Rick Steves' Italy 2010 with map

We have used Rick Steves' travel guides in France, Spain and Central Europe and have found them to be very, very helpful.

While it is true that Rick Steves' Italy 2010 doesn't cover the extreme southern part of Italy or Sicily, it covers the areas that we plan to visit, and in that respect, I feel it is fairly comprehensive.

Of course, I would always recommend that one traveling to Italy consult other travel guides such as the Rough Guide to Italy, Frommers' Italy, and Lonely Planet's Italy.

We have been successful in getting our local public library to order up-to-date travel guides on Italy, which are useful in planning our trip, but we purchased Rick Steves' Italy 2010 as the one guide to pack for the trip.

I feel that it is an excellent investment.

William D. Mashburn (Age 75)

Rick Steves is specific about what to see, where to stay and what you actually get, what not to miss and how to get to everything. Oh, and how much it will cost. I have used other Steves' guidebooks, and he is right on the money.

Just returned from a 17-day trip to Italy -- all the small towns and out of the way places! Couldn't have been possible without Rick Steves' book! We used it to determine train and bus transportation, B&B's and agriturismos, as well as restaurants, and, of course, the walking tour in each town.

With this book it is possible to see Italy away from the crowds, on your own, and at your own pace. Our vacation couldn't have been more perfect!

I'm planning my second trip to Italy and this book includes everything that I needed to know to help plan the trip (and then some). I've used Rick's advice before and have never been let-down.

We went to Italy in 2007 and had the corresponding Steve's guidebook...as did every other touron in Italy that fall. Don't get me wrong the guidebook was great but I sure felt like a dork sitting in a restaurant with 20 other people who all had the same guidebook. "Oh what does Rick say I should eat here?" Guidebooks are good for a general plan...but we used it a little too much "to the letter" and frankly the experience lost it's luster. "Oh, Rick says we should go look at this but gee... I'm not quite as thrilled as he said I should be!"

So in that sense maybe it was user error on my part. Travel should be about adventure, not canned experience IMHO, a guidebook should be bare bones or used as such. On our next trip I'll probably use a guidebook to lay out the general itinerary and leave it at home to add a little adventure.

Also important to note is that the poularity of this guidebook leads a lot of people to the same places. Obviously most tourists (regardless of the guidebook they own) are going to go to The Sistine Chapel. But I would guess that the subtler attractions that this book suggests will receive A LOT more traffic because of the book. Restaurants, hotels etc. It's funny this book suggests that the Cinque Terre is a lesser known destination on the Riviera. Well, I'd hate to go to the well known ones then, it was beautiful but it was also expensive and crowded.

With all that said it's a good book. The maps are accurate, the hotel advice was great as was the restaurant info and recommendation.