Wednesday, July 11, 2012

Packing All Those Guide Books

I'm a big believer in guide books.  The more research you do before going somewhere, the more you will get out of your vacation.  Guide books are a vital part of that research.  Yes, they cost a few dollars, but when you are spending thousands on a vacation, it makes sense to spend a few more dollars to ensure the vacation goes smoothly.
Guide books for upcoming European Vacation
For our upcoming trip to Europe, since we will be travelling to Venice, the Amalfi Coast, Rome, Orvieto, Munich, Salzburg, Paris, and Disneyland Pars, we bought a lot of guidebooks.  Some I bought using the Kindle app on my iPad (which is coming with us on the trip), but most I bought as regular books.  The size and weight of those books makes it impractical to bring them along on the trip.

As a solution, we photocopied the relevant sections of the books that we will need on our trip to save room and weight in our luggage (a later post will detail how the four of us are travelling on the three week trip in only 2 carry-on size bags, an internal frame hiking pack, and a school backpack).
After photocopying, this is the guidebook info we're packing

3 comments:

  1. why not scan them and load them to the iPad?

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  2. pshircliff,
    I did scan some of the maps in the books as PDFs, but the amount of space taken by all of those pages in PDF form would have been too large for my iPad. Plus, I like being able to highlight and write notes on some of the pages.
    -Mike

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  3. Great idea. Also, don't forget to copy your cc and passports and give them to a friend at home. I speak from experience. OH..and have the contact phone numbers of your cc cards to call IF something happens. Luckily I had my computer to look them up, but having those 800 numbers would have been so much easier. Have fun!

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