outdated and misleading (Lonely Planet in general)

Member Name: jpjarratt

Product:	Lonely Planet in general
Date:	18/07/01 (92 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: few

Disadvantages: out of date

Sorry to go against everyone else who thinks lonely planet guides are the best thing since sliced bread, but I am not a happy man.
I bought the lonely planet guide to Belgium which was a new lonely planet guide book supposedly written in 2000. I fail to see how this can be true. Fair enough, it may have been put together in year 2000 but actually researched in 1990.

Me and one of my mates went for a few days travelling in northern Belgium. We chose this book because we thought it would give useful places to stay, eat and to go out and enjoy things. We were so wrong. Every B&B mentioned in the lonely planet guide was no longer present and not only this, at the addresses mentioned there were no signs of former B&Bs. For this to happen about six times cannot be coincidence.

Lonely planets advice about a good night out was to go to Antwerp "party capital". I have never seen such a dead party capital. The streets were almost empty. The authors seemed to overlook the fact that the city Ghent was the party capital of Belgium and had been for a few years. Ghent was merely described as a Mediaeval town worth seeing.

Restaurants recommended were expensive and poor. We definitely found better places using our own intuition.

I have had previously very good experiences with Rough Guides and will go back to the immediately.

Summary: