Guest Author - Jill Browne

There's value in exploring what's right under your nose. With an up to date version of a local guidebook, you'll be spoiled for choice.

Buying a guidebook is a budget travel suggestion in and of itself, but to make it even cheaper, visit the local tourist bureau and stock up on free brochures. If you're lucky there may even be the odd money-saving coupon or two in the lot.

Back to the guidebook. I can't believe it's taken me so long to figure out what a great idea this is!

I have been reading a new guide to my own home area, Alberta. (Moon Handbooks - Alberta, by Andrew Hempstead, 6th Edition, published by Avalon Travel Publishing, ISBN-10-1-56691-835-9). Now that I've seen it, I would definitely recommend it.

As luck would have it, I got the book just before taking a couple of trips within Alberta. One was to Edmonton, the provincial capital, and the other to Red Deer, a mid-sized city between Calgary where I live, and Edmonton. I'm very familiar with many places in Alberta, having lived here a long time, so I read this book in a way that I don't read other guidebooks. Usually the area is new and unfamiliar - hey, that's why I buy guidebooks! (And I do buy lots of them). What a treat to read about the places I know and have visited.

Have you ever had a visitor from away come to your home after being in your own area - even your own town - for a holiday? So often they seem to have been to the places and seen the things you keep meaning to visit but never quite get around to. With a local guidebook, you can make a game of it - try to get to all the attractions before your brother does, or see how many you can visit in a week, for example.

Sometimes it's fun to wander off the beaten track, but with a little guidance, the byways to choose become a little more obvious.

A few years ago I picked up a bargain book about going off the beaten track in Northern California. That book took me to a historic logging camp in Samoa (California, not the South Seas), to the beautiful Victorian town of Petaluma, the giant redwood forests, and the incredibly decadent mud baths of Calistoga, to name just a few California treasures. Without that little book I would have missed so much.

Turning the tables, there are tourist attractions and notable features right here at home that I either don't even know about, or have been unintentionally ignoring for years. You too?

Here are three good reasons to carry a local travel guidebook:

1. It makes you a sparkling conversationalist, as interesting as any visitor from far away, with your fresh and up to date knowledge of local attractions.

2. It saves you money by telling you where the free stuff is.

3. It makes you a better citizen by providing an expert's opinion about what you have there and why it matters.

I have to say, I'm looking forward to my next 200-mile trip, because there's so much to see between here and there!

The link is to one of the books mentioned in the article. My copy was provided to me for review.

Unfortunately, I have given away the California book, but it would fit well into the Off the Beaten Path series of travel guides, and was probably an early edition of their current Northern California guide.