Customer Reviews

California Coast: A Traveler's Companion (Explorers Guide)

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Now in a completely revised second edition, The California Coast: A Traveler's Companion by John J. Osborn, Jr., offers travelers a one-of-a-kind fact-filled guide to the 1,100 mile California coastline. From romantic lodgings, to nature preserves, museums, and beaches, The California Coast offers up-to-date information about places to go and things to know. The California Coast is an excellent and enthusiastically recommended resource for planning a satisfying and fun-filled regional vacation.

I spent about an hour looking at various books on California beaches, with an eye to one that would tell me where to go and where not. This one had the right balance of useful information, easy to follow codes (like a symbol for surfing), and accuaracy (at least based on my own opinions). One of the authors used to do this for a living for the California Coastal Commission, and it's clear that they've done their homework - they know California's beaches.

I bought this book at my local CostCo recently. I was very excited about a book dedicated exclusively to the California Coast line. I'm a native Californian and enjoy driving along the coast.

First, the positives. There are some good essays in the book. In each section there are various writers who give their own personal experiences. I also like the symbols used for the places described in the book. You can get a quick idea of what the area is about. i.e. "Family coast", "Quiet coast", "Sporting coast", etc.

Now the negatives. He uses symbols effectively with the coasts but doesn't when it comes to spending money. I'm sure you've seen various travel guides with $$$ signs to give you an idea of how much something cost. In the intro he categorizes the meals and hotels as inexpensive, moderate, and expensive. But when you get to the description of each place you have to read the whole paragraph to find out which it is. $ symbols would be much easier I think. And the most important thing missing (in my opinion) is the absence of web addresses. Virtually every hotel, beach, or park has some kind of web site associated with it now. Addresses to these places would be extremely helpful. He provides phone numbers but I guess he didn't want to take the time to find the web sites of all these places. I've all these "information" lines before and usually the person on the other end is not very helpful.

For the price, it's OK I guess. But I would not recommend. There are better guides out there.

The concept of the book is fine, but there are a number of factual errors and misspellings. For example, the book refers to a view of "Los Padres National Park". If the authors don't know the difference between a national forest and national park, one wonders what else they did'nt know in writing the book.