What guides are
Places collected and written up by people who went, not ranked by an algorithm.
A guide is a set of places collected around an idea — a stretch of coast, a week in the hills, everything worth stopping for on one highway — written up by a traveller.
Guides are edited by people who go, rather than assembled or ranked by an algorithm. That is the difference between a guide and a list of the top ten anything: someone chose what was in it, and can tell you why.
How to use one
Guides are a shortcut into a region you do not know yet. Read one, take the places that suit you, and put them into a trip — or find a public trip that has already sequenced them into days.