Online travel guides can be useful in planning your upcoming vacation, but they are not the best solution for every situation. There are a few things you should keep in mind if you want to get the most enjoyment at your vacation destination.
Most people travel with the traditional type of guide book, that is, a printed book, that gives a lot of information about the place that they are going to. You may be able to find one that is specific to your situation. For example there are plenty of budget guidebooks available for practically every country in the world.
However if you have particular interests or needs, you may want to look for online travel guides that fit your situation. For example, you may be interested only in visiting art galleries, or you may want information on activities for kids in the resort where you will be staying.
The first thing to remember is that there is no point in printing off a lot of maps and tourist leaflets because you can often pick these up free at your destination. You may also be able to order them from the tourist information office. If your destination is abroad, this may be accessed through the country’s embassy or on a web site. They will often send out information free to promote their country to tourists. This may include discount coupons for some of the attractions.
It can take a lot of time to search on the internet. Then, what do you do with the information when you find it? You either have to take notes or print off what you find. Often, this means you have a ton of paper to take away with you and much of it may not be relevant, but you will not know until you arrive. You may end up wishing that you had bought a book.
If you are taking your laptop with you on vacation, this is not so much of an issue. You can set up a new folder in your internet bookmarks list and bookmark all the relevant sites that you find. Then you will easily be able to look at them again when you arrive – provided of course that you are going somewhere with internet access.
The other problem with the internet is that you cannot always be sure whether the information you are getting is from someone who really knows. Is the site an authority on the subject? Anybody can have a website and they can say anything they like there. Sometimes, just because we are reading something online, we think it must be true. But often it is just one person’s opinion.
On the other hand, a book will always contain a lot of information that you do not need. For example, a Hawaii guide book will have information on many places that you have no wish to visit. It will also include pages about many activities that do not interest you. You do not need to know all the best places for snorkeling, if you cannot swim. When you search for online travel guides you can be more selective.
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