Globe Corner Blogs

Yesterday I played “Customer.” It’s similar to playing “House,” only instead of  serving a dinner made of plastic to my stuffed animals I went on an imaginary vacation. I pored over every guide book available for the place, unfolded every map ever drawn, and then stood staring at the shelf perplexed and overwhelmed.

After the initial wave of panic subsided and I’d taken a deep breath–in through the nose, out through the mouth, flapping hand motions–I steadied myself and reached confidently toward the Québec shelf.

What I had to keep reminding myself was that today I was both customer and travel store employee extraordinaire. I simply needed to follow my own advice. First step: examining priorities. This is to be a trip up the St. Lawrence river from Montréal to Québec City and eventually on to whale watching in Saguenay Bay (which one guide book described as the world’s southernmost fjord – don’t tell New Zealand). So ideally I wanted a guide book that included all these places.

Second priority: accommodations. Locations for Montréal and Québec City are easy enough to research, but I imagined places around the bay would be scarcer.

Thirdly, I needed restaurants and bars. Sites are always an important part of the trip, but I really learn about a place through its food and drink. Plus, being something of a beer nerd and being in a country that knows a little about making beer I am eager to find some breweries and brewpubs along the way. The Unibroue brewery is in Chambly, Québec, a quick drive from Montréal. Free samples, here I come.

The second step in finding the perfect guidebook is comparing the ones that meet your priorities. I had whittled my choices down to the Michelin Green Guide to Québec, Lonely Planet Montréal and Québec City, and Frommer’s Montréal and Québec City. So I balanced them to judge the heft, smelled them, eyed their front covers, took a nibble, and eventually opened them up.

The Michelin guide, while listing many sites for Montréal and even suggesting a few tours to take in the bay area, had very few accommodations or food and drink recommendations, that not being their specialty. I compared the Lonely Planet and the Frommer’s and found that the LP had a considerably larger section on sites with nice little descriptions of each neighborhood. Frommer’s had a larger section on accommodations, but I was more interested in -  and here feel free to laugh or scoff – the sizable section on drinking in the LP. They have quite a varied selection of wine bars, pubs, clubs, and microbreweries. And everyone knows you see a city more clearly though the bottom of a pint glass.

So Lonely Planet it is. I will rely on tourism websites to learn more about Saguenay Bay – and rely on my high school French to read the sites… More about how it works out in late summer.

Read more: Canada, Montréal, Quebec, Tour Guides, Travel, Travel Tips and Resources, Trip Planning


Llalan specializes in all things Ohio, but has funny stories from all over the US and Canada, plus a few snort-inducing ones from Thailand. And not only does she read books from around the world, she also samples beers in as many languages as possible. Favorite style: the multi-national American Double IPA.

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