Travel Book Reviews
One of our biggest frustrations in planning our trip was the quality of the travel books we purchased. We would go to the book store and think a book was fine, but when we got home and started reading the book more in-depth, we discovered the book was crap or just not what we were looking for. For the books recommend, you can click on the links directly to purchase the book/map from Amazon.com.
The Frommer's Book is a great source for current information about Australia. Unlike the other books that are not updated annually, this book is updated to include the newest sites and restaurants. This book does not provide a lot of pictures or glossy maps, but the content overall this is a very usable guide.
The National Geographic Traveler is my favorite book that we purchased. Great overviews of activities along with good color photographs. My only gripe with this book is that it is ready for a update. If you are going to only get one guide for Australia, this is the one you should get.
I think the Eyewitness Travel Guides provide great graffics, but I think it really short on valuable content. The content provides just short overviews of the sites, so if you want more content before deciding what to see, I would recommend the National Geographic Travel Guide.
One of the things I really value when I value when traveling is good sturdy map that folds down compact for traveling in a city. This map was a great resource for getting around the CBD in Sydney. Definitely think about getting this map before your trip to Sydney.
While normally I am huge fan of the Streetwise maps, this map of Melbourne was pretty much useless. It was last updated in 2000. I wish I would have known that before I put my money down for the map. It was missing Federation Square from the map and did not have St. Kilda. Just use one of the free maps they give away at the hotels.
