York has so many great historic sights that you won’t have time to see them all. Updated for 2026, this well-established, much-reviewed guidebook tells you enough about each of York’s attractions for you to choose what will suit your tastes. Unlike many other York guidebooks, it includes detailed eyewitness accounts of what’s
inside every York attraction listed. The book is designed to be easy to dip into, one entry at a time as required. As an Amazon UK review puts it, it's a “decent size as in not so small you can't read it but also not too big to carry around.”
The author lives in York and, since this is a print-on-demand book, can keep the book annually updated. It gets updated with regard both to the ever-changing entry prices to York’s attractions and to descriptions of new attractions, like the 2025 Professor Kettlestring gallery of illusions or the 2023 children's Wonderlab section at York's Railway Museum. The book also gets updated concerning any major events during the coming year - like the medieval York Mystery Plays due to be performed again in York's streets on two days in summer 2026.
Contents include:
- Detailed, read-as-you-walk-round, guides to York’s Cathedral and the medieval City Walls. These point out entertaining features and add quirky historical anecdotes: “I followed the guide through York Minster and saw so many details I would otherwise have missed.” (Amazon UK review)
- Nine very different museums are described - covering things as diverse as time trips to re-creations of a Viking village and a Victorian street, old steam trains of every shape and size, giant dinosaurs, historic York chocolate-making, and a DIY archaeology experience for children.
- Information on all the historic buildings which are open to visitors, including restaurants, cafés and pubs in heritage buildings, plus York's famous old streets like Stonegate and the Shambles.
- For anyone seeking a break from tourist crowds or admission charges, some interesting riverside and lakeside walks on York’s green fringes to some of York’s hidden delights.
- Ready-made day visit programme for any visitors too busy to choose for themselves.
For every entry, a map reference matches both this book’s clear street map and the standard tourist map of York. For Smart Phone / GPS navigation, a postcode is also always provided. Unlike other guidebooks, this book includes admission prices to all attractions since it is a print-on-demand book and is thus able to update information annually.
The book also covers:
- Advice on good times and not-so-good times for visiting York.
- Descriptions of York’s best festivals.
- Guidance on York’s on-line system for choosing and booking hotels.
- Streets in central York where there are especially many restaurants.
- Ways to pay lower admission costs on a visit to York.
This is a substantial, in-depth guidebook, which readers choose to keep rather than resell after visiting York – you’ll see comparatively few second-hand copies advertised on Amazon. In order to contain the price, illustration is limited to 60 black & white photos. Because, distinctively, it provides eye-witness accounts of what's
inside all attractions listed, this guidebook is especially useful for people coming a long distance who want to plan in advance what they will visit in York - as an Amazon US review puts it: “Reading it had us totally prepared for what we wanted to see and do.”
For this book’s exact contents at a glance, see pages 5 – 8 in Amazon’s on-line free sample.
