A Side-by-Side Comparison of Guidebooks

Here is a guide to the travel guides, using the latest Australia edition from eight well-known publishers. Australia was chosen for its increasing popularity as a travel destination, especially since Sydney is hosting the Olympics this September.

Title: Blue Guide Australia

Basics: 672 pages; 5x7 1/2 inches; $26

Format: Traditional guidebook design, with chapters by state and city. Emphasis on history, sights and walking tours. Maps, 14 pages of glossy color photographs. Brief hotel and restaurant listings.

What sets it apart: These guides are written in a serious, almost scholarly, tone that doesn’t attempt to get either chummy or paternal with readers. They are most closely associated with the guides that the wealthy carried with them on their Grand Tours more than a century ago. Some of the suggested walking tours and accompanying information are better than any guided tour you could buy.

Title: Eyewitness Australia

Basics: 576 pages; 5x9 inches; $30

Format: Its motto, “The guide that shows you what others only tell you,” is justified. This book has splashy full-color drawings, maps and photos on heavyweight paper that make it almost pretty enough to pass as a coffee-table books. Emphasis is on sights and interesting but brief history by region. Information on where to stay and eat is concise and relegated to the back of the book.

What sets it apart: Fans say these new guides are quite simply the best of the field, with dozens of can’t-miss maps and easily digested bite-size information. Critics say it’s too heavy and bigger on looks than valuable information.

Title: Australia, Fodor’s 2000

Basics: 624 pages; 5x9 inches; $21

Format: After the first 31 color glossy pages, this book has black-and-white maps, print and a Rand McNally map of the country that detaches from inside the back cover. Each region or city has a page or so introduction and a section on exploring, followed by many pages of hotel and restaurant listings with detailed descriptions and costs.

What sets it apart: The market leader and one of the most well-established guidebook companies in the world, Fodor’s wants to be all things to all travelers. The Gold Guide is the standard-bearer for Fodor’s 15-guidebook series.

Title: Frommer’s 2000 Australia

Basics: 706 pages; 5x8 1/2 inches; $22

Format: Starts with inside cover map and 20 pages of color photographs followed by 16 print chapters. The “best of” section is a handy guide of what every traveler shouldn’t miss. The tone is lighter and more conversational than most traditional guidebooks. It has detailed hotel and restaurant listings and a pullout map.

What sets it apart: Frommer’s has worked hard to shed its tired image, scrapping old designs and editorial tone, and has been rewarded with a greater market share. Major destinations are updated annually. Like many major publishers, Frommer’s has diversified, and its offerings now include portable guides, walking guides and unconventional titles, such as an unofficial guide to Walt Disney World.

Title: Let’s Go Australia 2000

Basics: 675 pages; 5x8 inches; $23

Format: Written for independent travelers who want to get beneath the usual tourism patter. Designed for functionality, the guides are knowing, especially on all matters having to do with budgeting. No color pictures, some maps, small type and lots of information, ranging from a section on traveling alone to a region-by-region breakdown that includes what to see and where to eat and stay.

What sets it apart: These guides have always been researched, written and produced entirely by students “who know first-hand how to see the world on the cheap. . . . Living cheaply and simply brings you closer to the people and places you’ve been saving up to visit,” says the Web site, https://www.letsgo.com.

Title: Lonely Planet Australia

Basics: 1,056 pages; 5x7 inches; $25

Format: Dozens of color images and some glossy pages amid its hundreds of pages of tightly packed print delving into every aspect of Australian life--cultural, historical and more. This book includes special color sections on Aboriginal art and flora and fauna, a glossary to help visitors understand Australian English, detailed history and listings of budget and medium-range hotels and restaurants.

What sets it apart: Known for years as the guides that went where no other company would go, Lonely Planet is shedding some of its backpacker-hitchhiking past while retaining its comprehensive listings and emphasis on culture.

New Lonely Planet offerings this year include city guides (https://www.CitySync.com) that can be loaded into hand-held computers, and coming this spring will be its new series of books on world food. While not technically guides, they are designed to accompany food lovers to destinations including Thailand, Vietnam, Morocco and Spain.

Title: National Geographic Traveler Australia

Basics: 400 pages; 5x8 1/2 inches; $28

Format: It’s like reading and looking at a really in-depth essay on a country in National Geographic magazine, as told by region. After a starting chapter on history and culture, the book is divided by regions; each section includes maps, sights and a cultural feature article. Minimal information about hotels and restaurants is located at the back of the book.

What sets it apart: The newest big-name travel guide and a competitor with Eyewitness Guides in the travel guide beauty contest, the Traveler series is also heavy on history, culture, sights and getting around, but thin on hotel and restaurant listings.

Title: Rough Guide Australia

Basics: 1,046 pages; 5x7 inches; $22

Format: Similar to Lonely Planet in looks, the Rough Guides offer reams of information (for the most part by region) but have not strayed from their black-and-white format. As for tone, Rough Guide has it, giving readers a refreshing and often opinionated account of the sights, restaurants and hotels they might be visiting and those they should miss.

What sets it apart: Rough Guide publishes 15 of its most popular titles (in their immense entirety) on its Web site, https://www.roughguides.com, where the information is free to anyone who wants to download it. The guides are written in a journalistic manner, with well-researched background about history, culture, politics and more.

--N.J.H.