Favorite / best travel guide book creators?

I wish Footprints covered more countries/regions as I find them exceptional. I also love Blue Guides for their excellent in depth coverage of cultural sites, again somewhat limited titles compared to LP or Frommers though. If you are someone that is a day hiker the Sunflower series of pocket guides can be quite useful as well.

Agreed on Rough Guide particularly for History- usually very well researched and have interesting commentary from differing points of view.

I like the Eyewitness guides for countries and if available for the city I'm going to the Timeout,Fodors and Let's Go pocket city guides (perfect size,waterproof and useful maps).

I also like Rough Guides for background info and logistics. The problem with guide books is that everyone else has the same information. When I actually travel I'll also research various travel forums to see what's new and slightly off the radar.

For SE Aisa I look to Travel Fish
http://www.travelfish.org/
The info is great and the folks on that site are a wealth of knowledge.

I like Rick Steves for its specifics, ie, walk 20 feet, turn right on the greyish piece of slate that lays approximately 2.5" above the surface, walk a further 10 paces and look left under the tree branch. You'll find "X" here. For the big picture, not so good.

For me I will take an EyeWitness (DK) book any time. I like the way they are set up.

In Hawaii the Wizard Pub books mentioned are the end all be all. They're that good.

I also like Insight for similar reason to DK.

Then it depends on region. The Seychelles we used Odyssey. They are quite nice as well.

If I am going to large cities, such as Tokyo, New York, Rome....I try and pick up a Time Out guide or a Lux Guide.

They both give nice overviews of the city but are really clued into the newest and happening local spots that you dont often read about in a Lonely Planet or Frommers type publication.

I lie Eyewitness guides as well because they have good visuals which I really respond to.

I use many different ones and so far mostly do not much like any of them very much. I have spent a fortune on them though. I just counted my bookcase; I have 83 guidebooks.

In Europe: Rick Steves offers that personal touch we need.

But, Lonely Planet or Moon Guides are the way to go for sure!

I tend to go with insight pocket guides, they have a full sized lift out map and tend to have good Itineraries.

Finally someone mentions Moon Handbooks. Offering most of these for sale in my store, Lonely Planet seems to be the one that most people research. However, in my limited travels where both Lonely Planet and Moon have books, invariably I see people with the Moon Handbook with them. I have seen very few people traveling with LP. Of course, with the downloads from Lonely Planet, I expect more people may be loading them on their Smart Phones.

And just as an aside, most Guide Books by necessity have information that is probably at least 18 monts old. As such, a used copy will probably give you similar data about a place. The only thing it won't give is accurate prices and phone numbers.

Lonely Planet! I'd say 80% of all my travel books.

I've used all of them in my time and never really found a perfect one. I tend to research hotels before I go, so don't need hotel information in the book. I agree that DK Eyewitness Guides are excellent for the visuals, which really bring to life historical sights. However, they can be a little shallow on detail and back story. For that, the best books I have come across are Cadogan Guides, which give a true cultural picture - I got so much out of their guide to Umbria that I almost kissed it from time to time! For restaurants, I find the branded guide books to be next to useless unless you want to eat in tourist traps - for them I try to find a local guide and, if it's in a language which I can't understand, I go for one with lots of symbols.

it depends on the location...
for the most part though i like DK because of the pictures