Complete Idiot's Travel Guide to London

While The "Complete Idiot's...." is extremely helpful in the pre-planning stage of your trip, it doesn't always work that well on the job. As a first-time European traveler the introductory chapters are particularly good. It really is designed for someone who has not a clue what they are doing. While I found its suggestions for day trips helpful in making my pre-trip planning, I did find it unhelpful in planning hotel/B & B accomodations. Because it was slightly dated it, inadvertantly, helped me get hopelessly lost when looking for Tube directions to the new "Tate Modern" Gallery. All in all a useful tool for any beginner. Just make sure to get the very latest edition and use other souces to plan your hotel/B & B arrangements.

Of the several books we purchased for our first trip to London, this was the one we kept coming back to. It has great basic information for the first-time traveler--practical how-to information not included in the other guidebooks we had. This book is good to read before your trip. Its time estimates were very helpful in planning our itinerary.