Lonely Planet Encounter Stockholm [ペーパーバック]

(This book was published in Sept. 2007, so if you are reading it after a new edition comes out, perhaps things have changed). The best thing about this book is its compact size, which makes it easy to tote with you. We (I and a partner) were in Stockholm for five weeks for a sort of working vacation, and had it with us every day, so that we could make plans quickly if we found ourselves with extra time. Mostly, that worked well. A bigger book would have been a drag to carry around, and this one has the key info you need to find things to do: descriptions, maps, opening times, and prices. It is divided into descriptions by neighborhood, and within each neighborhood, describes the categories of "see, shop, eat, drink and play." Each neighborhood section begins with a small map of that neighborhood, with all of the places of interest marked. In addition, the book comes with a bigger pull-out map of all of Stockholm.

My rating for the book is not higher because of a couple of errors that cost us valuable time, and because overall, the maps aren't as good as they should be. First, the maps. The pull-out map in the back of the book is of low quality (budget paper not made to last, hard to read, doesn't include all street names). The neighborhood maps are useful for pinpointing locations of things to do, but you often need a better map to then navigate your way there. We got a *much* better map free in our hotel--it had glossy paper that held up better to constant use, and was much more readable. Unfortunately, we didn't have the better map with us one day when we went to a movie, and on the Lonely Planet map, the theater was incorrectly placed. This caused a lot of needless walking back and forth, and caused us to choose between either cutting short our planned meal or missing the film (we finally found the theater on the other side of the street and down the road from where it was marked. It hadn't moved recently, so this was just a map error).

My biggest problem with the book, though, is that the opening hours listed for Skansen, Stockholm's open-air museum, are misleading! This is a major tourist destination and there's not much excuse for getting the hours wrong. The hours are listed (for mid June to August, when we were there) as 10 to 10. We got there at 7 p.m. expecting to spend 3 hours, and were told "now, you know all the shops are closed, right?" Of course we didn't know, since Lonely Planet didn't tell us. All of the little shops where you can watch artisans at work, etc. close at 5 p.m.! You can indeed pay to get in and walk around until 10 p.m., but you will be walking around looking at closed-up buildings! (And I suppose you can see the animals). Since we had gone to some inconvenience to get there (two bus rides plus the subway), needless to say this was a big disappointment.

A minor annoyance about this book is that its overly clever,"hip" tone can be tiresome - sometimes more objective, straightforward description would be preferable. Another issue is that because the book is organizaed by neighborhoods, the degree to which there is homogeneity within each neighborhood is exaggerated, seemingly in order to draw contrasts between them. For example, Sodermalm is described as "a latte-laced mix of experiemental art, gritty bars, and retro chic." This is accurate for parts of Soder, but certainly not all or even most of it. Sometimes the writing style is downright offensive; for example, the Jewish Museum is described as "a kosher little museum" with "nifty pull-out display cabinets" which "cover everything from the Holocaust... to Torah silverware..." The juxtapositioning of the term "nifty" with "Holocaust" is grating.

For all of its limitations, though, this was the single most useful of the three Stockholm/Sweden guides I purchased, since all had their pros and cons. It's just that it could have so easily been better. If hotels and tourist info shops can provide such great maps for free, why can't Lonely Planet get one for their book? (In fact, they can--the maps in the Lonely Planet Dublin book are SO much better).

I visited Stockholm in July 08 for the first time, using Stockholm Encounter as my guide.
The book was very well written - vivid and entertaining, and captured the city well. Also the neighbourhood-based format worked well - saved lots of to-ing and fro-ing.
The book yielded up some great finds. A few places seemed to have closed down since the book was published, but I guess this is inevitable in a large city. Overall the reviews were accurate, and for a book of its size I thought that it packed in a lot of interesting information on different aspects of the city, like design and food.
I'd happily recommend this book for an insider's view of the city.

There isn't really anything in this book that you can't find with a little basic web research. If you are an experienced traveler, it isn't going to help you at all. For a newcomer to the foreign travel experience, it might be a good primer.