The right travel guide book is useful on any vacation trip but it has to be the right one. The events you want from your trip should be put into order of importance. Doing this will help you find the perfect travel guide book for your trip.

The things you will need to gather to prepare for your trip is your travel book, lots of maps and a language phrase book if you are traveling abroad. There is always a travel section in your local bookstore. Find the travel guide books that relate to your planned travel location whether a specific city or the entire country.

The travel guide book that you want will have detailed information and maps of the specific location that you want to visit. Not everyone has the same kind of budget for traveling so you will want a book that has suggestions that fit in with your budget plans. Some books will specialize on the hotels and travel information that is suited to the smaller budget and other focus on the elegant accommodations with the most expensive restaurants and events.

Once you have made a few choices you can take the material and cross check them to see which has the best ideas and details of the area you will be visiting. You need to have a book that was compiled recently. There is nothing worse than trying to follow details of an area where everything has changed.

To help you with your vacation plans many travel guide books will offer ideas about activities you can do while at your destination. Some will also include great suggestions for making a list to follow to see all the attractions while you are there.

The book that is created by a name that is very familiar will be best. The ideas presented in the book should be interesting to read and should make you excited about the travel plans you are making for your vacation.

Having a good book to guide you for your travel plans is really important when you consider how much there will be to see and how much time you will have to do this on your trip. You will want to be fully aware of every option available and have helpful suggestions as to how to take it all in. This will take the stress always from your trip and make it just about having a fun and memorable experience.

There are many travel guides available.  For example, you might find a guide book for Rio de Janeiro if you are making very early Olympic plans, or one for a section of your own country to which you’ve never traveled before.

Asuncion is the capital city of Paraguay. It is also one of the unexplored gems of South American travel. For some reason the city has not been discovered by mainstream tourists yet and it might even be hard to find destination guides for Paraguay at your local bookstore, and it’s even more difficult to find specialty resources such as a gay destination guide.

The location where Asuncion is situated today was most likely visited by the Spanish conqueror Juan de Ayolas n the 16th century. He was searching for a way to get to the silver mines of Bolivia. He was eventually killed by the aborigines on one of his return trips. Later, a Senor Juan de Salazar was dispatched to search for his lost countrymen, but alas this was in vein. It was the year 1537 when Senor De Salazar visited the present day location and decided to build a fort. He called it Nuestra Senora de la Asuncion.

A city soon developed around the fort from where explorers went on to found other cities in the region, including Buenos Aires, Santa Cruz (in Bolivia) and Santa Fe. Asuncion is therefore one of the oldest cities in Latin America and is also the area in the river Plate Basin that has been continually inhabited for a longer period than any other.

Asuncion is located next to the river Paraguay. The old part of the city, including the harbor, looks out over the Bay of Asuncion. This is a natural harbor and from here numerous boats sail up the River Paraguay to outlying destinations – including Brazil.

For those who love charm and character – this part of the city offers it in abundance. It has an assortment of beautifully restored colonial buildings as well as some art nouveau architecture. A harbor city must also have some dilapidation and this is what gives the area it’s nuance. As you stroll past the many quaint artisan’s shops you start to feel it’s heartbeat and very quickly you will be intoxicated by the smells and sounds of Asuncion. Soon you will be offered chipa bread – which is famous in this part of the world. You will want to stop and explore the beautiful lace articles on display, like Nanduti spiderweb lace for which Paraguay is well known.

Staying at the atmospheric old Hotel Armele is an experience in itself. You will have a view across the harbor and the Bay of Asuncion from most rooms. The sun setting over the Chaco is a sight you will remember for a long time.

At night the city comes alive. South Americans love music and there are a large number of locales where you can listen to live bands playing everything from traditional Paraguayan music to rock. The city has a wide variety of restaurants. While buffet restaurants are very popular, especially around lunchtime, there are a diversity of restaurants available to suit every culinary taste.

The eastern part of the city, especially Villa Morra, forms the new face of Asuncion. Here you will find numerous shopping malls with all the latest movies and international take-away restaurants. You will also find the modern and sophisticated concert hall built by the National Bank of Paraguay where the Asuncion symphony orchestra and other artists regularly perform.

Asuncion has hotels in all price ranges. The cheaper ones tend to center around Plaza Uruguay. There are several five star hotels in the vicinity of Plaza de los Heroes.

Since destination guides for Paraguay are hard to find, the above information should be useful to visitors who plan to visit Asuncion – the Mother of Cities.