Old Guidebooks? Keep ’em or Ditch ’em?

It’s a lazy Sunday in Auckland and I’m relocating my workspace from an external office back to the spare room in our apartment (it’s a long story involving a rapacious landlord who doesn’t appreciate the finer points of the freelance life).

Here’s my dilemma.

What should I do with loads of old guidebooks, including some that date back 20 years? In my office I’d had the luxury of space to keep them all, but maybe now’s the time to move on.

What does everyone else do with guidebooks once they’ve returned from a trip?

  1. Do you leave them in your bookcase as a souvenir of your travels?
  2. Keep them as a badge of honour to prove to visitors you went to Vietnam before Bill Clinton lifted the embargo, and have got a faded early 90s copy of Lonely Planet Vietnam to prove it?
  3. An independent traveller like you doesn’t use guidebooks.

Thanks to TeddyBoy on Flickr for the pic of his well-travelled bookcase.