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Lonely Planet's Best in Travel 2010
by boredindunoon
This is "Lonely Planet's Best in Travel 2010" guidebook offering "Trends, Destinations, Journeys and Experiences for the Upcoming Year." To be honest it's a book that's disappointed me, and it was not what I was expecting it to be.
The book is well structured and is divided into sub-chapters covering Top ... 10 Countries, Regions, Cities, as well as offering travel lists and calendars of events around the world. The photography throughout is excellent and complements the information well, but the photos are on the small side, and I feel that larger pictures would have done the photography justice.
However the biggest failing of the book is its small size. While at first it appears to covers a lot, all of the information included tends to be rather brief providing only several minutes at best of reading for each destination. It doesn't provided anything close to what is actually required to be useful for an actual 'complete' travel guide and will only give you a rough idea. Considering the format of the book, it tries to do too much and as a result doesn't really succeed as a guide by any description. The common facts such as capitals and currency are there, as well as some well written paragraphs offering information, but it hardly dents the surface. Reading about Germany (under top cities) for example only took around a minutes, and I was surprised how little the book actually tells you about the city. It's almost like it's been written in such a way to make you head to the computer to look for the vast information it misses out or possibly for other Lonely Planet's books.
The book would be suitable for someone seeking inspiration without wanting to get buried under vast amounts of data. Its small size makes it suitable for a coffee table and it's the kind of book you can simply pick up, open at a random page and begin reading. Even if you're not planning on travelling it opens your mind to the world beyond our shores (just be prepared to be left thirsty for more).
I feel that it doesn't offer an experienced traveller or someone wanting in-depth information much. I don't know how much of the information will be of use to the average reader, for example do you really want to know the "top places to walk your dog."
Sadly while some may like the books small format, simple lay out, and short chapters of information, for me it doesn't really do enough. Personally I would be looking for a more comprehensive guide, something that also lists hotels or restaurants, more detailed and interesting information, and more photographs. When I buy a book like this I want to be blown away by its contents, I want to be sitting there thinking "I really need to go to this place." This book is missing the wow factor, and since I didn't find it that useful nor interesting I cannot recommend it to you.
(I'm a reviewer on Amazon, and some my reviews are copied from there to dooyoo. Please feel free to check out my Amazon profile under my real name of Mr Andrew M Kerr.)
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Europe on a Shoestring: Big Trips on Small Budgets
by MagdaDH
Summary: A bumper pack of a guide to all countries in Europe, recommended to budget traveller, especially young backpackers "doing" Europe for the first time.
Europe on a Shoestring comes from the vast stable of Lonely Planet's travel guides and is very much aimed at the budget end of the market. Comparable to its ... nearest competitor, Let's Go Europe, it's a one-volume backpacker bible which attempts to provide the overview of a whole continent, every single country and the main destinations in each of the countries.
According to what was undoubtedly a careful research of the demographic characteristics of the budget traveller market, Europe on a Shoestring's model reader is not only travelling on the cheap, but is also definitely childless, in their 20's and quite possibly one that embarks on the journey for the first time (in fact I can't even imagine a first time traveller needing to be told to take their mobile phone or a power adapter). This target readership mostly affects the accommodation choices and attention paid to clubbing and night-life opportunities and is not really a problem, but shoestring travellers from more mature or family demographics should take note: for example apartments or private rooms often work out better as a family option than hostels that charge per bed.
As a whole, the guide is probably slightly more suitable for visitors from outside Europe itself, as some of its content (especially general sections) would be unnecessary for most people from here (and that includes Brits and Irish). On the other hand, most books covering Europe as a whole are like that and thus a British traveller just has to take all the useful information with the sprinkling of the redundant.
This is more noticeable in the general introductory sections, but even those can offer some interest to most travellers planning "doing Europe", including nice collections of highlights and "best of" which will appeal to all with a list obsession as well as suggestions of several itineraries and a good introduction to history, geography and cultures. The end part contains a very basic guide to languages of Europe, with pronunciation guides and selection of the absolutely basic phrases.
One of the big virtues of "Europe on a Shoestring" is how it manages to fit a lot of genuinely informative, useful and illuminating data into relatively small space.
The body of the book consists of individual country sections, arranged alphabetically and all organised in the same format. The format is excellent for a country-hopping purposes that "Europe on a Shoestring" supports. Each country section starts with a map and "fast facts" such as area, population, budget, language, money, a map, a few travel hints and a suggestion for a "roaming" itinerary. What follows is a basic information about what the country is like, a concise basics of history, culture and environment, info on travel in, out and within the country as well as suggestions for further reading and occasional factoid and anecdote snippets. This is all done rather well: "Europe on a Shoestring" has been written by a team of authors, of which most cover just one country, occasionally related few, and it shows. The text and the information content have a fluency and confidence that just a good knowledge of a place can bring, and for the most they also read well. Yes, a lot of it is stereotypical, but then Europeans have been living up to the stereotypes for several centuries.
A selection of places to cover is an issue with any paper guide, as it's impossible to include everything worth seeing in such a volume. "Europe on a Shoestring" includes the major obvious destinations (the capital and most visited places). In the country sections I used or had a good look at, it did seem to me that for example in Italy a disproportionate amount of space was given to Rome and some other worthy places were not included at all, but one can always dispute the selection and the amount of space devoted to each destination and does a respectable job of this thankless task.
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Southeast Asia on a Shoestring - China Williams
by clairedooyoo
Lonely Planet is a brand of travel guides; they have one for most countries you can visit. When I travelled South East Asia I took their 'on a shoestring' addition. We found it very useful to help find accommodation, although, understandably due to the size of the book they can only put in information on a selection of hotels. We used ... it as a reference as to the area that all the hostels/guesthouses were in, but checked a few out ourselves.
When using the guide book, even if it is the latest version, you should be wary that facts such as the cost of guesthouses and exchange rates can vary from the time the book was written, but of course it's a good point of reference.
The book is really well laid out, which makes it easy to find the information at a quick glance. Chapters in the book are written by different authors so there isn't really a flow throughout, you should also be cautious that sometimes the opinions of the restaturants/ guesthouses etc could be bias depending on the author of that particular section. Remember again that the restaurants etc could change dramatically from when the book is published to you using it.
In each section there is also a section with some useful information, this provides lists of airlines, bus and train companies along with the web address's which really helped us book our travels. Again though, always do your own investigation as some deals we found were never mentioned in the lonely planet.
I would advise you take some sort of guide book when you go travelling, the Lonely Planet is a good one.
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