Frommer's Nova Scotia, New Brunswick & Prince Edward Island

This is your standard Frommer's guide, good for hotels and restaurants but short on local color. We found the reviews accurate and the information up-to-date. But to figure out where you'll really want to go and what you'd be interested in, this book won't help you much. We used the guide to the Maritime Provinces from the "Off the Beaten Path" series, which is totally different from the Frommer's--long on local color and history, but very little information on places to stay and eat. But these two guides together, plus the free information you can get from the Nova Scotia Tourism website, are all you'll need.

This guide was fun! The only things we knew about Nova Scotia we found in government tourist guides which were not always clear or easy to use. But Frommer's came through and gave us inside information and ideas about what authentically interesting things we should look for. The best thing, though, was the entertaining comments here and there. I found myself chuckling and then reading them aloud to my partner as we drove through the countryside. It was a good companion for our trip.

I am planning my first trip to Nova Scotia for October 2002 and have been haunting the book stores in Boston for good guides. Near the end of my book search, I came across the 2002 (4th) edition of the Frommer's guide and it has been a regular companion for me as I plan the details of my trip.Let me make a few things clear here. Like the other Frommer's edition for this same place (2000), this guide also has NO good maps. And there are still NO nice sidebars filled with local tidbits. And there aren't a lot of website or email addresses either.But then again, this is NOT that type of book. This Frommer's guide is the nitty-gritty, the essence of what you would want to know for each of the major areas in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Prince Edward Island. The guide does a good job of giving you information on at least a few places to stay (if there are any in that area), places to eat, tours, and any major landmarks or places to visit in a number of cities and towns, even the smaller ones. And the price range is mostly for the budget to mid-range values. The book is also a smaller size, allowing for you to easily carry it around or stash it when you travel. The format is easy to read, and the layout is clean and uncluttered.To get over the drawbacks I mentioned above, I suggest augmenting the Frommer's with the official Nova Scotia travel guide (a behemonth, comprehensive thing) that has great photos, maps, and the like; request it for free from the tourism office. There are also some other good guidebooks on the market that will fill in some of the (small) gaps of the Frommer's. And anyone with access to the Internet can easily do web searches for websites that have tons of info on Nova Scotia, including the official Nova Scotia website.Give it a try. At the very least, if you get it and don't like it, you can return it. I look forward to making my trip and then verifying the info I've gotten from the Frommer's guidebook.