Ever since I saw them in use, I've been vaguely averse to guidebooks. They basically tell you the "insider scoop" on what's worth seeing in a place, what restaurants are worth eating at, and what to expect and how to enjoy a place best. The compelling argument for them is that they keep you from wasting your time on flashy but bad tourist attrations. My parents just went to Spain a few months ago and complained that the food there is bad. Had they had one of these guide books from Fodor's or Frommer's, then they might have been able to find high quality restaurants.
I believe at this point I'm "arguing with myself," in the words of my latest history TA.
Ok, so having presented the arguments against my poit, I will now argue my point. The thing I don't like about guide books is that one of the things that appeals to me about traveling, in theory mostly but in practice too, is that I can discover things for myself--things like how yucky the water is in Mission Bay park and how long it takes to walk to Balboa Park from downtown. With a guidebook, it almost seems like part of the fun is gone, because then all theres left for me to do is arrive at point A, "enjoy it", leave, arrive at point B, etc etc. But maybe not having a guide book means that you're not using all the information available to you, and maybe that is also undesireable.
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