Read them free on Kindle Unlimited
Every book in this series is in Kindle Unlimited. If you are a member, any of them costs you nothing, and if you are not, the free trial covers it.
Not a sample chapter and not the first three parts. The whole book.
Why there is no file on this page
We used to hand the ebook over from here. We have stopped, and we would rather say why than quietly change the buttons. A book in Kindle Unlimited is exclusive to Amazon, and that exclusivity is enforced across a whole account rather than one title. Serving one file from this site would put all 14 at risk.
So the free copy now comes from Amazon instead of from us. It is the same book, and for a member it is the same price, which is nothing.
These books are built on checking. Every venue in them was opened and read against the business’s own website, with the date recorded in Part Nine. Across the series that meant reading 7,265 websites, and roughly a third turned out to be dead, parked, or somebody else’s business entirely.
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Borrow any of these today. Leave your email as well and we will tell you when the rest land, which is the only thing we will email you about.
Tuscany
What the locals tell their friends.
Tuscany holds up for a long stay with a mixed group in a way most regions do not. This is the argument for it, the case for Chianti over Val d'Orcia, and the three situations where it is the wrong call.
Read it free on Kindle UnlimitedWhat is in itAmalfi Coast
What the locals tell their friends.
Vertical, hard to move around, and worth it if you plan for that rather than against it. Where to base yourself so the coast road does not eat the week, and why the ferry beats the car.
Read it free on Kindle UnlimitedWhat is in itMarrakech and the Atlas
What the locals tell their friends.
The riad faces inward by design, which is the architecture rather than a quirk. How to use the medina on foot, and why day-tripping the High Atlas wastes the best part of the trip.
Read it free on Kindle UnlimitedWhat is in itSri Lanka
What the locals tell their friends.
The hill country you came to see was created by a fungus: coffee leaf rust arrived in 1869 and took the island's economy down within 20 years. Ten nights, two bases, and the train between them.
Read it free on Kindle UnlimitedWhat is in itMani and the Peloponnese
What the locals tell their friends.
The Mani has 206 mapped places to eat and 17 websites between them. Not 8 per cent dead, which is what this series usually measures, but 8 per cent existing. A guide built for a peninsula that is almost entirely offline, and an argument about why the towers were never built against the Turks.
Read it free on Kindle UnlimitedWhat is in itBali
What the locals tell their friends.
The temples are the irrigation system, and we know because in 1971 the government overrode them and the rice failed. Also: 952 venue websites checked and 41 per cent of them dead, the worst rate in the series and from the most developed place in it.
Read it free on Kindle UnlimitedWhat is in itAlgarve and Comporta
What the locals tell their friends.
Two Portugals sold as one. They are 250km apart, they have almost nothing in common, and combining them casually turns into a drive that neither place repays.
Read it free on Kindle UnlimitedWhat is in it7 still to come
Written, checked, and not on sale yet
These are finished and going into Kindle Unlimited in turn. There is nothing to read yet and no file to hand you. Leave an email and you will hear on the day it lands.
Mallorca
Not published yet
An island with an unusually high rate of repeat visitors, which means the good addresses circulate by word of mouth and very little is arranged for a first-time visitor. How to get at them.
The Greek Cyclades
Not published yet
Everyone writes about Santorini and Mykonos. Naxos, Sifnos and Milos are where people who know the Cyclades actually go, and the ferry timetable shapes the whole trip.
Ibiza
Not published yet
The island has two entirely separate reputations and most guides only cover one. The north, the interior, and the case for when the loud end is genuinely the right answer.
The Dalmatian Coast
Not published yet
The islands reward a boat and punish a car, which reverses how most people plan it. Vis was closed to outsiders until 1989 and still feels apart.
Sardinia
Not published yet
The Costa Smeralda is about 30km of one coast, not the island. Where to go for the same water without the postcode, and the nuraghi, which exist nowhere else on earth.
Cote d'Azur
Not published yet
The Riviera has had 150 years to arrange itself around visitors, which is its strength and its problem. What the density buys you, and where to go inland when it stops being worth it.
Cyprus
Not published yet
Troodos, the Akamas and the eastern villages, written for someone who wants the island the diaspora goes back to rather than the one the package holidays sell.
What we ask, and what we never ask
- We ask for an honest review if you finish one. A critical review is as useful to the next reader as a favourable one, and more useful to us.
- We never ask for a positive review, and nothing you get from us depends on you posting one. Paid and incentivised reviews are banned and we are not risking the series on one.
- If you find something wrong, tell us. A place that has closed, a number that has changed, a claim that does not hold. It gets fixed in the book rather than argued with.
- One email list, no newsletter you did not ask for, one-click unsubscribe.
No free copies are given away here. Every title is in Kindle Unlimited, so a member reads it at no extra cost and we are paid by Amazon for the pages read. If you review one, say what you actually think: a critical review is as useful to the next reader as a favourable one, and more useful to us.
Who writes them
All 14 are by Gil Prosser, written to the same rule: every place named was checked against that business’s own website, and the date is printed beside it.