I haven’t see the TV show, but a friend loves the series and strongly recommended the book. Before our family trip for 10 days throughout Germany, I purchased a few different travel guides. After having each of them in hand before leaving home, we took 3 books with us. By the 3rd day, we only carried 2 books with us: Daytrips Germany, 6th Edition and then as a BACKUP, Rick Steves’ Germany and Austria 2006. It was okay, but a bit too snarky for me. Using the 2 books together were great for finding tourist sites, great restaurants and hotels that could accommodate 2 adults and 2 kids (most hotels don’t have rooms with 2 beds!).

There is no denying it, this book has lots of useful tips and is easy to use but I did find the tone a bit patronizing at times. I really don’t need someone to tell me what to think, even when in a foreign country. I also did not like the “show this book for x% discount” offers – I rather pay full price elsewhere and know the place is in the guidebook on its own merits.

The book covers only the most popular tourist destinations and is a bit lightweight to my taste on historical details. The author offers sensible advice by saying if you spend $3,000 on a vacation another $25 for additional guidebooks is money well spent.

I found the self-guided walking tours despite the not-to-scale maps very useful although I would follow the author’s advice and rip the book apart and only carry the vital pages rather than be seen with this book in hand. Of the three guidebooks I used I liked this one the least.