Customer Reviews

Access Los Angeles 9e (9th ed)

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I have lived in the Los Angeles area most of my life and know the city well. I purchased this book in hopes of aquainting myself with new and unusual places in my city. I also had guests coming from out of town, whom I had planned to loan this book, to help them get around.

After glanceing through the West Hollywood / Hollywood section, for not more than 10 minutes, I found over 5 glareing errors. Most were listing for businesses long gone. On average these businesses had been closed for 5 years. The worst example was for the Esprit clothing store on La Cienega and Santa Monica Boulevard. Esprit closed at this site 10 years ago and the building had been vacant until 6 months ago. It is now a drug store.

This is the current and 9th edition of this book. None of the out dated information I saw was recent - there had been years to fact check this information.

The point of a travel book is to provide the reader with current, useful information on their destination. This book failed misserable.

The format of the Access books is terrific. Unfortunately, this bookis outdated to the point of being DANGEROUS to use. I visited L.A. insummer '99 with my husband and baby son. Beforehand, I carefully wentthrough this guide, using a hiliter marker and making hotel reservations from the recommendations of the author. Let me tell you about that hotel. When we arrived.... it was filthy.... To this day, my skin crawls to think of it. (We left).... For the rest of the trip, my hilighted sites turned out to be long-closed businesses, stores and restaurants. I can't tell you how much money I spent parking to go to places that turned out to have been closed for years. I understand that it's to be expected that 5-9% of the info in a travel guide is out of date by the time it goes to press.... I learned three lessons about travelling: one, call all the phone numbers first to be sure your chosen attractions are still open; two, never go to a "recommended" hotel that AAA ignored; and three, never buy a travel guide by this "expert" again.... Consider yourself warned.

I've been waiting for the 9th edition to come out because of the errors I found in the 8th edition. I've been a user of the Access guides for more than ten years and I have always found them very useful. However when I bought the 8th edition I had to call the publisher because there were many mistakes in the guide map numbering. They thanked me and said they would notifiy me when the next edition came out (naturally they didn't). I was very distressed from the first review on Amazon of the 9th edition. It appears that they don't really have anyone that checks for accuracy. I guess I'll wait for the 10th edition.

This book is phenomenal for architecture, museums, parks, galleries and other interesting sites. The maps help us in using large L.A. map to keep us oriented. Have found some great places to shop by just checking the area around our destinations, like the outdoor mall area of Santa Monica. Have made L.A. trips using the older version and love it.