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Tour books/ guides.
We live in the age (2008) of the Lonely Planet. You will meet independent travelers
armed with a Lonely Planet guide virtually in every corner of the globe.
The Lonely Planet guides are indeed invaluable for their maps. They provide you
a way to orient yourself when you arrive in a new city. Other than that, the
Lonely Planet guides are, at best, a mixed blessing. By definition, any hotel
or restaurant recommended by a Lonely Planet guide is likely to be full of
foreigners like you. Needless to say, this has two drawbacks: a) you completely
miss the "local" experience, since you are surrounded by tourists and not natives;
and b) these establishments have little motivation to provide a good service at
a competitive price, since they get plenty of customers anyway. If you follow
the Lonely Planet guide, you are likely to stay in a guesthouse/hotel that
gives you a much worse deal than the hotel next door.
In fact, this has been consistently my personal experience.
Last but not least, the Lonely Planet guide is truly inadequate for site
descriptions.
You need to buy also a good book about the place you are visiting,
or you will miss 90% of the very reason to travel there.
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