Let's Go 2004: France

by Briana Cummings

Features over 6,000 travel bargains on accommodations, restaurants, shopping, and attractions in the country.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0312319851
• ISBN13: 9780312319854
• Release Date: December 2003
• Publisher: Let's Go Publications
• Length: 812 Pages
• Weight: 1.20 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.2" x 5.2" x 7.7"

Customer Reviews

Response from Map Editor for Let's Go France 2004

Thrilled to know that the maps came in handy for many of you. I'm sorry that more could not be made--it was an issue of both cost and time. If you'd like to see more maps in the future, I encourage you to write our publisher, St. Martin Press.

You're going to LOVE FRANCE!

I've made >20 visits to France all together. Here are my reviews of the best guides....to meet you r exact needs.....I hope these are helpful and that you have a great visit! I always gauge the quality of my visit by how much I remember a year later......this review is designed to help you get the guide that will be sure YOU remember your trip many years into the future. Travel Safe and enjoy yourself to the max! <br /> <br />Let's Go <br />Let's Go is a great guide series that specializes in the niche interest details that turn a trip into a great and memorable experience. Started by and for college students, these guides are famous for the details provided by people who used the book the previous year. They continue to focus on providing a great experience inexpensively. If you want to know about the top restaurants, this is not for you (use Fodor's or Michelin). Let's Go does have a bewildering array of different guides though. Here's which is what: <br />Budget Guide is the main guide with incredibly detailed information and reviews on everything you can think of. <br />City Guide is just as intense but restricted to the single city. <br />PocketGuide is even smaller and features condensed information <br />MapGuide's are very good maps with public transportation and some other information (like museum hours, etc.) <br /> <br />Michelin <br />Famous for their quality reviews, the Red Michelin Guides are for hotels & Restaurants, the Green Michelin Guides are for main tourist destinations. However, the English language Green guide is the one most people use and it has now been supplemented with hotel and restaurant information. These are the serious review guides as the famous Michelin ratings are issued via these books. <br /> <br />Fodor's <br />Fodor's is the best selling guide among Americans. They have a bewildering array of different guides. Here's which is what: <br />The Gold Guide is the main book with good reviews of everything and lots of tours, walks, and just about everything else you could think of. It's not called the Gold guide for nothing though....it assumes you have money and are willing to spend it. <br />SeeIt! is a concise guide that extracts the most popular items from the Gold Guide <br />PocketGuide is designed for a quick first visit <br />UpCLOSE for independent travel that is cheap and well thought out <br />CityPack is a plastic pocket map with some guide information <br />Exploring is for cultural interests, lots of photos and designed to supplement the Gold guide <br /> <br />MapGuide <br />MapGuide is very easy to use and has the best location information for hotels, tourist attractions, museums, churches etc. that they manage to keep fairly up to date. It's great for teaching you how to use the Metro. The text sections are quick overviews, not reviews, but the strong suite here is brevity, not depth. I strongly recommend this for your first few times learning your way around the classic touri

What happened to Let's Go?

I mean that in a good way.When I was in college (I plead the Fifth on when that might have been), Let's Go ___ (insert country/continent of your choice) was known as the Bible of budget travel. It also provided little secrets that Fodor's and others didn't which helped my friends and I forge backroads and have more contact with local culture and people....while saving us money at the same time.But 2 years ago, when I planned a return trip to Provence, I was heavily disappointed at France 2002. Prices were way off, descriptions of sites in Provencal towns didn't give myself or my hosts (an American and her French-born husband) enough information to decide what day trips to take or even what sites to see in Avignon, their hometown. Luckily, I had purchased Doring Kindersley's "Provence & the Cote D'Azur", which has the advantage of pictures and fine maps, before I left. We found that very helpfulBack to the book at hand, Let's Go 2004: I almost didn't look for it when I made plans to return to France this year to visit Flanders and Normandy. But after dissatisfaction with a number of other books, I decided to give it a chance.I'm very glad I did. There have been a number of improvements. Prices were right on (almost a miracle considering the climb of the Euro)and descriptions of accomodations, etc. were highly accurate. The sites described made me change my mind about where I wanted to go in some instances; for example stopping to see the Bayeux tapestry after all when I had determined to focus only on the D-Day sites. Let's Go also frequently includes walking maps this year of various cities, such as Lille, as a way of getting oriented but also as a free site-seeing tour. (In Lille it helps, because the town is laid out like a maze).Another very charming thing about this edition is the sidebars and special reports from the authors, with titles such as "From the Road", "Local Legend", "In Recent News" and "On the Menu". Most of those I read in the Paris, Flanders and Normandy sections were helpful, and if not, they were interesting. I would have liked to see other D-Day sites, such as St. Mere Eglise, discussed, but I also recognize that at 806 pages it's imposssible to put everything in. Thanks to Let's Go for getting the get up & go back!

Great Guide, Although Maps Could Have Been Better

By and large, this is a wonderful book, especially for young travelers on a tight budget. I was able to plan for and spend a wonderful 10-day vacation in France, visiting Bayeux, Paris, Annecy, and Nice, using only this guide. There is a tremendous amount of useful information, the vast majority of which was thankfully up-to-date. The commentary is lively and interesting, and although their recommendations for accommodations, food, sights, etc. at times appear a tad inexplicable, even arbitrary, they are usually on the nose. The only major flaw, which stood out rather starkly given the overall excellent nature of the guide, was that its stinginess when it comes to maps. Why, for example, would they only include detailed maps of half of Paris' 20 districts (unless they were trying to drum up business for "Let's Go: Paris")? Would it have been so hard or costly to tack another 10 or 20 pages onto the book, allowing them to add more maps and increase the size of those already included? I can't say that this oversight wasn't annoying, because when you're short on time and money the last thing you want to do is worry about is reacquiring your bearings. Nevertheless, I still heartily recommend this book.