Travel Essentials - Planning your trip with Nota Bene

When only the absolute finest will do, Nota Bene is for you. These très exclusive travel guides are available by subscription (and in very few select high-end shops in London) and cost $420 US ($395 + packing) per year to subscribe; that gets you ten 60-page guide books/issues. Each issue has about 30 to 40 savagely honest pages (including about 10 to 15 full page photos) on the issue's main destination, and about 20 pages that update past issues about other cities.

If you are an extremely discerning and style-conscious traveller, with no particular budget, these are the guides for you. Written by journalists who often come off as wealthy New York socialites (and who, especially in the urban city issues, compare everything to its -better- New York equivalent), the style of dialogue can get a bit aloof and snobbish.

"Perhaps the low point came when we ordered room service late one evening, and someone thought (without reference) to replace the raspberries we'd asked for with strawberries, and worse still substitute basil for the mint in our tea. On another occassion the do-not-disturb sign on our door was ignored. No one actually entered, but they telephoned all the same. This is not what one expects from such an establishment."
- Nota Bene, St. Moritz issue, p 49 discussing the Hotel Park Hyatt in Paris.

The travel guides are unique in that, instead of the usual quick and almost always 100% positive rundown of absolutely every hotel in the city, the Nota Bene guides only talk about the very best of the best--and even then, half of their comments are negative (hotels take note). Also unlike any other guide we've seen, they can have pages on one hotel alone (especially if it's the chic luxury hotel in that city).

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