The Informer: Family Guide France (Eyewitness Travel Family Guide)

Spend more time sharing the experience of exploring a new place with those you love most with DK Eyewitness Travel: Family Guides France. This guidebook gives families with kids between the ages of four and twelve the travel information they need most to have fun together on vacation.

DK Eyewitness Travel: Family Guides France is written by parents who understand the unique needs of traveling families.

Major sights are "hub" destinations around which to plan your day.
"Let off steam" suggestions and eating options around all hubs enable the entire family to recharge their batteries.
Maps outlining the nearest parks, playgrounds, and public toilets.
Dedicated "Kids Corners" feature cartoons, quizzes, puzzles, and games to inform and entertain young travelers on the road.
Language section lists essential words and phrases.
"Take shelter" recommendations suggest indoor activities for rainy days.
Plus, this updated guidebook offers child-friendly sleeping and eating options, detailed maps of main sightseeing areas, travel information, budget guidance, and age-range suitability for major activities.

DK Eyewitness Travel: Family Guide France offers you the best things to see and do on a family vacation to Paris and the country of France. Each spread bursts with family-focused travel tips and ideas for activities that will engage children, from boat trips along the Canal du Midi in Languedoc-Roussillon to astronomy workshops at Le Pic du Midi de Bigorre in the Pyrenees to discovering the Musée du Louvre in Paris.

DK Eyewitness Travel: Family Guide France includes all the practical information you need for a fun, stress-free family vacation.

A Look Inside Eyewitness Travel Family Guide: France
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"These books are packed with suggestions for kid-friendly restaurants, outdoor spots where travelin' tots can run free, rainy day fun, and more. They also offer tips for engaging your child's mind and sense of wonder at every stop." – Scholastic Parent & Child

"What makes this series unusual is the attention to detail. Yes, all the big sights are here, but even the famous places are given a slight twist — always with children and their parents in mind." – Chicago Tribune

"For families traveling with young people, it's hard to do better than this handsomely illustrated guide, which is arranged geographically and notable for its focus on family friendly activities." – Library Journal

Most helpful customer reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful.
Nice Book, But Not Sure It Is a Substitute For a More General Guide Book
By Brett H
Dorling Kindersley have avoided the overcrowded mainstream market for travel guides with this series which is directed at families with children. In essence nearly all the suggested visits here will be covered by the other guide books, but this book makes an effort to look for child friendly angles which will appeal. For example, Giverny, home of Monet is included and I would not personally have thought that the house and gardens would be a place kids would enjoy, although most adults will love it, particularly the lily ponds which were the setting for many of Monet's most famous paintings. However, the advice is to let the kids let off steam playing in the garden of the Hotel Baudy, and ride a local road train - it is not clear if this is while the adults get on with the Monet visit or a bribe to behave themselves during the visit!

As is usual with guide books, the first thirty five or so pages set the scene with details of the highlights of a visit to France, where to eat, where to stay, where to shop etc. Then the main part of the book which covers the following 330 page or so is split into regions, six main areas subdivided into 17 smaller areas. At the end there is a useful mapping section which is worthy of note as, although it is not sufficiently detailed for a road tour of the country, it is far better than most of the inadequate maps in guide books which would require a strong magnifying glass to make any sense of. For each area there are quite a few suggestions of where to stay covering B&Bs, hotels and camping sites and suggested places to visit. On nearly every page there is a kid's corner section which asks questions or tells children what to look out for and I can imagine that many parents will find this very useful to entertain the smaller members of the family.

I have never seen a DK book where the printing was not of very good quality with thick pages, and this volume is no exception. However, I am not sure it works for a travel guide. We returned from a holiday in France this week and found that this guide at 420 pages weighed about the same as the Rough Guide we also had with us which had over 1100 pages. Surprisingly there were things in this guide which the other one missed, but clearly as it was so much shorter, the coverage overall was much less. It is a nice book, but I am not wholly convinced that families will want to carry it around with them as well as a more general guide book, as I feel that on its own it probably does not provide sufficient coverage for a visit to this very large country.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful.
the sidebars with questions and activities geared to children is a nice addition.
By mmesutton
It is very helpful to read practical details that apply to children, such as family style restaurants and parks. In addition, the sidebars with questions and activities geared to children is a nice addition.