The Blue Guides are a series of detailed and authoritative travel guidebooks focused on art, architecture, and (where relevant) archaeology along with the history and context necessary to understand them.

The first Blue Guide – London and its Environs – was published in 1918 by the Scottish brothers James and Findlay Muirhead.

Findlay Muirhead (1860–1935), graduate of the University of Edinburgh, left his studies at Leipzig in 1887 to join his brother at Baedeker.

For almost the next 30 years the brothers were responsible for all English language Baedekers, including compiling guides to Britain, the US and Canada.

Other key Blue Guide authors are and have been Ian Robertson (Spain, Portugal, Ireland, Austria, Switzerland, Cyprus, France, & Paris and Versailles), John Tomes (Scotland, Wales), Ian Ousby (England), Paul Blanchard (Italy).

In 1982, W.W. Norton of New York became the United States co-publisher, selling all Blue Guides in that country.