Is Louis Vuitton’s Beijing City Guide Worth the Hype?

Looking for a guidebook to Beijing but want something that exudes class? Want a guide emblazoned with the logo of a high-end luxury brand to show the plebian travelers surrounding you that you’re on a higher level than them? Then the Louis Vuitton City Guide Beijing edition is the guide for you.

A pop-up shop selling English and Chinese copies of the latest guide to the capital, as well as copies of the guide to Paris, has taken over the Metal Hands café in Fortune Financial Centre’s South Square. It’s now all maroon red with a giant “LV City Guide” logo and, when we visited, a long line filled with folks jumping on the latest FOMO craze.

So what’s the big deal about these city guides? A little trip over to the LV website says the guides have been the “ultimate travel companions” since 1998, the page says the guides compile the knowledge of journalists, experts, and those in the know to create guides with everything from five-star hotels to the newest places to eat.

Perhaps we’re not rich enough to be in the know, but this is the first time we’ve ever heard of the LV City Guide. After hearing about it and paging through the latest guide, though, we’re fine with doing a simple web search or sticking to our trusty old Lonely Planet guide, however outdated it may be.

That’s not to say the LV guide isn’t all bad: there are little gems here and there, like mentions of a traditional tea shop near Temple of Heaven or oddball statistics sprinkled throughout the text. Still, there are some pretty generic recommendations as well, plus, a few already outdated mentions.

For one, The Opposite House is still listed as a major place to stay – we’ll chalk that up to print times and the hotel’s unexpected closure announcement. Also mentioned is La Social, which seems a bit more dated.

Be that as it may, it’s not a bad little book to look through, but if you’re not willing to fork over the RMB 290 for a copy there’s an LV City Guide app you can download. It’s only available for iPhone and iOS, but still, a bit of money saved if you’re not into spending on a book that’s more about the logo than the content.

Now if only Monocle would publish a city guide to Beijing... we'd fork over some cash for that.

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Images: Vincent R. Vinci, theBeijingers