Eyewitness Top 10 Travel Guide to London (Eyewitness Travel Top 10)

Roger Williams

1 Buy The Regular London Guide from Eyewitness
This is a scaled down version of the regular Eyewitness London book.

I have to confess up front. I love these books. I must have a dozen. I really like the Paris book, and the one for Prague, and Stockholm, and South Africa, and .... You get all the detailed material similar to other great travel books plus you get great visuals.

The photos and descriptions and cutaway drawings are excellent and more than make up for any lack of small detail. But there is lots of detail here. The book includes the history of London and many details on the art, art galleries, parks, cutaway views of historical buildings, and many other things of interest. That is the good part.

The bad part is why buy this book when there is a much better Eyewitness Travel book on London for a few extra dollars. The big book is 5 stars. This is an edited and scaled down sibling.

Recommendation: skip this thin 2 star or 3 star book and just buy the regular book which is easily a 5 star book.

Jack in Toronto

2 The perfect travel companion
Buying travel guides isn't exactly my thing - not suprising that it took me only minutes to get frustrated in the bookstore with the plethora of options available. For my purposes, I was looking for a book that would highlight must-see attractions, must-dine restaurants (I'm a food buff), must-walk streets, must-do road trips, etc. And critical that all this had to be presented in a easy to read manner, preferably as a simple bulletted list rather than paragraphs of information. But my biggest requirement was this: the guide had to be small enough (and light) to fit in my coat pocket, leaving my hands free as they should be.

From all these angles and more, the Eyewitness Top 10 guide was the clear winner. Not only does the book provide top 10 attractions for the city as a whole, but it also mentions top 10 things to do within each attraction - e.g., you'll find top 10 things to do at the british museum, top 10 things to do at tate modern (with a list of must-see art works and where they're located within the museum), etc. Further, the book seems to recognize that people have different styles of exploring new cities because the organization of the book makes it really simple to plan your day according to a variety of themes: attractions, eateries and even neighborhoods - so you'll know what to do if you plan to spend an entire day around westminster & the south bank OR around covent gardens, for example. There is also a listing of the top 10 restaurants around each area which really came in handy. The book is full-color with detailed (yet to-the-point) maps, pictures, underground tube map, directions, etc. The book also contains quite a bit of trivia about each location, but the best part is the presentation - short & sweet and never overwhelming.

The book contains a whole section on "Streetsmarts" which really helped me with the most basic of things - from understanding the foreign currency to making a phone call. Great section! I'm pretty sure I'll end up getting top 10 guides from this series for other european cities for future trips - they're easily the best travel guides I've found. And at less than 10 bucks a pop, can't imagine another guide that can even think of competing.

3 The most comprehensive London guidebook!
Was extremely helpful! Havent been on my trip yet but just from what I've been reading I feel like Im really getting a grasp of the place. It looks at London on an Area by Area basis. It charts out a walk for you to do in each part to really see everything. As well as details for lodging, shopping and eating. It also has a brief History of London, and a look at the past 1,000 years or so of Royals. I especially enjoyed a seperae breakdown towards the back of restaurant by area, and then corss-referenced by cuisine. The back inside cover has a map of the "Tube", and a general map of London in the front covers. The book is relatively small (although jam-packed with the pertinent info) and it fits in your purse. I know because I've been carrying it around with me since I bought it. My only complaint if any is I was looking to hear about Notting Hill, and we are staying right next to King's Cross and it seems to consider these areas to far out from "The City" to be worth talking about. That aside , Buy This Book!

4 Indispensible!
Just returned from a 10 day trip to London and Paris, these guide books were FANTASTIC! Small enough to fit in a pocket or bag, PACKED with info on Underground/Metro, places to eat, places to visit. Brought along other guides, but ended up leaving them in the room, these books had it ALL!

5 I experienced the top 10 of London in 10 weeks
During a study abroad with 15 other students over ten weeks, this travel guide was indispensable and doesn't feel like a brick in your bag! The concise paragraphs and color photos are perfect for the traveler who wants to experience London rather than just read pages and pages of guide book material. People with other guide books were borrowing this one to figure out the top things to do (rather than sift through too much information in theirs).

6 Definitely a 10!
I bought this book before visiting London for the first time. I liked the size and the way the book was set up. A few months later I moved to London to study, and this book has been indispensable. It has all the information about the city, food, hotels, markets, museums, etc. without being too big. Its a great size, its light and fits into my bag easily; I take it everywhere. The maps are inside the front and back covers so they're easily accessible. I would highly recommend it, and I plan on getting others in the series.