Rating: 
Summary: great intro to budget travel in Europe
Review: The best introduction you could wish for to budget travel in Europe. The book is full of convenient hints and tips that you ordinarily can only learn the hard way. The conversational style is great and no place he recommended has disappointed me yet. You'll need another guidebook for the facts-and-figures advice, but this, broader, advice is infinitly more valuble
Rating:
Summary: "a HOW to -- not a WHERE to"
Review: You ever get sick of reading travel books about WHAT to see, and not HOW to see it? Rick Steves has done it again with this one. If you're like me, you're going to love Rick's style and frankness about what to see and what to avoid. But I was most enamored by his colloquial way of dealing with being a tourist. Where else could you learn about how to walk into a back kitchen in a german cafe and mix with the locals. Learn about the off the beaten track ways to really learn about Europe -- through the people you meet, not the sites you visit. Buy this one -- then buy one of those dry directories
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Summary: It saved our Honeymoon!
Review: Rick Steves' "Europe Through the Back Door" can show you how not only to see more of the 'real Europe', but also how to save money doing it! My wife wanted a honeymoon in Europe, but it looked like all we would be able to afford would be a honeymoon in Cleveland! With Rick Steves' tips on travelling light and cheap, we managed to afford a great trip through parts of Germany, France, and Britain. His recommendations on affordable restaurants and hotels are right on the money; one can cut back on costs and not miss out on any of the comfort or atmosphere. Our hotel room for our first night in Europe was at the top of a 400-year-old stone tower with a view over the Rhine river!
Rating: 
Summary: Rick is a good travel guide, just not a good WRITER
Review: Rick does an okay job of giving a quick overview of Europe, but sometimes forgets to "just inform" and tries to get all poetic and fancy. His description of Rothenburg does not inform me about the place, just about the wind and the leaves and his acid trip. This book will annoy you with its sporadic bursts of cheap thesaurus prose.. Rick is just not a good writer. Otherwise he does a good job of letting you know of not-so-touristy things to do in EU. The types of things he suggests are walking around and smelling things, sitting down and drinking a beer, buying a chunk of cheese and eating it on a park bench while people-watching. I don't see 18-30 year olds getting much from this book. Younger travellers might want to do more than just smell a place and get tipsy.
His writing tone seems biased; he's opinionated and sometimes makes me feel as if he gets paid to advertise shops and attractions.
Buy this book for a general overview of an Euro Trip, not as a travel guide. For more detailed info, grab a Lonely Planet guidebook.
In an effort to cater to ALL audiences, Rick, as well as oher mass market writers, tries to create ONE book for ALL types of people. Any given traveller will be interested in only 15% of this book, and toss the rest aside. The backpacker will use 15%. The high class big baller will use 15%. The middle class two week vacationer might use 10%. I would prefer to pay more for a book JUST FOR ME. (Mr. Backpacker)
Rating: 
Summary: A book for getting the most out of Europe
Review: Rick Steves' Europe Through the Back Door presents a philosophy that many tourists seem to lack: When in Europe, ACT like you're in Europe! This book is aimed towards those travelers that just can't quite seem to ever escape the U.S. no matter where they travel.Rick presents a whole host of tips for seeing a Europe beyond the standard guided bus tours and airline deals. His years of experience go into his writing, giving often insightful and funny tips from sleeping overnight in the train station (he reccomends sleeping in the first-class lounge to be among a higher class of hobo) to the best way to wash your clothes in the hotel sink. This book is not all about travelers caught in a pinch, however. There's also great advice for finding accomodations in during busy season, picking the right hotel/room, and finally finding those gems--great spots in Europe that no other traveler seems to know about. This book is not so much a guide to specifics as it is a guide to travel philosophy. Steves encourages the reader to immerse themselves in the local culture, and offers advice for the reader not sure how to do so. Those looking for a country-specific guidebook should look somewhere else, but they should also keep this book handy to really get a feel for what Europe truly is and was.
Rating: 
Summary: Terrible description in section on Turkey
Review: "Tourists are learning that the image of the terrible Turk is false, created to a great degree by it unfriendly neighbors. Turks are quick to remind visitors that, surrounded by Syria, Iraq, Iran, Armenia, Georgia, Bulgaria, and Greece, they're not living in Mr. Rogers' neighborhood."
This is a direct quote.
It sounds like they're trying to say that the surrounding countries are painting an incorrect negative image of Turkey. Which is amusing, since he listed both Greece and Armenia there, which were both targeted by Turkey. Either this writing staff has no idea what they're writing and is just happy to sell books, thinking no one will double check the info, or they're Racist and opinionated. Either way, I wouldn't trust the info in here even as a rough guide on where to go.
Rating:
Summary: A book for getting the most out of Europe
Review: Rick Steves' Europe Through the Back Door presents a philosophy that many tourists seem to lack: When in Europe, ACT like you're in Europe! This book is aimed towards those travelers that just can't quite seem to ever escape the U.S. no matter where they travel. Rick presents a whole host of tips for seeing a Europe beyond the standard guided bus tours and airline deals. His years of experience go into his writing, giving often insightful and funny tips from sleeping overnight in the train station (he recommends sleeping in the first-class lounge to be among a higher class of hobo) to the best way to wash your clothes in the hotel sink. This book is not all about travelers caught in a pinch, however. There's also great advice for finding accomodations in during busy season, picking the right hotel/room, and finally finding those gems--great spots in Europe that no other traveler seems to know about. This book is not so much a guide to specifics as it is a guide to travel philosophy. Steves encourages the reader to immerse themselves in the local culture, and offers advice for the reader not sure how to do so. Those looking for a country-specific guidebook should look somewhere else, but they should also keep this book handy to really get a feel for what Europe truly is and was.
Rating:
Summary: Not a guide book... a HOW-TO book
Review: This is a great book for those first timers to Europe. Those that don't know what to expect. It tells you what to pack, how to create an itinerary, booking flights, how to get around Europe (train, car, and boat), how to find places to stay, how to make phone calls, how to interact with the locals, etc. This is NOT a guide book. It is a "how to enjoy yourself in Europe" book. The previous reviewer should have taken this into account before bad mouthing it. This book does give some pointers about the best trips one can take given certain timeframes, but does not go into detail about everything there is to see about Europe. He includes his favourite places. For more detail, pick up Rick Steve's Best of Europe 2004, or one of his country specific guide books. After spending several months a year for 25 years touring Europe, Rick knows what you need to know about enjoying yourself there. No need to make the same mistakes, he tells you how to avoid the pitfalls.
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Summary: A traveler's best friend
Review: I found this book to be very useful. First of all, this isn't a guidebook. This is basically a how to travel book. It shows you how to travel the back door way. In other words, travel as a guest rather than as a tourist. It's unfortunate how many tourists are happy to be herded into tourist ghettos to be stripped of their cash. This book shows how to avoid that, and how to enjoy Europe as the Europeans do. Also this book gives good advice on how to travel cheaply. I particularly admire Rick's philosophy of travel. He advocates socially responsible travel, getting to know the local people, and experiencing what's unique in each country. On the down side, Rick tries to be humorous, but a lot of the jokes are too corny. However this doesn't bother me too much. In the second half of the book, he gives some recommendations for back doors into Europe. He covers all of the Western European countries. The back doors are little touristed spots which really breathe the magic of Europe and reflect what tourists expect to see before they go. After reading these, you won't be able to stay away from Europe. I just felt that I wanted to visit all of the places he recommended. At least visit one of these places, and I'm sure you'll be impressed with his skills for finding those perfect places. If you're interested in a guidebook, you might want to buy one of Rick's country or city guidebooks. In those, he goes into detail about the sights and places to stay. If you're interested in some strategies for travel, and in recommendations for some very special places to visit, pick this book up.
Rating:
Summary: The best reference for post 9/11 Europe
Review: As the brother in law, cousin, uncle and much else besides of numerous Americans who come to visit us in Europe, none have spoken more highly of a guide to what they really need to see than they do of Rick Steves. If Cousin Ernie had her trip to Europe transformed by reading his books, then one can get no higher recommendation than that! Buy this book before you come and enjoy your stay!
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