Product Description

The Unofficial Guides® are the Consumer Reports of travel guides, offering candid evaluations of their destinations' attractions, hotels, restaurants, shopping, nightlife, sports, and more, all rated and ranked by a team of unbiased inspectors so even the most compulsive planners can be sure they're spending their time and money wisely. Each guide addresses the needs of everyone from families to business travelers, with handy charts that demonstrate how each place stacks up against the competition. Plus, all the details are pulled out so they're extremely easy to scan.

Look no further than The Unofficial Guide to New York City for honest, streetwise advice that allows you to feel safe, comfortable, and at home in the Big Apple. We'll give you detailed reviews of all the top attractions and unbiased ratings of all the best hotels and restaurants, and clue you in on everything you'll need to know to get around like a local.

The Top 5 Ways The Unofficial Guide to New York City Can Help You Have the Perfect Trip:

1. The straight truth on all the attractions, from Central Park to the Statue of Liberty
2. How to get tickets to the hottest Broadway shows--and not pay full price for them
3. Hotels at every price level, ranked and rated for value and quality of rooms--plus proven strategies for getting the best rates
4. All the best New York restaurants, plus the inside story on shopping--where to get the best for less
5. How to plan and get the most out of your business or convention trip

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1340695 in Books
• Published on: 2002-03
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 438 pages

From the Publisher
The renowned Unofficial Guides are trusted by millions of readers. No other series offers such candid evaluations; every hotel and attraction is rated and ranked by a team of unbiased inspectors, so readers can be sure they're spending their time and money wisely.

Each guide features detailed descriptions of a wide range of hotels and restaurants in all price categories, with all the details pulled out so they're extremely easy to scan. Readers love the rating system used to objectively evaluate attractions, hotels, and restaurants. Handy charts demonstrate how each place stacks up against the competition. There's a wealth of information -- enough to satisfy even the most compulsive planner.

Each Unofficial Guide is tailored to provide convenience and insider advice on the destination it covers, and addresses the needs of everyone from families to business travelers. Also included are accurate maps, plus detailed information on shopping, nightlife, sports, and more.

From the Back Cover
For Travelers Who Want More Than the Official Line!

"A Tourist’s Best Friend!"—Chicago Sun-Times

"Indispensable"—The New York Times

The Top 10 Ways The Unofficial Guide® to New York City Can Help You Have the Perfect Trip:

• Honest, streetwise advice that allows you to feel safe, comfortable, and at home in the Big Apple
• Hotels at every price level, ranked and rated for value and quality of rooms—plus proven strategies for getting the best rates
• The best restaurants for every taste and budget
• How to get tickets to the hottest Broadway shows—and not pay full price for them
• The straight truth on all the attractions, from Central Park to the Statue of Liberty
• The inside story on shopping—where to get the best for less
• Tips on enjoying New York City with your kids
• How to plan and get the most out of your business or convention trip
• Information that’s candid, critical, and totally objective
• And if you’re one of the many who come to pay their respects at the site of the World Trade Center, we’ll tell you how

Get the unbiased truth on hundreds of hotels, restaurants, attractions, and more in The Unofficial Guide® to New York City—the resource that helps you save money, save time, and make your trip the best it can be.

About the Author
Eve Zibart is the restaurant columnist and nightlife writer for the Washington Post's "Weekend" section. She is a regular contributor to USAir inflight and Four Seasons magazines. She is the author of several Unofficial Guides and a dining guide to Washington, DC.

Bob Sehlinger is the creator and executive publisher of the Unofficial Guide series. He has authored over 20 books on travel and outdoor recreation.

Jim Leff has been dubbed "the godfather of the New York underground food scene" and has written about New York City restaurants and nightlife for Newsday, The New York Press, Time Out, Brooklyn Bridge, and Down the Hatch.

Lea Lane is a freelance writer specializing in travel, food, personalities, and lifestyle. She is a contributing editor to Reed Travel Group's Star Service hotel guide.

Customer Reviews

This book is like Consumer Report for the Big Apple.
On a recent business trip, this guide offered everything I needed-- a cheap place to stay, some great places to eat, great rates on all the top attractions, and even Broadway shows without paying full price.

Unofficially, it's inconsistent
Who wouldn't like to get the unofficial word on a big complex city? Who wouldn't like to feel that they were going to be able to find the places that make a city memorable, and that they weren't going to stick out as easy pickings while doing so?

These guide books promise, essentially, that you will know what you are doing before you've actually had the experience, removing some of the nasty anxiety of going horribly wrong as you set out to find urban magic. Some of their features are excellent. The hotel section, for instance, is comprehensive and gives several ways of looking for a hotel that might match your needs. Neighborhood overviews are also very fine.

HOWEVER! other aspects are both annoying and silly. Addresses are often wrong; hours of operation ditto; information about public transporation is (to be charitable) out-of-date. Nothing quite beats hopping confidently onto a bus with a pocket full of dollar bills, only to discover that busses only accept tokens or quarters.

They don't do badly at explaining what attitude you need to take to manage in New York, but neither do they do well. They hint, for example, at the importance of tipping, but do not convey the underlying fact that tipping in NYC is essentially small-time protection money. Not that that's a bad thing. Similarly, restaurant coverage was unimaginative, but maybe there is no way to predict whether a tourist would prefer a very very safe and bland experience, or is more adventurous and would prefer places where the locals eat. Even then, which locals?

This book helped us find a hotel that pleased us. Still, the other aspects annoyed us sufficiently that we left it behind in JFK before we took off.

Not very useful
If you need a guidebook that will help you plan an itinerary, GO SOMEWHERE ELSE! This book, while chock-full of information, gives no practical tips whatsoever about how to arrange activities while touring. I read through it twice and came away with snippets of information but nothing that helped with actually planning how my family would spend each of our four days in the city. The index is incomplete and much of the information is sketchy at best. I would NOT recommend this as a resource, especially for first-time visitors.