Hi
The Lonely Planet guides are the best. Best to buy them beforehand and maybe sell them when finished with them.
Thanks for your advice!
Lonely Planet's South America on a Shoestring is a weighty tome but still has most of the basics. We had the four separate LP guides - Chile, Bolivia, Peru and Ecuador and they were all pretty good although anything that's written is out of date by the time it's published. The Book Depository sells them online with free delivery worldwide.
We prefer Rough Guides, which have definitely just bought out new editions in the autumn for Peru and Bolivia and I don't think the Equador one is too old either. I would buy before, particularly for your main countries as they (particularly the most up to date versions) are not as available as you might think in South America.
We prefer RG, as find LP to be too enthusiastic about everything, rather than weighing up the pros and cons of visiting a place, allowing you to decide if it's for you. RG will say if something is rubbish and not worth the effort, and generally are right. Everything is amazing in LP.
The new format of the RG make them so easy to read and user friendly. LP still insist on several paragraphs of waffle before actually telling you anything about a place. They're still using the mainly blakc and white, with blue headings, making the whole book quite bland and boring to look at. The maps are also a lot more user friendly in RG.
Obviously it's down to personal preference, amd we have very reluctantly used an LP when the RG has been really out of date. (But always looked forward to moving on to the next country where we could get our RG back!)
In the end I bought The Footprint South American handbook, after hearing good things about it. It looks good.
In the past, when travelling in other countries, I have always preferred Rough Guide over Lonely Planet.
We prefer RG, as find LP to be too enthusiastic about everything, rather than weighing up the pros and cons of visiting a place, allowing you to decide if it's for you. RG will say if something is rubbish and not worth the effort, and generally are right. Everything is amazing in LP.
The new format of the RG make them so easy to read and user friendly. LP still insist on several paragraphs of waffle before actually telling you anything about a place. They're still using the mainly blakc and white, with blue headings, making the whole book quite bland and boring to look at.
Interesting perspective. As you say , its all about personal choice, i still use LP as my guide of preference, although sometimes the maps can be slightly vague.
0 Response to "Best guidebook for a Bolivia, Peru and Ecuador trip?"
Post a Comment