We’ve loved Lonely Planet guide books - for foreign countries and national parks in the US.

Some recollections of our trip to Germany:

In planning, I said I wanted to go to Munich; my wife asked “why?” And I said “to have a beer”. And I enjoyed the beers, Paulaner, Lowenbrau, Hacker-Schorr (where we ate dinner and when finishing up, our waitress asked if we wanted anything else; we said no thank you; she clapped her hands together loudly and declared we were ready for an after-dinner drink and brought us two cordials with a clear liquor- we never did find out exactly what - but I recall it tasted like cake icing)
The LP book recommended against going to Hofbrau Haus, saying something along the lines of “if you want to see 600 Japanese tourists in white shirts with cameras around their necks, go here”. We poked our heads in the door, saw a sea of picnic tables fairly packed with tourists and walked across the street to Augustiner where we had a table for two and a great time.
At one point an elderly couple approached us on the street asking me for directions; I tried to explain to them that I was not German and didn’t speak the language well. After they moved on, I scratched my head and my wife said look around, you look like everyone here; you could be at a family reunion (the show would be in the other foot when we made our trip to Ireland.
War Memorial

Always useful, it is hard to be anywhere without a Lonely Planet or Rough Guide. For me, the history section in the Rough Guides is better than that in the Lonely Planet Guide and the Rough Guide includes camp sites. I like the literature sections and culture sections in both. However, as we travel around there are always so many places that do not make it in to the Rough Guide; the Lonely Planet guides tend to have more small, out of the way places in them. ( )