DK Eyewitness Scotland (Travel Guide)

I have always been a huge fan of the DK Eyewitness travel books, and one has accompanied me on each of my trips to a foreign land. They provide a nice overview of places to see, and I’ve always LOVED the beautiful glossy pages and photos. Over the past decade+ they have made travel planning an absolute joy, and I’ve looked forward to purchasing my DK book each time I am going to a new country.
Alas, the 2019 versions of the DK travel books have totally cheaped out. The cover and bindings are flimsier than earlier editions (paperback vs. flexibind), and the pages are now made out of a thin, cheap non-glossy paper. While I’m sure the writing is up to the usual standards, given the low quality materials, this book just does not provide good value for the price any longer.
I will be returning this version and purchasing an earlier year’s edition that I found through a third-party website. Going forward, I regret to say that DK has lost a very loyal customer (and likely many more!) by sacrificing quality as a means to improve their margins. A poor decision indeed!

Eyewitness guides have updated. The information is still very good, however after using 30+ of the previous format guides I feel this new one falls short. The paper quality is much lower and the organization does not seem to be as good. Overall I still believe that Eyewitness guides are good and the Scotland guide will give you what you need for an exciting and great trip to Scotland. It is broken down by region so it allows you to plan ahead and to check for added attractions that you may not know about.

Really bummed. The once GREAT travel guides have been significantly downgraded. Cheap paper, confusing new flow and organization, etc. I LOVED these travel guides and we always bought one for every destination we were traveling to for many years. I had the 2016 version of this guide, but we ended up not going to Scotland that year. We are heading there in 2020 so I bought the updated version. Depressing. I guess they got bought by a bigger company and they cheapened and dumbed down the product.

I guess to be fair, it is still a decent travel guide, just not even close to the previous version.

It is ok as an average travel guide—
but the format is very different than other D&K Eyewitness Travel Guides that are so useful and appealing. Gone are the glossy pages, helpful diagrams, and superior layout that make D&K stand out from all other guides. I hope this is just a parallel series and not a replacement of the familiar (and in my opinion far superior) D&K Eyewitness guides. (Compare photo). Just not the same.

The information in the book is wonderful for our first time going to Scotland.

This book was my 6th purchase of a guide form DK Eyewitness Travel and I am disappointed by some of changes they made to the format and both the quantity and quality of the information provided. This review is based on reading the first 93 of 205 pages (covering an introduction to and history of Scotland and the city of Edinburgh), a selection of the remaining pages that describe the places I intend to visit (Glasgow, Inverness, Aberdeen, Inner & Outer Hebrides, Oban, St Andrews and places along the way), the eight pages in the Need to Know section, and the one page in the Scottish Vocabulary section. Although the format has some improvements, the inconsistencies, omissions, and inadequate proofreading are disappointing.

On the Positive Side:
1. The big city maps list the names of restaurants and hotels as numbered references along with the Must See and Experience More sites of interest in the map key.
2. The descriptions of sites in the smaller cities now include locator reference numbers, which makes the sites easier to find on the street maps.
3. The smaller city street maps list the names of some restaurants on the map.

Shortcomings:
1. Pages feel flimsier than the older books.

2. History is exceptionally brief and contains inconsistencies and omissions.
2a. For example, on page 53 it states that James VI inherited Elizabeth’s throne in 1603 and reigned as James VI of Scotland and James I of England. In the timeline on the same page it states that in 1603 James II of Scotland succeeded Elizabeth.

2b. For early history it states that stone age settlers arrived around 7000BC and by 800BC they had evolved to become the Picts. By 843AD the Picts and Scots merged to form one kingdom but it never explained who the Scots were or where they came from.

3. There is no place where you can read a description of the restaurants and hotels in one place. The description are spread across several pages and fewer options are provided. I don’t know if these are equivalent to the DK Choice options that were in the older books.

4. The restaurants that are listed on the same page as smaller city street maps do not provide reference numbers that allow you to easily locate them. You must search the map for their names.

5. The big city maps list points of interest as “Must Sees” and “Experience More” instead of by type of attraction in older books (eg museums and galleries, churches, etc). The good thing is that this provides a little more detail than the single “Sights at a Glance” section in some slightly older models. The Index has entries for Museums and Galleries, Castles, Cathedrals, etc but these are not organized by city, although sometimes the city appears in parentheses after the site but this is not consistent.

6. Some points of interest are difficult to find. For example, in Edinburgh it lists an Insider Tip for a quiet escape at Dunbar’s Close, located off of the Royal Mile. But it’s not listed on the detailed map of the Royal Mile. I had to do an internet search to find it.

7. Some map references are inaccurate or unusable. For example, pages 91 and 92 present A Short Walk in Newtown. The section has a locator map that says “For more detail see p60.” But on page 60, Newtown is not on the map nor are there any off-map pointers indicating its direction. On page 87, three restaurants are listed as being in map grid section C5, but most of section C5 is covered by a wide-area map inlay, making it impossible to find the restaurants on that map. They are not in the map key.

8. The Scottish vocabulary section on page 222 is very light on pronunciation tips. You would do better to download something from the internet. The Cambridge University Hillwalking Club has has a very detailed guide.

I have been a big fan of the DK travel guides but the latest version with the cheap paper and low quality images is a move in the wrong direction. I am returning the 2019 version and plan to find a used 2018 version somewhere else.

Knowledge & helpful

I plan to go to Scotland in July. One of the ladies suggested ordering this book as she has it and has put it to use. She suggests the other four ladies going on this trip order it, read it, and plan where we need to go, what we want to see, how we should dress, it is always damp and rainy in that country. What each lady is interest in. We will only be gone ten days and try to cram as much in as we can, but not over do. This lady, who is arranging the trip, wants to make particular plans, not just play it by ear.

I love this collection's travel guides. They are very complete, easy to follow, and include enough information to help you plan for the trip. The only limitation of this one is that the larger map of Scotland is pretty poor, certainly due to trying to fit the whole country in a double page of this edition: why not a fold out?