What do you see as the benefits and drawbacks of relying on guidebooks?

Guidebooks can be helpful depending on the type of person you are. There are both pros and cons of using a guidebook. One of the pros would be that it could be used as a checklist for things to get done on your trip if you have limited time. That would be used for the type of people that like to stay organized and probably planned their trip ahead of time rather than just book the flights and wing it. On the other end of the drawbacks of using a guidebook can be that it will bring you to places that are most likely overcrowded because if everyone is using the guidebook then chances are a lot of people will go to the same place. Also, including that would be a possible security risk if there are too many people in one place at a given time. One advantage of a guidebook can be additional information that you will learn versus if you were to not have the guidebook in the first place. One obvious reason that a guidebook can help you is that so you won’t get lost. Sometimes it pays to have a guidebook just in case as a resource even if you are normally not that time of person to use one. If the guidebook is free I personally would take it along on my trip because it doesn’t hurt to have one. Thinking back to some past vacations of mine I wonder how different my trips would be if I were to have and used a guidebook.