Planning a trip of this length, especially to an unfamiliar continent, has proven to be a daunting task. As much as I love spontaneity and adventure, the budgeting aspect of this trip requires a well thought out itinerary and an understanding of the land. The number of books on European travel were overwhelming. I didn't even know where to start. Several hours later in the bookstore, I took home the Rough Guide to First-Time Europe. It was a couple hundred pages of all the things you need to know before you travel and how to plan for your trip. Since it isn't a travel guide, that was the next task. How do you plan your itinerary?
All those late nights spent watching Lonely Planet on TV has paid off! They have a whole set of travel planning and guide books aimed at the budget conscious traveler. The others, like Fodors or Frommer's are clearly for more well off travelers. The Rick Steve's guides target a more "off the beaten path" approach but don't seem to have the content that the Lonely Planet guides do.
I started with Lonely Planet's Western Europe guide (1200 pages!) to get a high level itinerary. They provide suggestions for what to do and see based on how much time you have for an area. The problem with these books is that to contain the level of information that they do, they are packed very densely with text and little to no visual content. That's where the phenomenal DK guides come in. Their Eyewitness Travel Guides are without parallel. They lack the budgeting information that the budget conscious material in the Lonely Planet guides provide but they have glossy pictures, history and illustrations for all the things you might want to see in a country. For planning (and later for reminiscing), I'll take the pictures of the unfamiliar any day over page after page of letters and words. The visual guides left me in awe of the beauty of the countries, the attractions and the architecture we'll be visiting and made it easier to start narrowing down the major points of interest.
You don't just get told to see Westminster Abbey in London. The Eyewitness guides show an illustration of it with cutaways to see right inside. If the lines are too long to get in, I guess the book will at least let you feel like you were there! You don't get told to see the castles, you get to see inside and outside of them and the history of the people that lived there. It isn't just a listing for a museum - it's pictures of the impressive sculptures, statues and artwork. The guides are amazing. The problem with them is that you can't put them down and they're so fascinating that your planning quickly spirals out of control. Now I want to quit my job and backpack through Europe for a few years :) Why didn't I start this earlier in life???
More to come as I get the itinerary nailed down....