When was the last time you bought a Lonely Planet or Let's Go travel guide? I checked some out of the library for my recent trip to Puerto Rico. But aren't you more and more leaving those heavy books at home?

The Atlantic Monthly's correspondent Wayne Curtis recently wrote about visiting Seattle using only Internet travel sites to guide him. A GPS unit and advice from sites such as TripAdvisor, Yelp, Chowhound and Wikitravel was all he had to depend on. How did he fare? Well he didn't find his poorly-ranked cheap hotel to be quite as deplorable as the TripAdvisor reviews described it. And Google Earth help Curtis easily locate coffee shops within walking distance from his hotel. Searching a plethora of social-networking travel sites (Ning.com, VirtualTourist.com, IgoUgo.com), Curtis does complain: "The biggest downside of Travel 2.0 is the surfeit of information—how do you sort through all this detail and random advice?" His most useful site? The foodie's playground: Chowhound.com

Do you agree with Curtis that traditional travel guides, with their tedious indexes, now feel like "15-century technology"? Or can't you leave home without them? Click here for Curtis's favorite travel sites.

(Photo: Pikes Place Market in Seattle. Associated Press.)