Fodor's Essential Great Britain: with the Best of England, Scotland & Wales (Full-color Travel Guide)

The sections on restaurants & hotels are always sort of out of date on all these guides but in terms of general info, this is a great guide. Really well-organized & accessible with lots of great info that makes planning a trip easy & enjoyable. Highly recommend.

Very good

Sad that it didn't include a UK map instead of London

We are vacationing in Great Britain this May, so needed something to use for planning. This book has TONS of information - it's almost overwhelming. I do like the full color photos, the sections on activities and restaurants, but the section on rentals was not much help as we were looking for less expensive options. But, reading through this book has given us so many options for touring and I'm glad I purchased it.

We made a very fast decision to visit the UK when some great tickets became available to us. This book helped in so many ways, but especially with hotels and lodging. It was really a life saver. Also, how to manage the transportation from country to country was very helpful.

The book was in pristine condition. I could have asked for any better.

Ultimately, this book is just too large in scope. By trying to cover England, Scotland and Wales in one book, the overall suggestions are, by necessity, very general. While that might be of use to someone who is trying to create a general itinerary covering all three regions, I would not be happy using this book alone to explore specific areas. The charm of visiting the UK lies in all of the little interesting nooks and crannies that make it unique, and I didn't find nearly enough of that in this book. London alone could fill a book this size.London restaurants - I was happy to see Hereford Road and St John listed, but another, more convenient St John offshoot is missing. There are just so many wonderful eateries for all budgets that were absent, among them the excellent Chiltern Firehouse, River Cafe in Hammersmith, Tramshed, Theo Randall, Cicchetti, any of the Ottolenghi restaurants, the fun little Mayfair Chippy, all of the Leon restaurants which are conveniently everywhere. There are so many more.— For tea - The Wolseley, the Langham hotel, Fortnum&Mason, and some of the museum cafes should have been included, imo. Also, how to order tea and what a cream tea is would have been a nice side bar. Ditto Ploughman's Lunch.— As long as you're going to mention other shops on Jermyn Street, why not Paxton & Whitfield for cheese?— Floris for perfume, but not Penhaligon's in the nearby Burlington Arcade?— The arcades - couldn't find them - not in the index.— Leadenhall Market is also a great, missing market. But at least the not-to-be-missed Borough Market is listed.— Books - no Daunt Books? If you list Conran's, Daunt, one of London's great indie bookshops, is just a couple of blocks south.— Kitchenware - Divertimenti in South Kensington, not far from Harrod's (which is worth only a trip into the Food Halls.)— GIn! Gin in London is a must. You can taste and buy some of the most interesting gins from anywhere in the world in London.— Museums - the boat that goes back and forth on the Thames between the Tate Britain and Tate Modern is only mentioned in the Tate Britain description. You should miss it if you are only looking at the Tate Modern in this book. It's a great way to get to both museums quickly and grab fantastic views of Big Ben, Parliament and the Eye on the ride.For department stores - I didn't find my favorite department store, John Lewis, mentioned in London or Liverpool, only the branch in Edinburgh.— Speaking of Liverpool - Delifonseca and 60 Hope Street should be in the restaurant section. Nice to see Lunya there - love that place. The branch John Lewis in Liverpool is small, but a good one.— The Lake District gets such short shrift in this book - a shame for such a beautiful area of the country. There is so much to see and do there. Driving around to the different lakes is Instagram heaven.Pronunciations of certain place names would be helpful. They are not always what you think...by a long shot.The index is not terribly helpful because it is not by any means complete. For example, there are a number of recommended hotels in the Edinburgh section, but the index doesn't list them all - The very expensive Balmoral is there, but not The Howard or most others. I found the index to be useful only for the most general things - like finding what pages cities and towns are on.Bottom line: this is ok for an overall picture (even though there are not many pictures in the book), but you are going to have to supplement with other info if you want to really dig deeper in the UK than only what's on the surface.

Travel book for upcoming trip. Book contents are well organized, written and illlustrated, as well as thorough. Just what I wanted.