Travel guides: How to get one up on the locals

It's not unusual for travellers to find that they know more about the area they are visiting than some locals they may meet. If so, you can usually give the credit to modern guide books. Travel guides are a competitive market and to stay in business they need to be up-to-date and comprehensive.

So if you find the young travellers you meet over a bar in Mangonui can tell you that the Old Oak Inn was built in 1861 and that Doubtless Bay is so named because Captain Cook wrote in his logbook that the body of water was "doubtless a bay," you might like to check out how they know.

You will find that information, for instance, in NEW ZEALAND, by Jeff Williams, Christine Niven and Peter Turner, (Lonely Planet, $44.95).

As with all Lonely Planet guides it is comprehensive and is updated regularly. The New Zealand guide is now in its 10th edition and includes a sidebar on how we retained the America's Cup.

There are excellent chapters on our history and on native flora and fauna, including colour photographs.

Well worth the price for locals who are staying home.

GLOBETROTTER GUIDE TO NEW ZEALAND, by Graeme Lay (New Holland Publishers, $19.95) is in a different category. It's a pocket-sized guide for visitors with a small amount of time on their hands. The guide is still crammed with information but it doesn't intend to be comprehensive.

The sixth edition of FODOR'S NEW ZEALAND ($40) is in Fodor's usual format - heavily weighted towards food and accommodation and with an unattractive layout.

There is sufficient additional information to satisfy an American traveller but New Zealanders would do just as well to pick up a free accommodation guide from an information centre.

CYCLING NEW ZEALAND, by Nicola Wells (Lonely Planet, $39.95) is a first from the prolific travel guide publishing house - its first-ever cycling guide.

Wells, a cycling fanatic from Melbourne, compiles 34 of New Zealand's best cycling routes and 103 days of the country's best pedalling.

Her pick of the best coastal scenery is the Pacific Coast Highway from Opotiki to Waihau Bay, best mountain circuit is around Mt Taranaki, best freewheel is down the Takaka Hill and the best ascent is a 7km climb from the Waipoua River to the Wairou Summit in Northland's Waipoua Kauri Forest.

This is a guide to cycling the beaten track and may be of lesser interest to potential New Zealand cycle tourers than to visitors from overseas.

If you want to discover the real New Zealand, you can do no better than head into the backblocks and spend a few days on a New Zealand farm.

50 GREAT FARMSTAYS IN NEW ZEALAND, by Philip Holden (Hodder Moa Beckett, $29.95) tells you how you can do it with a dash of comfort and style.

The properties listed are Holden's personal choice and this prolific writer about the outdoors is well-qualified to choose farmstays on working farms where the hosts become an integral part of the rural experience.

A hard-to-beat holiday for those townies who want to get away from it all without having to get in an aeroplane to do it.