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Summary: Must Have for travelers
Review: I've lived in London for a year, and have traveled there over 20 times in the past 15 years and I never found any London map or guide that is in the same class as this one.Easy to read and follow, but most of all the extra identifications of pubs, hotels, tourist attractions, churches etc. make this the fantastic companion for your trip. The book format makes it much easier to find the part of London you want, but unlike a London A to Z book, this one is small enough for your purse or pocket. Also, the brief textual sections on Museums and galleries, points of interest, entertainments etc. are invaluable. Just a quick look in this area gives you the phone number, times open and closed, and address for just about any thing you will need. This is simply put the best, bar none, map guide book out there. Certainly an essential whenever I travel to London.
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Summary: You're going to LOVE BRITAIN!
Review: I've spent a year in England and have made >30 visits all together.
Here are my reviews of the best guides....to meet you r exact needs.....I hope these are helpful and that you have a great visit! I always gauge the quality of my visit by how much I remember a year later......this review is designed to help you get the guide that will be sure YOU remember your trip many years into the future. Travel Safe and enjoy yourself to the max!
Fodor's
Fodor's is the best selling guide among Americans. They have a bewildering array of different guides. Here's which is what:
The Gold Guide is the main book with good reviews of everything and lots of tours, walks, and just about everything else you could think of. It's not called the Gold guide for nothing though....it assumes you have money and are willing to spend it.
SeeIt! is a concise guide that extracts the most popular items from the Gold Guide
PocketGuide is designed for a quick first visit
UpCLOSE for independent travel that is cheap and well thought out
CityPack is a plastic pocket map with some guide information
Exploring is for cultural interests, lots of photos and designed to supplement the Gold guide
MapGuide
MapGuide is very easy to use and has the best location information for pubs, hotels, tourist attractions, museums, churches etc. that they manage to keep fairly up to date. It's great for teaching you how to use the underground and the double decker buses. The text sections are quick overviews, not reviews, but the strong suite here is brevity, not depth. I strongly recommend this for your first few times learning your way around the classic tourist sites and experiences. MapGuide is excellent as long as you are staying pretty much in the city centre. When you get to be an old London hand, remember that the classic Londoners guide will always be an A to Z (zed) map and guide. If you want to go a bit beyond the central core of the city (perhaps to Windsor, Hampton, or further away) you really need the proper AtoZ to be able to find exact routes and streets.
Time Out
The Time Out guides are very good. Easy reading, short reviews of restaurants, hotels, and other sites, with good public transport maps that go beyond the city centre. Many people who buy more than one guidebook end up liking this one best!
Blue Guides
Without doubt, the best of the walks guides.... the Blue Guide has been around since 1918 and has extremely well designed walks with lots of unique little side stops to hit on just about any interest you have. If you want to pick up the feel of the city, this is the best book to do that for you. This is one that you end up packing on your 10th trip, by which time it is well worn.
Michelin
Famous for their quality reviews, the Red Michelin Guides are for hotels & Restaurants, the Green Michelin Guides are for main tourist destinations. However, the English language Green guide is the one most people use and it has now been supplemented with hotel and restaurant information. These are the serious review guides as the famous Michelin ratings are issued via these books.
Let's Go
Let's Go is a great guide series that specializes in the niche interest details that turn a trip into a great and memorable experience. Started by and for college students, these guides are famous for the details provided by people who used the book the previous year. They continue to focus on providing a great experience inexpensively. If you want to know about the top restaurants, this is not for you (use Fodor's or Michelin). Let's Go does have a bewildering array of different guides though. Here's which is what:
Budget Guide is the main guide with incredibly detailed information and reviews on everything you can think of.
City Guide is just as intense but restricted to the single city.
PocketGuide is even smaller and features condensed information
MapGuide's are very good maps with public transportation and some other information (like museum hours, etc.)
Lonely Planet
Lonely Planet has City and Out To Eat Guides. They are all about the experience so they focus on doing, being, getting there, and this means they have the best detailed information, including both inexpensive and really spectacular restaurants and hotels, out-of-the-way places, weird things to see and do, the list is endless.
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Summary: The London Mapguide: The Essential Guide to Experience
Review: It is very good to read and have information on London before one goes there. London has so many places to see and do. It is good to plan ahead so that you do not miss anything.
Rating: 
Summary: What kind of pocket?
Review: It's fine, but I don't get all the raves. It's a rather expensive map, not going much beyond central London. The textual information is limited to bare essentials you'll find in any other guide, and you'll need another one anyway. The map itself has remarkably little information, considering the scale, because streets are represented by double lines 1/8" wide, leaving little room for anything else. And check the size: my clothes don't have pockets that size.
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Summary: What kind of pocket?
Review: It's fine, but I don't get all the raves. It's a rather expensive map, not going much beyond central London. The textual information is limited to bare essentials you'll find in any other guide, and you'll need another one anyway. The map itself has remarkably little information, considering the scale, because streets are represented by double lines 1/8" wide, leaving little room for anything else. And check the size: my clothes don't have pockets that size.
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Summary: If you buy only one map of London this is it
Review: Just got back from a wonderful vacation. This mapguide was incredibly helpful in finding all the locations I wanted to go to. More importantly for anyone who travels a lot and likes to wander and explore, you can easily figure out where you are and then where to go to catch the tube or bus. It is compact and handy. I cannot recommend this enough. The details for a city known for it's complexity make this invaluable.
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Summary: Keeper
Review: Of several maps & guidebooks purchased, this was the book I took with me to London. It covers the entire city, shows great detail in streets and public buildings, and fit in my purse easily. Even my British London-savvy friend was consulting it. The other books (with the exception of London for Dummies) were good for preparing for the trip, but would just have been unneccesary weight once I got there.
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Summary: We loved this map book!
Review: The London Mapguide was indispensable during our recent trip to the city. Each page's map is jam-packed with information: sites, museums, post offices, parks, hospitals, churches, and even select pubs, restaurants and clubs. Aesthetics are important to me, and I can vouch that this guide is very well put-together, colorful and easy to read. Also, the book handily has pages at the beginning and end with plenty of info about museums and other sites, including hours of operation, their map location pages, pricing, etc. as well as emergency numbers, service info important to tourists, a large Underground map (yes, the famous one) and a fairly comprehensive index of street names. The most unexpected benefit of the guide was how handy it was for figuring out the public transportation system. We bus-hopped all over London using this guide alone, seeing much more than we would have if we had just taken the Underground. The maps very clearly illustrate all of the bus routes and Tube/railway stops and it's super easy to trace how to get from one part of the city to another, seeing as much as possible along the way. We used this map guide so much during our stay in London that it feels like as much a memento as anything else we brought home. Just flipping through it now brings back a lot of memories. Another reviewer complains that this guide doesn't cover a very extended area, and while it is true that it doesn't include maps for the outer fringes of London, it covered a perfect area for we tourists spending a week trekking all over the city's heart. I strongly recommend this guide!
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Summary: I couldn't have gotten lost if I'd tried
Review: This is the best eight bucks I spent in preparation for my trip to London. These maps are thorough, clear, and up to date. You can tell the wide roads from the narrow roads, and the tiniest streets are included. When you travel off the map, the page on which your route continues is clearly marked. And while each page is just a tiny section of the city, the layout of the book keeps it all in context. Theaters, hotels, pubs, Underground stops, and other handy locales are even marked (by name!) on the maps.
One of my traveling companions carried a guidebook around and kept referring to its inferior, confusing maps. If I had relied on that, I would probably have ended up in Finland, scratching my head and looking for the train. This book is worth buying just for the confidence you gain just by knowing where you're going, not to mention the arguments avoided and time saved.
Rating:
Summary: Exactly what I wanted
Review: This map took me around London for three weeks. It's clear and detailed, and has so much information right on the page: stores, restaurants, pubs, post offices, theatres, museums, hotels, and even statues. It includes a tube map, of course, overlaid on the streets, so you can find the stations easily. Small and thin enough so that I never went anywhere without it.
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