Best Travel Guide to Paris? (or even France, in general)?

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Rillifane

This is probably not the answer you want to hear but my opinion is that all the travel guides are more of less alike and that no one guide is going to really be good for anything more than the usual tourist trip.

As I type this i am looking at my bookshelf of travel books. I must have something like 150 of which 30 or 40 concern France generally or Paris in particular. These include such obscure things as "Seeing Paris," a guide published in 1931.

I go to Paris just about every year and have been doing so for more than 30 years and yet before each trip I spend several weeks planning things out and researching. I read restauant reviews, check the blogs of ex-patriates in Paris, and make extensive notes. I have a database of Paris restaurants and night clubs with hundreds of entries that I constantly update with whatever information I can glean from the internet.

The bottom line here is that you should consider doing your own research from many sources and compiling your own personal guide book.

It will be better than anything someone else can give you and you may find, as I do, that the preparation for your trip is itself an interesting activity.

Give it a try. I know it sounds like a horrible idea but it really works and its fun.

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bozenmoon

" Michelin "Paris.Worked for me pretty good.Very informativ.

ozbany

The Dorling Kindersley Eyewitness Guides have always been best for me for detail and practical information- I would recommend the DK France guide and the Frommer's France guide and Best Loved Driving Tours of France. I have found Frommer's in general has the best restaurant information, but I have been often been confused/lost by their street maps- DK's are easier for me to follow. Frommer's does have interesting historical information that I haven't found in other guides. The only advantage of the other guides I've read are that they contain actual admission prices (at the time of print) rather than estimates, but that information is best drawn from the website for that specific museum/landmark.

colorado hiker

I used one called "Daytrips France", (by Earl Steinbicker), and found it to be very useful. Two places that I recommend going to, (if you haven't been there already), are: Chantilly, and Giverny. Chantilly is a chateau and Giverny is the Monet garden. Have fun!

paia423

1. Lonely Planet
2. Frommer's
3. Fodor's

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