Poll of the Week: Books vs. eBooks While Traveling

[SarahS]

Are you more likely to read paper books or ebooks when you travel? Vote in our poll!

[jocap]

We share a Kindle, as you can have several books open at once on there. I have mainly classics, and G's are often non-fiction.
But- there's nothing like handling a good paperback novel....sometimes quite trashy!- when you're on holiday, so there will always be room in our cases for the latest thriller or yummy mummy book....

[soliteyah]

As of yet I've been too cheap to buy a Kindle, so I still pack paperback books borrowed from the library (or occasionally I'll visit the $2/bag shelf at the library and buy a bunch of "disposable" books that I can leave behind in hotels/inns as I finish them).

[20thCenturyFox]

E-reader for travel, books at home, however I do take travel guide books along with me. Someone once suggested going to a used book store to buy travel guide books and tearing out the pages that I will want to use when traveling. Pretty expensive idea considering the book is useless for anyone else who may want to use it in the future.

[Host Bonjour]

I own many many travel guides but have always had many occasions to lend them out and all of them came back to me except my treasured Cinque Terre book, not available in USA and my Rough Guide to Italy. I honestly don't know how people can't people can move and pack things knowing that they don't belong to them but...............everyone else has come through.

As for pulling out pages, why not go to libraries or something and make copies instead? Also, please don't tell....but I have indeed planted myself on the floor in a "bookstore" and simple wrote down small bits I needed; truly SMALL bits.

eBooks and websites and all are wonderful for home prep but I don't know that I'd want to be carry around my tablet (kind of heavy) during the day, nor leaving it behind in a hotel. If I am staying with friends, then, well....I might not need a guidebook as much or, if venturing out on my own, I can safely leave my electronics at their flat/home. That said, some tablets are smaller than what I have. Never one to leave the house light, my day pack gets filled up well enough without it!

So a combo of say, torn out magazine articles and my guide books seem to work well though some of my guide books are really big. In that case I either switch to a city guide or I'll have planned out the day the evening before relaxing somewhere in a cafe, park or wherever feels right and make notes to myself for my next day's routine - the big stuff. I like to allow some freedom for "unexpected" things too.

So if one invests in books, new/used, think of whether or not fellow travelers might be worthy and appreciative borrowers; you might likely get a souvenir out of it but most of all, you're helping people and adding mileage to those books