No comments about National Parks of North America: Canada, United States, Mexico.

5 comments about Costa Rica's National Parks and Preserves: A Visitor's Guide.

1. (From Planeta Journal) - One of the first guidebooks to focus on the parks and preserves, this book is now in its second edition. It's an invaluable resource for visitors who'd like to get to know Costa Rica's lesser known parks and includes trail directions, dozens of hikes and descriptions of local flora and fauna. The new, second edition of this book includes five new national parks and preserves, plus updated and expanded descriptions of all 40 of Costa Rica's protected areas.



2. This book provides very little practical information. I purchased this book hoping it would contain more info on the parks than the standard Costa Rica guidebooks. I was sadly disappointed. The other guide books such as The New Key to Costa Rica and Moon's Handbook provide as much and in some cases more info on the parks than this guide. Plus they provide all the other information such as hotels, restaurants and transportation.
   Save your money. I wish I had.



3. Contrary to the last review, we found this book to be extremely useful, and it contained background information and useful maps (such as the area around Sirena ranger station in Corcovado) not contained in other more general guidebooks. Also, there is a considerable amount of natural history information that was not contained in the other books that we had with us, such as the Lonely Planet guide.



4. This book is great for what it is. It's much better than most travel guides for specific park info. It includes maps of trails, information on getting to the parks, whether the park itself has accomodations available, and wildlife/ecosystem information for each park.
   
   DO NOT use this as your only guide. There is no info on accomodations or restaurants in the area. Also, some of the best places to go in Costa Rica are private reserves, rather than national parks.



5. I chose this book to because it had the most pertinent info on hiking through CR's national parks. I just got back from my trip and I found it very helpful. You would definately need another guide book to supplement it (eg: lonely planet ect.) because it has very few large maps of the area and costa rica can be a confusing place to navigate.

No comments about Mexico: The Signs of History (Exploring Countries of the Wor).

2 comments about The Yucatan: A Guide to the Land of Maya Mysteries Plus Sacred Sites at Belize, Tikal & Copan (Tetra).

1. Stay away from this. A much better choice is "An Archaeological Guide to Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula" by Joyce Kelly. This one by May is inconsistent in delivery and descritption. It is a waste of money. The book by Kelly is a far better one.



2. If you have any respect for the Maya world, please do not stoop so low as to support the author of this drek. Constant comparisons to oriental architecture (and even using "Chariots of the Gods" as a reference!) are constant reminders of the authors complete ignorance of ANY Maya history.

5 comments about Frommer's Costa Rica 2004.

1. We used this guide to get us an hotel in Montezuma. We stayed at the Nature Lodge Los Fincas. It was a dump and we were forced to either stay or lose all of our money for the entire saty. We did what the couple before we checked in did. We paid them to leave. The rooms were covered with ants, triantulas, no constant running water....hot water, no way. The food was served with ants and bugs in it. I think this writer is either dillusional or just tells the hotels to get ready cause he is on his way. My advice, pick up another guide.



2. Very good resource to plan your trip, but once in Costa Rica I did not think the book was completely accurate. The locals had very different opinions about places and activities. It would have been nice if the book had included information about alternate forms of transport such as boats from town to town or Interbus. Overall a great resource to get started and get a good idea of what you want to do and where you want to go. Ask the locals before you make reservations. Pura Vida



3. I just came back from Costa Rica, and I am still amazed at how useful the book was. Everything we planned and did on the basis of the advice from the book turned into a successful endeavor and great memories.
   
   The book gives detailed information on which places to see, how to get there (covering all possible transporation means), hotels, good places to eat in the respective location, and local tour opperators to use. For all of these it gives prices, addresses, telephone numbers, business hours, best times to visit, etc - even recommends dishes to try in some of the restaurants. Also, the info is presented in a very organized manner and covers a wide range of budget levels. All the recommendations I used were very good and the information proved to be very accurate. I strongly recommend the book as an invaluable practical aid!
   
   An only shortcoming of this book is that it lacks detailed information about Costa Rica, the culture, the history, etc, and does not describe in much detail the places. If you feel the need to know a lot about the places you visit, and have the time to read more, I recommend using this book along with one that is more descriptive of the places, history, etc.



4. If you are planning a trip to Costa Rica, this is one of the best travel guides you can buy. Everything you need toi know is packed into this book!



5. My wife and I greatly enjoyed a week in Costa Rica earlier this month. We are not frequent travelers, and neither of us had previously visited a country where English is not the primary language. Frommer's certainly made our trip smoother and more enjoyable. We foud this guide to be accurate regarding both factual information and perspective. Without it, we would have missed some memorable sights and experiences, including side trips to see the beautiful churches in Zarcero and Las Canas. We rented a small SUV, and had very little trouble finding our way, thanks to Frommer's. Driving in San Jose was a bit of an adventure due to a nearly complete absence of street signs, but Frommer's amply warned us about this in advance. I appreciate Eliot Greenspan's sense of humor as well. We also brought the Lonely Planet guide with us, but I must give Frommer's the nod. I have just one difference of opinion with Mr. Greenspan. The Costa Rican cuisine can actually be quite good. We enjoyed some unique fish and poultry dishes at several hotels and resorts that I would put up against any in the states.

2 comments about American Route 66: Home on the Road.

1. Jane Bernard and Polly Brown are accomplished, widely-published Santa Fe photographers who spent three years on American's most legendary trail. American Route 66: Home on the Road (172 p., Museum of New Mexico Press, 2003, $45) "winds from Chicago to L.A." These superb color and black-and-white photographs merge with their subjects mini-oral histories and the photographers' journal entries.

   We discover that an elongated Lake Woebegone populated by people such as Charles and Gazelle Stewart, who have surrounded their petrified wood store with towering folk-artsy dinosaurs designed to make kids demand to stop the car. Gazelle recalls how Jerry Seinfeld came in one day with his bodyguard, "a little bitty man...with such a huge gun he could hardly keep his pants up." Seinfeld wanted a $3,000 meteorite, but the power was down, so they couldn't run his credit card. They trusted him anyway.

   "We'd make more money," Charles says, "if I'd stop making so many dinosaurs."




2. Polly Brown and Jane Bernard are the Thelma and Louise of Documentary photography, shooting their way down the Mother Road with eyes and hearts wide open. Steinbeck, Kerouac, Mick Jagger, and Elvis would all love this book, and so do I.

No comments about Dominican Republic and Haiti Insight Fleximap (Insight Flexi Map).

2 comments about Street Names of Albuquerque, Santa Fe, & Taos.

1. This book did give some interesting history about how the street names originated. It would have been more interesting if perhaps the book could have contained photos of Albuquerque. It also would have been a better read if they perhaps incorporated the history of local landmarks, nevertheless, it was neat to learn the origin of some of the street names in Albuquerque.



2. I hesitate to even review this book, because I don't know that its author should be encouraged.
   Think about this. This guy lives in Lousiana, and he wrote a book about the street names of Albuquerque (and Santa Fe, and Taos), New Mexico. That, to me, is about one notch above collecting stamps, as far as obsessive, pointless hobbies go--researching and writing a book about the STREET NAMES of Albuquerque--the street names of a mid-sized city in a state that doesn't even border his own.
   That's kind of odd.
   Because, it's not as if the guy chose some fascinating subject that defies geography--no. No, he chose one of the most mundane New Mexico subjects that there even is--street names, most of them applied by developers.
   Plus, its author really didn't do that complete of a job with it. I'd say, for every ten times I've looked up a name in here, I've found what I was looking for every five times or so. I have learned a few things from it, despite the author's questionable grasp of the state's geography, but it's partial at best, and not at all comprehensive.
   I admit this book is the only reference on this subject that I know of, but overall it's disappointing. Part of that disappointment is because many explanations for the street names are just boring--a large majority of them seems to have been named by developers for no especially interesting reason. THAT, of course, he couldn't really help, except he could at least have been witty about it. Or someone else could have. But part of the disappointment could be because the author lives in another state and seems to have come here for only two months to put this together. And part of it could be the cover, which I could never really get past.
   The cover: holy cow, this book has maybe the worst cover I have ever seen. I realize the author was in a tough situation with his wife claiming to be an artist and all, and perhaps rejecting her hideous drawing of three Native Americans as his cover art would have resulted in the author sleeping on the couch for a while, but it is just awful. Crotch-kickingly awful. Eye-gougingly ugly. A celebration of cleft pallette, botched plastic surgery, bad art, and Southwestern stereotypes--the sort of image that's so bad it casts a filthy pall over any reading experience that follows viewing it and makes an objective review of the thing nearly impossible.
   This book, I think, is a good example of the sort of thing that can result from rushing in to cash in on something. Gill is the author of STORIES BEHIND NEW ORLEANS PLACE NAMES, and evidently his publisher, Bonus Books, Inc., thought he could do something similar for a place he wasn't from, didn't live in, and wasn't about to take the time to learn much more about.
   Ahh.... The book is not without merits, since its acknowledgements imply that a number of knowledgeable locals were invited to contribute what they knew, and, again, it is probably the only book on the subject, and probably an unfortunate necessity for local historians wanting to cover all their bases.
   And, whatever, it'll probably teach you a few things---it's "a treasury of stories...extremely informative" according to the Slidell-Sentry News (that titan of journalism), but still, I wish it was better.

1 comments about Return to Mexico.

1. Abbas' photos of the everyday scenes of Mexican reality strike an emotional chord within the viewer. It is as if a creative magic compelled and inspired the photographer to capture and convey the life and energy within the mundane, juxtaposing powerful images of the contradictions of Mexican society. While the photos are arranged by themes associated with death, they overwhelmingly breathe and speak of life. Introduction by Carlos Fuentes.

3 comments about Moon Handbooks Guadalajara (Moon Handbooks).

1. There are two tricks to enjoying an extended stay in Guadalajara: learning how to get around, and knowing what lies beyond the Centro Historico. This book gives you a good introduction to both. Almost all of the maps and descriptions include instructions about the buses you can take to get about. The buses are very efficient and easy to use, and it's a shame that more tourists don't take advantage of that. The book includes city sights outside of the downtown core worth seeing: the plazuela de nueve esquinas with it's famous birririas, the parque de agua azul, the casa y museo Orzco, the barranca vista park north of town, and of course Zappopan's old centro and Tonalá and Tlaquepaque. The book also provides decent descriptions of a few outlying neighborhoods worth lingering in if one has the time.
   Restaurant and hotel descriptions are selective. You won't miss any must-do restaurants using this guide, but you won't be able to look up every restaurant you come accross. If you want comprehensive listings you should also pick up simple restaurant/hotel centered guidebook to supplement this one.
   Finally, two omissions that I'd highlight as worth visiting: the Guadalajara Zoo (mentioned only briefly in passing) - for it's collection and for it's view of the Barranca, and the area around San Jose de Atalco / Plazuela San Sebastian - which is home to some beautiful colonial mansions as well as two notable churches.



2. 5 stars because overall an excellent guide (not a bible) book.
   
   We just spent a week in Guadalajara and used this book as our main guide. It was our first trip, so we had no actual knowledge coming in.
   
   The book is very complete, so it seems to me, and very detailed in its description of the various areas of Guadalajara. In fact, sometimes its detail, such as the individual shops in Tlaquepaque, was a bit overwhelming.
   
   Nevertheless, the typical Moon headings at the beginning of what to do if you have one day, two days, a week, etc., provide orientation for the more detailed descriptions later on.
   
   The maps in the book for each area are excellent. They are detailed but with type easy to read.
   
   The book also has relatively extensive sections on history, demographics, culture, etc. It's sidebars on various sites, issues, or whatever were also extensive and informative. This is truly impressive to be found in a guide book dedicated to a single city!
   
   There are some avenues for improvement. For example, the trip time to Tapalpa, a small town, wasn't mentioned. For some reason, I thought it was an hour, but it turned out to be three. Had we known this we would have considered other destinations that were perhaps only an hour or two more. Even though our two night stay in Tapalpa was a highlight of our trip.
   
   Occasionally there's an assumption that you can speak Spanish. For example, that you might make a friend through good natured bargaining. Or, that you should bargain hard with the car rental agencies. But, how can you bargain hard when they don't speak any English, as the first three I called up didn't.
   
   To his rap that 'la tourista' is really nothing more than what one could get when vacationing in San Francisco from New York, I say: "get real."
   
   Lastly, the writing lacks a certain pizzaz. I don't believe this is due to the author, as I've found exactly the same style in the other Moon Handbooks that I've read or looked at. Reading between the lines, I think Mr. Whipperman is an interesting writer. So, Moon Handbooks, please give your better writers some more rope.
   
   Overall we found this an excellent guide. It's hard to see how it could have been much better.



3. I go to Guadalajara for six weeks in the summer for the Guadalajara summer program of the University of San Diego (see albums at http://math-cs.sandiego.edu/albums/g2006/g2008). Thanks to this book, I quickly learned to ride public buses (for 5 pesos or 50 cents) and subway (same price). This is important for me because I speak no Spanish, and this fact seems to bring out the worst in taxi drivers who often charge me much more. I suggest that you make copies of the downtown map on pp 24-25 , map of the Minerva-Chapultepec area on pp 64-65, and other fine maps if you do not carry the whole book when you go out. These maps includes useful bus routes and save me when I get lost in the maze like streets.
   
   A weakness of the book is its restaurant coverage. There are many fine restaurants in Guadalajara and the turnover rate is high. For example, Formosa Gardens (p79) disappeared years ago, in its place now is a cooking school. Villa Chianti (p77) is now "La O". I agree with the author about the beauty of Santo Coyote (p 76), but not with his assessment of the dishes. I can very easily recommend many more restaurants. For example, La Matera (Argentinian), Suehiro (Japanese), Recco (Italian), Anita Li (Mexican/Thai/Japanese Fusion), Le Tequila ...
   
   Finally, I recommend "7 things to do in Guadalajara" at http://www.agaveweb.com/blog/2007/07/18/top-7-things-to-do-in-guadalajara-mexico for all Guadalajara visitors.