Travel Advice - Be selective when using travel guide information

The authors of most travel publications have a specific audience in mind when they write. 

• Be sure to know the intended audience when relying on travel publications for travel advice. 
• When you are selecting travel information, always make sure that it was written for someone who has travel tastes like yours with a budget to match.
• If you search, you can find guidebooks or magazines that reflect your preferences, budget, and travel tastes.

For example, the Economist magazine, a fantastic business publication ( www.economist.com ), has great travel information but only features cities that are important business centers. The hotel and restaurant recommendations made by the Economist’s writers reflect the magazine’s clients, who travel on cushy, expense accounts. While there is much detailed to be gained on attractions and things to do at sites such as the Economist, we recommend that the vacation oriented traveler focus their search on information tailored to their interests and budget.

Many travel magazines are published for the upscale traveler, or the person who wants to keep up to date on current travel trends and hotspots. Although magazines are a great source of vacation ideas, travelers with limited funds should augment magazine articles with other sources of information more suited to their budgets and, perhaps, travel tastes. 

• One of the best sources of travel ideas, for just about everybody, is the Sunday Travel Section in most metropolitan newspapers.
• If you do not live near a big city, hop on the Internet and find the Website for the New York Times, Boston Globe, Chicago Tribune, or Los Angeles Times.

For detailed travel information, your best bet is a good quality guidebook that reflects your travel tastes.  In order to determine how well a guidebook matches your profile, take a quick look at how it describes attractions and whether or not it is focused only on specific types of attractions.  Next, look at its recommendations for hotels and restaurants and see if they are in your price range, or sound interesting to you.  Compare guides to find one that "fits" you.

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