Real City London: Top Guidebook

New Travel Guides Series with Best of London, written by Londoners

May 11, 2007

Real City Guides from Dorling Kindersley are different travel guides, written by locals. The Guide to London shows there is room for a stylish new London guidebook

One look at the cover of this travel guide to London in the stylish new Real City series and I was hooked. It shows a night-time shot of London's most recent bridge, the Millennium Bridge, looking across the River Thames towards St Paul's Cathedral. The photo's got everything – London old, London new, the river, great composition, atmosphere. Perfect.

But you can't judge a book by looking at the cover, as that great philosopher Bo Diddley observed. So I dipped inside and the first thing that caught my eye was the entry for the Banqueting House on page 105. It's a building I've never been inside – well, I only lived in London for 15 years so didn't have time to see everything. But if I ever decide I want to see it I'll take this travel guide's advice. 'The video and audio tour are overly pompous,' it informs me, which also tells me whoever wrote it has actually done it. 'Better to visit the place as part of the lively Old Westminster Tour offered by Original London Walks.'

So who are the opinionated but well-informed people who have written the Real City London guidebook? Actually, all but one of them also write for the various Time Out guides, which is a recommendation in itself as I've always got time for Time Out guides. The exception is Max Alexander, a New Zealander who arrived in London in 1987 and has worked on the excellent Eyewitness London guide, so ought to know what he's doing.

The Real City guides are definitely guidebooks for hedonists. I am one myself so I've no complaints, but if you're looking for an in-depth book that gives you the history of the National Gallery, look to something like the Rough Guides. The Real Guides gives more space to the River Cafe than it does to the National Gallery.

Real City London, like all the guides in this series, also gives almost as much space to photos as it does to words. We've got so used to guidebooks that give you 200 pages of text, and maybe a few photos, but the Real City travel guides have photographs – and excellent ones at that – of almost every place being written about, including the shopping, hotels, markets, nightlife and every section apart from the practical information. If a picture's worth a thousand words then this is an encyclopaedia, but I do like to see photos of restaurants and hotels in particular. With some you immediately know that you do, or don't, want to eat or stay there.

In short, I wouldn't come to London with only the Real City London guidebook in my luggage. I would pack a Rough Guide and/or a Lonely Planet too for the practical information. But I'd use a Real City guide before going, to help plan where to eat and drink, and you'd probably want to keep it on the bookshelves afterwards, as a visual reminder of what you did on your London vacation.

The Real City Guides are a welcome addition to the guidebook scene, and the London one is certainly good. It also comes with a website password that allows access to updates on the Real City Guides website, which you can go to by clicking here.

The copyright of the article Real City London: Top Guidebook in England Travel is owned by Mike Gerrard. Permission to republish Real City London: Top Guidebook in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.