Aland Country Study Guide Book

This is one of many in one of the best - in my opinion - guidebook companies ever, though my opinion is not shared by all that many. Lonely Planet is too slick and short on information, Eyewitness Guides offer very little information and are all about the photos, which is kind of silly when you think that you will be seeing them up close and personal when you visit. Others I will not even go into. When I want to travel I pick up a Rough Guide - if available - and Rick Steves on the same area. Steves focuses on favorite and "thru the back door" places, wonderful and specific about those, but leaving out a good many parts of a country that I might want to visit. Rough Guide covers more areas, and specifically as well. Steves and Rough Guides generally offer good histories of the country, though Rough Guides are more detailed, and both suggest books and films about/from the countries, which sections are often eye-opening to me. Reading some of the books suggested really fills out a sense of the place to which I'm headed.

I read a good bit of the Rough Guide Norway - a very fine example of the series - as I was planning to visit in a few months. I almost never read the entire book, as I can't afford to see the entire country (wish I could!), but I've read all of the "Contexts" (history, books films etc and read closely the areas on Oslo and Bergen, the main places I wanted to stay, and as much about the fjords that I could - which is a very good amount.

Everyone has her/his own taste, and some people find the detail in Rough Guides unnecessary - I thrive on the detail, as I want to know as much as possible about a place before I visit.

I read the Kindle versions as I'm aging (rapidly) and my eyes are not what they used to be. I'm certainly keeping this Rough Guide as while I AM getting old I still want to visit - just not this summer (instead heading to the Italian Lakes and Dolomites, the Austrian Alps and Slovenia). I highly recommend this book for anyone who wants to go AND to really get to KNOW Norway.