Lonely Planet: The world's leading travel guide publisher
Lonely Planet Germany is your passport to all the most relevant and up-to-date advice on what to see, what to skip, and what hidden discoveries await you. See storybook castles arise from the Bavarian forest, raise a stein to an oompah band in a Munich beer garden, and take in the vibrant Berlin arts scene; all with your trusted travel companion. Get to the heart of Germany and begin your journey now!
Inside Lonely Planet Germany Travel Guide:
- Colour maps and images throughout
- Highlights and itineraries show you the simplest way to tailor your trip to your own personal needs and interests
- Insider tips save you time and money and help you get around like a local, avoiding crowds and trouble spots
- Essential info at your fingertips - including hours of operation, phone numbers, websites, transit tips, and prices
- Honest reviews for all budgets - including eating, sleeping, sight-seeing, going out, shopping, and hidden gems that most guidebooks miss
- Cultural insights give you a richer and more rewarding travel experience - including history, art, literature, cinema, theatre, music, architecture, landscapes, wildlife, cuisine, drink, and more
- Free, convenient pull-out Berlin map (included in print version), plus over 50 colour local maps
- Useful features - including Walking Tours, Travel with Children, and Month-by-Month (annual festival calendar)]
- Coverage of Hamburg, Saxony, Bremen, Cologne, Rhineland, Berlin, Frankfurt, Stuttgart, Black Forest, Bavaria, Munich, Central Germany, and more
The Perfect Choice: Lonely Planet Germany, our most comprehensive guide to Germany, is perfect for those planning to both explore the top sights and take the road less travelled.
- Looking for just the highlights of Germany? Check out Lonely Planet's Discover Germany, a photo-rich guide to the country's most popular attractions.
- Looking for a guide focused on Berlin or Munich? Check out Lonely Planet's Berlin guide or Lonely Planet's Munich, Bavaria & the Black Forest guide for a comprehensive look at all these cities have to offer, or Pocket Berlin, a handy-sized guide focused on the can't-miss sights for a quick trip.
Authors: Written and researched by Lonely Planet, Andrea Schulte-Peevers, Kerry Christiani, Marc Di Duca, Anthony Haywood, Daniel Robinson, and Ryan Ver Berkmoes.
About Lonely Planet: Started in 1973, Lonely Planet has become the world's leading travel guide publisher with guidebooks to every destination on the planet, as well as an award-winning website, a suite of mobile and digital travel products, and a dedicated traveller community. Lonely Planet's mission is to enable curious travellers to experience the world and to truly get to the heart of the places they find themselves in.
Most helpful customer reviews
29 of 30 people found the following review helpful.
By Erik Gfesser
Although reviews of the most recently published iteration of the "Let's Go Germany" travel guide are not very flattering, earlier editions of it along with "Lonely Planet Germany" are the two Germany travel guides I recommend for visitors to the country. My review of "Fodor's Germany (26th Edition)" about a year ago reminded me that although other Germany travel guides may contain a far greater amount of pictures, those not interested in boilerplate or mainstream sightseeing of the country will likely find "Lonely Planet Germany" one of their best travel companions. It has been 15 years since I picked up my last copy of "Lonely Planet Germany" in 1998, and in comparing it with this most recent edition not only is it consistently one of the best Germany travel guides, it has also improved significantly during this time period while still retaining one of its same authors, Andrea Schulte-Peevers, the one author of six across the 1998 and 2013 editions who was born and raised in Germany, wrote (with her husband David Peevers) Lonely Planet's first guide to Berlin, and after many years living in Los Angeles has since returned to living in Berlin. Although this version of the guide does not get into great detail about author contributions, the 1998 edition notes that she had driven over 30,000km of German roads to compile her contributions, and it shows.
The maps in this edition are much clearer than in the 1998 release, and color has been added. In addition, photos have been strategically added in several sections to support newly added sections that other Lonely Planet guides also now provide in similar form, such as the "18 Top Experiences" section at the beginning of this book, and spreads interspersed throughout such as the ones on "Historic Marvels" and "Landscapes". After providing an overview of the top experiences recommended by the authors, a brief section of need-to-know tips covering areas such as exchange rates and travel seasons is provided, followed by sections for first-time visitors, a 1-page summary of recent changes in the destination (such as the to-be-completed Berlin Brandenburg Airport), travel recommendations based on particular areas of traveler interest (such as churches and cathedrals, castles and palaces, and the great outdoors), a month-by-month goings-on, recommended itineraries for hypothetical visits, and tips and recommendations for such areas as eating and drinking, and traveling with children, as well as a 4-page section that provides an overview of 10 different regions of Germany before discussing each in detail.
The regions covered are sensibly broken down for travelers rather than the 16 states that the country comprises: Berlin, Saxony, Munich, Bavaria, Stuttgart and the Black Forest, Frankfurt and the Southern Rhineland, Cologne and the Northern Rhineland, Central Germany, Lower Saxony and Bremen, and Hamburg and the North. High-level presentations of areas such as history, architecture, and landscapes and wildlife (which includes a great 2-page sidebar on national parks) are provided at the back of the book, but the "Survival Guide" section following these presentations will probably be more practical to most readers, covering areas such as accommodations, money, and transportation. From personal experience, the discussion on rail services should probably have been given greater emphasis due to the phenomenal, far-reaching access that trains provide to those traveling the country. And the editors of this edition quite strangely have two sections on train travel, so readers will need to unfortunately dig a bit to find what they need. This weakness is minor, but if you are a non-European resident you should strongly consider acquiring a German Rail Pass for your trip. My experiences using this pass to tour all areas of the country are testament to how convenient and inexpensive Germany has made it for foreign travelers. Extremely well recommended travel guide to accompany you as you plan and execute your trip to Germany.
10 of 10 people found the following review helpful.
By Melanie Gilbert
One of the vicarious thrills of the Lonely Planet guidebooks is that you don't even have to leave the house to enjoy your journey through the profiled country. The books are so thoroughly written that they can double as an armchair travelogue.
Plus, they are written in a funny and fresh style which softens the grinding nature of page after page of who, what, where, when, why, how and how much. On the back of this almost 1000-page opus is an "Inside this book..." feature that reveals 6 authors spent 6 months climbing 5 alpine peaks and consuming 250 cups of coffee and cake in their quest to bring Germany to the intrepid traveler. I don't know what speaks to their credibility more: the alpine peaks or the kaffee and kuchen.
I spent a summer in Germany and have traveled there several times and can attest to the information in these extensively documented pages. But with this book as your guide, familiarity isn't a requirement. The "Need to Know" section orients you to your overall in-country journey, while the "Don't Miss" sections call out specific areas of interest - such as the role of the Black Forest setting in Grimm's fairy tales.
This is an excellent resource whether you actually travel to Germany of not. But the planet isn't so lonely with these books as your guide.
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful.
By Marion
I've used Lonely planet as a back-up book for one trip. This time, I'm trying to plan my trip with it and finding it difficult because the book seems to separate things that should be together. I'm not explaining it very well, but the itineraries are all up at the front, and then you have to pick through the book going back and forth trying to find those places. I'm finding that I want to use the internet and my map to find hotels rather than the book! It would not be something you would want to carry with you on a trip, either, in my opinion. On my first two trips I used Rick Steves books, he has a good layout to his books, and excellent maps, but he bugs me and I found his opinion on quality, value, interesting to be a mismatch. so I don't care to purchase his product - his itinerary map is on his website and I did check that. I have used Fodor's probably with a little better organizational success than with this book, but their book was not as up-to-date as this one. I don't hate this book, but I'm not impressed so far. The layout makes me not want to read it.
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