Why our guide to Malaga is different

Recently we’ve had a few people write to ask us why The 5 Best of Everything in Malaga guide isn’t available in print. This post explains why you can’t buy this guide to Malaga as a book to read and why that’s a good thing!

Please note that this blog post refers to the Guide to Malaga app that is no longer available. For all the information you need about Malaga, please take a good look round our website. Malaga (literally!) at your fingertips.

Bang up to date travel guide

I specialise in travel guide updates and one of the most frustrating aspects of my work is that a lot of information I update quickly changes. This means print editions of a guide aren’t always accurate, particularly if there’s a big gap between my update and the reprint of the book.

If the travel guide is published annually then this isn’t too much of a problem. Nor it is an issue if the travel guide listings are available online because they can be changed easily although not many publications do this frequently. But imagine a travel guide that’s updated once every two to three years. How much is correct in the edition you bought 18 months after the reprint?

Specific examples in our guide to Malaga

Malaga is one of Europe’s up-and-coming city break destinations and so much has happened in the city just this year. For example:

• 2 great new art museums opened – the Pompidou Centre and the Russian Musuem.
• Malaga Cathedral started rooftop visits.
• The Malaga ferris wheel opened for rides
• The gourmet market Mercado de la Merced and the Gourmet Experience opened …

All these are in The 5 Best of Everything in Malaga.

 

 

 

 

“Did you know that the Mercado de la Merced opened in mid-October but it’s already in our guide?”

And there’s plenty of new stuff on the horizon. For example:

• Third Room Mates hotel in Malaga opening late this year/early next.
• New Fine Arts Museum opening at the Museo de la Aduana, probably late this year.
• New hotel in La Farola lighthouse.
• Revamped Miramar hotel opens sometime in 2016…

All these will be in guide as soon as they open and we can confirm the essential information (e.g. contact details, opening times, admission prices, room rates, etc.).

And things change all the time. For example, we discovered last week that one of the gourmet tapas venues featured in our 5 best gourmet tapas is no longer owned by its creator. So, we’ve changed that information.

Another venue has just introduced an excellent-value menu del día so we’ve added that information to the description too.

You can’t get more up to date than that.

None of this would be possible in a printed guide (and even in an ebook it would be difficult). And the best thing is that you don’t even have to buy a new version of the guide – your copy updates automatically on your smart phone or tablet.

Finding your way

Another frustrating thing for the holidaymaker and the travel guide updater is trying to find the way round a new place. I’ve frequently been to somewhere completely new to me and got completely lost when I was relying on what looked like a good map in the travel guide.

Even in places I’m familiar with, I couldn’t find the venues on the map easily. And the details on these maps is usually super-small – I couldn’t even read one map with my glasses on – so they’re often no help at all.

“Did you know that every venue (210+) in The 5 Best of Everything in Malaga is pinpointed on a Google map?”

The 5 Best of Everything in Malaga gets round this problem neatly because every single listing (and that’s all 40+ of them) has a specific Google map pinpointing each of the 5 venues within each listing.

Of course the great thing about Google maps is that you can pop in your location and see easily how to get somewhere – no more getting hopelessly lost! And because you can zoom in and out of a Google map, there’s no need to reach for those reading glasses.

Interactive and enlargeable maps just aren’t possible in print.

But it still isn’t paper

Of course, if you’re looking for a guide to Malaga in print form because you like the feel of paper in your hands, well, The 5 Best of Everything in Malaga just can’t compete.

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