1 comments about Adventure Guide to Orlando & Central Florida (Adventure Guide to Orlando and Central Florida).

1. The print edition of this book runs to 300 pages. It's a guide to the 18 counties that make up Central Florida, including the frenetic parts overrun with concrete and kids paid minimum wage to swelter inside animal costumes. But vast tracts of Central Florida have been set aside for adventurers and for the flora and fauna that have been here for eons. The book shows you where to explore wildlife refuges and forests, pristine canoe trails and some of the Southeast's best dive sites. Paddle a river, spank a golf ball, pedal a path or hike a historic trail - it's all here. Includes The Magic Kingdom and Orlando; Daytona Beach and the Kennedy Space Center; Vero Beach, Ft. Pierce and Lake Okeechobee; Kissimmee, St. Cloud, Lakeland; Ocala, Silver Springs; Crystal River, Homosassa Springs; Cedar Key; Tampa, St. Petersburg and the Gulf Beaches.

No comments about Buenos Aires: A Cultural and Literary History (Cities of the Imagination).

3 comments about Ecuador & Galapagos Guide.

1. This book, dare I say, bests Lonely Planet all around. The husband-wife team has been wandering the backroads of Central and South America for more than a decade, and their grasp of local culture shows on every page. Like other Open Road guides, this title appeals to budget, real-world travelers; if you read Big World, you'll probably enjoy their titles immensely.



2. This book's slogan "Be a traveler - Not a tourist" had me questioning the definition of those words throughout my trip. This book is easy to read, and is a good guide if you want to live Ecuador on the beaten path. When selecting a hotel or restaurant from this book we could trust that it would be a nice respectable place with good service/food/lodging/etc.

   The print in it was the largest of the 3 books we used, making it the largest & least compact book. The maps in the book were our least favourite as they had very little detail.

   Ecuador is an inexpensive country to visit at the moment. The book's Budget section only lists the higher priced budget options ($15 for a double room when there are decent $4 options around.) The recommendations in the book did not guide us to "locals" places; our neighbors in the hotels & restaurants recommended by the book were all tourists.

   We followed the book's 'budget' recommendations, and ended up spending much more money then we would have without the book, but staying in nicer hotels and eating in 'safer' (tourist friendly?) restaurants.

   I would recommend this guide if you want to tour Ecuador without getting your feet too dirty. If you are looking for a shoestring traveling experience, look elsewhere.




3. I just used this book for a great trip to Ecuador. I consider myself an adventurous, independent traveler, but I don't need to suffer in bad hotels and eat tasteless cheap food to earn travel stripes. Yes, you can go to Ecuador for pennies a day, but I prefer to get a good feel for the culture, stay in small, unique hotels, and eat flavorful local foods.

   This book helped me do that perfectly. It is right on. I appreciate the authors opinions, who obviously have the same travel requirements that I do...small, unique, interesting...I like getting somebody's opinion rather than a whole laundry list of alternatives with no real feedback about how to spend my limited vacation time.

   I still had an inexpensive trip, but it was really nice as well. I HIGHLY recommend this book.

5 comments about Lonely Planet Bolivia: A Travel Survival Kit (3rd ed).

1. Lonely Planet Travel Handbooks have become a standard of excellence in presenting good, reliable information and advice for the more adventuresome traveler and "Bolivia" is no exception.

   The section "Facts for Visitors" is the best sources of needed information on the market today. The color photo plates, charts and most maps are superb.

   Swaney has done a great service to ecology and environment in her section on development in the disappearing Amazon. Sadly, she only gives a cursive mention to ecotourism, an economy that offers hope for the dwindling environment of Bolivia. Recommend




2. As always, this is a piece of lullage well worth its price and its weight. It contains unparalleled advice on how to get around in this wonderful land, from the heights bordering Peru to the low lands of Cochabamba and Santa Cruz. The advice is clear, well-writte, useful, and entertaining at the same time. Its only problem is that it dates back to 1996, and lots of things have changed since then.



3. I just returned from Bolivia with this book as my only guide. I nearly threw it out the bus window in frustration. Although much of the out of date information is due to the fact that the book is five years old, there is no excuse for the scores of addresses for museums and the like that are completely wrong. There is also a major lack of basic info like the location of bus terminals. I also heard from many people who got lost for days trying to follow the book's directions on treks. Best to pay a little extra and hire a reputable guide who knows the area. Also be aware that because of changes in the Bolivian phone company, virtually none of the telephone numbers in the book are correct. It's definately time for a new edition, hopefully done with a little more care.



4. I just returned from my 4th visit to Bolivia, using my 3rd Lonely Planet guide. During one month in 4 cities, I became increasingly frustrated with the same dead ends that other reviewers have mentioned...incorrect phone info, little e-info, disappearing restaurants, etc., due to the guide's 1996 date. I have never appreciated Swaney's arrogant and condescending attitude toward one of my favorite nations and its people, and found it even more annoying each time I had to cross out another bit of her outdated information. Having whined and complained, I still must admit that this guide is by far the best for leading me to the specific kinds of hotels and eating places I'm always looking for, and giving me just the amount of historic and cultural detail I'm seeking. Lonely Planet is by far the most thorough and comprehensive guide to all of Bolivia (--others focus mainly on the Andes--), and I long for a new edition....hopefully penned by someone with more respect for the country than Swaney seems to have.



5. I have used this travel guide (printed in 1996) during three trips to Bolivia (June 2000 to July 2004). It is by now quite outdated, particularly as regards addresses, telephones, and even the existence of new facilities (e.g. the new rail and bus terminal at Santa Cruz).
   Other than that, as a biologist born in neighbor Argentina I found some weird passages on this subject. For instance, the information presented on the natural history of the national parks ranges from almost nonsense (aggressive insects attacking tourists in Noel Kempff Mercado) to reasonably accurate. The author has a frequent ironic viewpoint on many cultural characteristics of Bolivia. Sometimes this makes for funny reading. But she misses several points. For instance, she thinks that the departamental capital of Pando, Cobija, is named after the Spanish word for blanket, and this provokes some comic remarks on the tropical sticky climate. But as a matter of fact, Cobija is named after the main seaport that Bolivia had before the Pacific war.

4 comments about Costa Rica Guide: Your Passport to Great Travel (Open Road Travel Guides Costa Rica Guide).

1. Hi, I'm Paul Glassman, the author of the original and authorized Costa Rica Guide. Though this book uses my name, it consists entirely of outdated material.



2. Hi,

   I am working at Ilisa Language Instute in Costa Rica, San Jose and I want to say that this book helps us a lot to give our students helpfull information about getting around in Costa Rica. Thanks!




3. Hi,

   I am working at Ilisa Language Instute in Costa Rica, San Jose and I want to say that this book helps us a lot to give our students helpfull information about getting around in Costa Rica. Thanks!




4. Each summer I go to Costa Rica with a group of students to do a course in Sustainable Development. As a consequence I collect Costa Rican guidebooks. The previous guide by this author was good and I looked forward to this one.

   This one was a bit of a disappointment. The guide presents a good straight forward description of Costa Rica and is still a useful tool for travellers.

   Where this book suffers is in the details. I first came aware of this when I was trying to use it in Monteverde and I found out that there were many errors in the map presented. I eventually learned that the map presented things as they were in arly 1997. This is a real problem for a guide published in 2000 especially since there are guides published in 1999 that have more up to date maps than this one.

   The discussion of the Southern Talamanca Coast also suffers. Cahuita is discussed in greater detail than Puerto Viejo even though the latter has become the bigger tourist destination in the past 5 years. Once again, the layout of this book seems to be based on what existed in 1996-97 rather than what exists today.

   Lack of detailed, useful information also haunts the ArenalVolcano/La Fortuna disussions.

   In summary, Paul Glassman's Costa Rica Guide covers the basics but does not provide the type of helpful detail that many other guides provide. Normally the more recently a guide is published, the more useful it is. However in this case, there are guides published in 1999 and even 1998 that contain more useful and sometimes more up to date information than this year 2000 publication.

2 comments about Washington, D.C.: A Photographic Tour.

1. I have visited Washington, D.C. several times, by myself and with my family. This book has the best photographic coverage of Washington in one cover that I have seen. The captions for the photographs are accurate and helpful. If you go on the Washington by Dark bus tours, this book is better than the photos most of us take for the monuments. You can save your film for pictures of your friends or family at the sites during the day. Additionally, the preface history of Washington is interesting and concise. I heartily recommend this photo essay to any Washington, D.C. visitor.



2. 
   Nice book of this type depicting Washington DC. This one is better than most because the pictures are large and there's some unique perspectives. The only downside is there are so many books of this type it's hard to tell them apart. I've seen other works by this pair and they always do a nice job displaying their subject.

1 comments about Best Short Hikes in Washington's South Cascades and Olympics.

1. Whether it's your schedule or your body that prevents you from doing long hikes, this is a good resource for southern Washington's Cascades. Has all the usual statistics you've come to expect in a Spring-format guidebook.

No comments about Rand McNally Sarasota/Brandenton Streetfinder: Manatee, Sarasota & Charlotte Counties (Rand McNally Streetfinder).

1 comments about Trekking and Climbing in the Andes (Trekking and Climbing Guides).

1. There are several shortcomings in the book that keep it from being a reliable and useful climbing guide. First, it is too bloody large and heavy to haul around, being printed on heavy paper stock so that the photos are pretty. Second, it was not well proofed, and a book that has three authors should have some luck in catching basic information errors if there were indeed three qualified persons involved. Instead, we believe that the errors in many of the simpler subjects point to the possibility of more grave errors in significant details. A modern and serious trekking or climbing guide would include detailed positional data, including topographic and GPS coordinates. These are generally lacking. There are also some fundamentally silly statements, such as "Bolivia is a relatively safe country." Bolivia? Safe? Perhaps compared to Colombia. But Bolivia is fraught with hazards ranging from generally poor health and hygiene, unsafe tourist accommodations, treacherous public transport, and considerable street crime in the cities, even if you don't accidentally end up in one of the coca-growing regions. (There is also a statement that Peru is relatively safe, so evidently the authors' perception of "relatively safe" is not shared with those from the civilized countries). In the Chilean portion of the book there are considerable errors, including one that describes going "clockwise" as a way to make the John Gardner pass "less of an uphill struggle." Anyone who has climbed this pass will attest that the western side is steeper and more slippery than the east side, so this book's recommendation is quite backward. Another part of the same chapter even seems to contradict this observation, leading us to think perhaps one author was not really talking to another. Similar errors persist throughout the book, along with misleading information, misspelling of Spanish words, internal inconsistencies, and then the absence of essential data that should have been included. Pretty pictures, though.

No comments about The Ultimate Peru List.