rough Guides are for the most part geared towards
budget travel. Not necessarily travel on a shoestring,
but on low-cost independent "backpacker"-type
travel. I tend to discard any guidebook that explains
that you might want to pass on a site because the
entry fee is too high and it's only the equivalent
of US$5 or so (geesh, if you can't afford five bucks,
you're on a tighter budget than I'll ever be!).
Rough Guides doesn't do that, but it does focus on
2 and 3 star accommodations, cheap eats, and public
transportation instead of luxury accommodations and
flying or driving yourself.
Still, for general travel tips and sheer volume of
data, Rough Guides have few competitors. Their books
are based on reader and traveler feedback (in fact,
if you send them updated information, they will post
it immediately on the website and send you a book certificate
when the next edition is published), and therefore
have more detail and esoteric tidbits than most other
guides. For example, when directing travelers to
the Tourist office in Cairo, they specifically note
that you should go in the afternoon, when X works,
as he is a veritable encyclopedia of information about
the local attractions. The general "been there,
done that" attitude of the guide is refreshing
-- I have no images of expense-account travel writers
peering into the hotel and writing a quick blurb;
with Rough Guides, you know that someone stayed there
and experienced the plumbing adventures firsthand.
Hotel reviews and restaurant reviews tend to be very
reliable in the mid or low range, and there is a general
bias towards mid-range accommodations, but this is
eminently useful information. There is voluminous
data on public transport (trains, taxis, buses) that
will be indispensable to all but the most exclusive
travelers.
The Guide is organized by region, with each town or
site afforded a section including transportation and
sights. Hotel and restaurant recommendations are grouped
by price (although actual costs are not often provided,
a reasonable price range grading system is used). Other offerings, including camping and nightlife are
also included. An extensive reading list and cultural
references is also welcome. Maps are excellent, and
the detail maps of Cairo, Aswan, and Luxor are worth
taking along.
This guide is especially useful for the in-depth coverage
of more remote areas where tourists often don't venture,
including the Western Desert and the Oases. I do wish
they had more pictures, but there are other guidebooks
(notably Insight Guides) that more than cover that
desire, so I can't complain much.
Current updates and an extensive travel support site
can be found at www.roughtguides.com.
An online community newsletter is also available.
A new edition has been released in April 2003.
|