I never thought he was an ass, though now I do, but I do scratch my head to understand how he has a tv show of his own. He's practically personality-free. My DH always keeps his show on when he stumbles on it and it immediately puts me to sleep if I watch.
Do people still use "Let's Go"? That seemed to be the go-to when I was traveling in college... I liked it a lot for budget college travel - not sure it translates for grown ups though.
Oh yes, it is still out there. I take them out of the library sometimes but they're still very much for budget college travel
Yep. We caught one show where he was in Scotland and he was acting like someone peed in his cereal. I got food poisoning from one of his restaurant recommendations (only place DH and I had different meals in two days)
I love love Lonely Planet books and the forums are great and not too college kid.
Lonely Planet is my favorite for getting around. We usually take public transport between places when travelling and they provide the most info about buses and trains. I don't love the forums because most of the posters seem to have an endless supply of both time and money. Typical response: "No, one month will not be enough time to visit Italy. You will be entirely too busy getting from place to place to actually see anything and experience the culture. You will need at least a year. I wouldn't plan to spend less than one month in Rome alone. You are going to need to spend days on end sitting in cafes and soaking in the culture." Talk about pretentious assholes!
Coincidentally I watched a little bit of his show today. I've never watched it before and PBS just happened to be on the TV when I turned it on. He seemed nice.
I did notice last year when I was planning our trip to Europe that most of his hotel choices did not have very good ratings on tripadvisor.
drloretta -- will you please report back on your favorite and least favorite things when you get back? Besides hotels we've done little planning so far
Will do! I'm journaling our whole trip, and will be naming names!