Great Britain 2012 Guidebook
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I haven't left on my trip yet, but I am flying into Manchester. The book does not even mention this city. I realize it's not a major tourist attraction, but it is a major entry point from the US.
Jeff in Lanam, CA USA 07/12/2011
Allow me to recommend a few additions to your guide. I know Rick isn't a big fan of castles, but that's what our trip was about: lived-in castles. He does recommend Dunvegan and Cawdor, both of which I enjoyed. But our favorite was Glamis, childhood home of the Queen Mother. They give a guided tour, something most of the castles lacked, relying instead on printed sheets and an occasional docent to answer questions. I also enjoyed Traquair House, oldest continuously occupied house in Scotland. There are Bonnie Prince Charlie associations and a priest's escape route. I also liked Scone Palace, crowning place of the Scottish kings. We dipped into England briefly for Bamburgh Castle, a fortified castle perched atop an enormous rock on the sand dunes. And, further south, Alnwick Castle, where much of Harry Potter was filmed. The state rooms here were the most ornate we saw, but the admission fee for the castle and garden is steep. Be sure to tour the Poison Garden!
Leslie Talley in Titusville, FL USA 06/15/2011
Expand to include the northern Highlands (Sutherland and Caithness) -- equal to Skye in scenery, very friendly
Mark Gibson in Fairfax, VA USA 05/25/2011
stress even more strongly that 3 weeks is really not enough time for even a whirlwind trip around the UK. To really see the sights you mention required more time in almost all instances. I know you advised accordingly, but it only when one is actually on location that the reality of time consraints becomes real.
carol thibault in vancouver, bc canada 04/29/2011
None. We always buy your guide books first wherever we are traveling. The recommendations are always spot-on! Thank you for helping to make our trip to England such a memorable one.
Diane & Rick Steiner in CLifton Park, NY USA 04/26/2011
Add more restaurant and housing opportunities in Edinburgh.
Maggie Anderson in Kent, OH USA 11/27/2010
Add The Old Butcher, great restaurant in Stow-on-the-Wold.
Ann in Minneapolis, MN USA 11/18/2010
Keep doing what you're doing.
Nancy Kline in Mission Viejo, CA USA 11/10/2010
Book offered great information but could use additional guides: 1. Britain mid-semester vacation which is (depending on the school) last one or two weeks of October. Sights were expecially crowded with children. Some might plan a different time to visit. 2. Most car entals offer GPS devices...if the post code was listed in the book, a simply entry gets one to the exact sight location.
Chris Cunningham in Long Beach, NY USA 11/06/2010
Speaking to the idea that including more sites in Great Britain 2010 would be helpful to a much broader market, it would be helpful to people on their first trip as well. They would have information to help them make a few other choices based on preference. Even on our first trip we knew to choose Cornwall and Kent over Blackpool. Also, most people at the book stand would assume that the title Great Britain 2010 would have all the information contained in England 2010 and would have Wales and Scotland in addition. At the book stand most buyers are not yet prepared to restrict themselves to England only, so buying a title which leads you to believe everything is included makes sense. Finding out later that this is not the case means you end up buying two books.
Wayne 09/02/2010
The title of Great Britain suggests the country is given broad coverage which it does not. Best of Great Britain or 22 Days in Great Britain would be a more accurate title, which is where the book started from. We have used Rick Steves guidebooks for several countries and consider them to be very well written, but Great Britain has not expanded over the years to include more areas of the country. This means that the book is limited to people going on their first trip, and possibly second. This limits the potential of the book to assist people who return to Great Britain for another trip. Rather than change the title, the best way to improve this book would be to expand it to give more coverage of the country. This would make the book helpful to more people, and would build the company as well. One page in the book could describe a route for the suggested best 22 days, as it does already. There are books that attempt to do this now, but the Rick Steves style of writing is the best.
Wayne in Ottawa, Canada 09/01/2010
None. Thanks for providing simple tips that some people might think are obvious when traveling. Thanks for the specifics on how to arrive/depart from an attraction. Especially with the Tube.
Melissa Lozano in Lakewood, CO USA 08/11/2010
The closing times listed can be misleading. For example, the closing time listed for Urquhart Castle is 6:00, but they stop selling tickets at 5:00 and lock the entry doors. Also anywhere with a cafe (Urquhart and St. Gile's Cathedral to name a couple) we found that the cafe closed an hour and a half to two hours before the attraction.
Kristen in Raleigh, NC USA 07/08/2010
While never "preachy, " your guide books are laced with wonderful suggestions about ethical behavior, deep appreciation for history,including religions, and wise advise for looking past tourist trap shallowness and over-commercialism. Keep it up and increase these helpful encouragements to be more sensitive and responsible and friendly when we travel.
Gene Boutilier in Claremont, Ca USA 06/26/2010
First of all, let me just say I cannot travel so smartly and confidently without these books. Nickname for this book or Rick in our family is 'Mumma's guardian angel'.
This book is designed for car (and even if it did not), it would have made sense to have How to arrive, Parking info, park and ride etc - information for every location, not just some random. would have helped us. ex- not in Britain but when we reached Vienna and Amsterdam in our previous trips, we struggled a lot but P+R was so simple, only if it was listed and explained like everything else, we would have been more confident about it like we are for everything else we learn from the book.
Also, for Cotswold, it would have helped if 2-4 walks were listed like they were for lake district. Lake district we did just perfect and Cotswold, I was left to find things on my own and websites and specialty books together did not make it easier because nobody knows how to rate but Rick. And we ended up taking something which was good but not the best.
Alpa in Bangalore, India 05/18/2010
your amazing books were amazingly accurate. the only thing close to a snag was trying to day trip to Blenheim Palace - there is no place to leave luggage (at palace or train station). I heard rumors about leaving luggage at the youth hostel. Instead, we just went on to Moreton-in-marsh and dropped our bags at our B&B, and looped back to Blenheim.
Richard Kussin in Cincinnati, OH USA 05/03/2010
This book was a little dissapointing. Unless you have VERY limited time, I suggest you buy the England book as well. I realize not everything from the England book could be included, but nothing about Oxford or Cornwall? Glastonbury (rich in Arthurian lure)is briefly lumped into "near Bath",and Tintagel doesn't show up in the index, and gets glossed over in the small Glastonbury section.Nice to have for Scotland & Wales.
K Lamkin in Azusa,, CA USA 03/24/2010
i can't think of a thing....we called this the "bible" and Rick was referred to as "him" and "he". excellent travel book - did not steer us wrong one time.
Pamela King in Vacaville, Ca USA 03/06/2010
Please consider warning travelers that Edinburgh is difficult to get around, despite most attractions being centered along the Royal Mile. Especially now that Prince Street is torn up due to construction, we found that getting from one place to the next took much longer than anticipated. Great town, but difficult to cover in only a few days.
Matt L. in Arlington, VA USA 10/21/2009
Just used the 'London 2009' book for a trip and it was very useful I stayed with a friend, so did not need to use the hotel recommendations. One tip I might add would be to add some additional language about how often the Tube is down on the weekends and how disruptive it can be. I was there over two different weekends and significant portions of the Tube were down each weekend making travel very difficult. My friend who has lived there for three years says that this is more common than not. They tend to take care of most of their maintenance on the weekends so as to limit disruption to workers. This can cause major problems for weekend travel. Otherwise, I agree that the Tube is a great way to get around London.
One thing you may want to mention as something to see for those interested is an English Premier League soccer game. I am not a big soccer fan, but going to a game is quite a cultural experience. The games can be tough to get into, but it is worth it to see if you can get in.
The book was great and it provided great information for my trip. Thanks a lot!
Eric in Falls Church, VA USA 10/04/2009
More descriptions of some of dishes offered at the restaurants.
Nancy in Columbus, OH USA 09/13/2009
We have used your books for Ireland, Norway and Denmark, Italy and England, Scotland and Wales and we love them, because we can book everything on line, and we have a very clear picture of what we will find. We also love the hints on how to avoid the crowds and the lines, so just keep doing what you're doing.
Jan and Greg Wieboldt in Ormond Beach, FL USA 09/12/2009
No way- it was fantastic. It was our bible during our trip. It was so helpful. We carried it with us daily and used it all the time. THANK YOU. It made our trip so much more efficient and productive. Can't wait to plan our next trip with your help.
Pam Davis in Chicago, Il USA 08/08/2009
let people know that the older sections of cities like London are fairly compact and if you are active and enjoy walking you can get around a lot on foot and see things you might miss if you were getting around on a bus or taxi. I am not talking about guided or self guided walks but rather getting around on foot and finding and seeing things you would not otherwise see.
John Manuel in Golden, BC Canada 06/21/2009
Add the following B&B in Bath: Cheriton House Kendra K in Denver, CO USA 06/06/2009 We spent two weeks just in England and would have liked more info where we were. Used Lonely Planet to supplement. Bev Terry in Shelby Township, MI USA 06/03/2009 Downloadable mp3 walking tours of the venues, given by the Blue Badge guides you liaise with when you visit. Sometimes it's not practical to find a walking tour to join. [Editor's Note: We offer free downloads of Rick's audiotours and interviews about sights in Europe. See Rick Steves Audio Europe on our home page, or look for it as an iPhone app in the iTunes Store.] Ethan Solomita in San Francisco, CA USA 05/30/2009 Cardiff is a good place to base yourself for seeing many sites in south Wales. Providing some info on accomodations and restaurants there would be useful to readers. We actually found some really nice restaurants there that were far better than typical in Wales. Adele Buttolph in Enterprise, OR USA 05/15/2009 You have a separate guide book for Ireland, and one for England. Why don't you have one for Scotland by itself? We travel to Scotland every other year but we do not want a book that has England, Scotland and Ireland in it - just Scotland. I've heard others say the same thing - help us out here! [Editor's Note: There is now a Rick Steves' Snapshot guide to Scotland, which is excerpted from the Rick Steves' Great Britain guidebook.] Debbie S. Clark in Simpsonville, SC USA 03/06/2009 I know that you recommend renting a car, but I think that recommendation could be reinforced. We didn't rent a car in England and Wales and thought it would be too expensive for just the two of us. We did rent a car in Scotland, because I had been there before and knew we wouldn't be able to see what we wanted to see in the Highlands without it.
We absolutely wish we had rented a car in England and Wales as well. If a person wants to see the countryside and doesn't have much time they need to rent a car. The man at the tourist info station in Chipping-Norton told us that you had to have a car in the Cotswolds, and the owner at a B&B in Pembroke told us you had to have a car in Wales. It would have been great to travel up the Welsh coast, and we assumed public transport would have taken that route. Getting from Oxford to our hotel in Shipton was a disaster each day. We spent a whole day traveling to Pembroke to see St. David's Cathedral to find out it was still a two hour bus ride away. We needed to leave the next morning for northern Wales, and so we didn't get to see it. Fortunately a British couple, who had a car, were staying at our B&B and drove us to see some sights before we had to leave.
We had no idea it was going to be so hard to get around England and Wales. And now I think that renting a car could actually be cheaper than public transport. Even if it cost more it is well worth the freedom and stress it saves.
Nathan Willard in Medford, OR USA 01/10/2009