Customer Reviews

Ecuador & Galapagos, 6th (Footprint - Travel Guides)

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

 

 

Footprint guides are, bless them, practicaly encyclopedic. Some people find the wealth of detail overwhelming, but the advantage is that one can pinch pennies on one part of the trip and splurge on a worthwhile luxury at another time, without having to consult different guides. Also, they include more places, letting you know whether there's something of interest in a place (or not), rather than leaving a place out and leaving you to wonder. They include tour organizer information too, should you want to leave some or all of your planning to someone else.

Granted, there is some shortand involved to get all that information in. The print can be small, the pages, thin. But, for example, if I see something marked as "recommended" in Footprint, I consider it a solid gold endorsement, because it's not given out often and reflects the comments of thousands of readers.

"Footprint Ecuador" shares these qualities. Ecuador is a tiny country just bursting with wildlife, architecture, and people worth spending time with, and Footprint's details on things like how long a bus trip will take and how much it will cost allow one to plan confidently how to spend one's limited time there. And once in a while there is a wry, dry comment that will make you laugh.

I visited a jungle lodge 3 1/2 hours by canoe from the nearest town, hiked on a volcano, visited native markets, lazed on a beach, explored colonial cities, saw blue footed boobies (without going to Galapagos, which was outside my budget), and talked, talked, talked with Ecuadorans.
This book helped me everywhere and has given me a hundred reasons to want to go back and explore some more.

I had a difficult time deciding between Footprint's guidebook and Lonely Planet's because we've used both brands in the past. Ultimately, I chose Footprint for our 7-week Ecuador trip becasue it was published more recently; I am completely satisfied. This guidebook was accurate in its descriptions and prices. EVERY place we visited lived up to its reputation from the book. Although most tourists usually only visit Quito, Otavalo, and the Galapagos, the book had plenty of detailed information on many other magical places across Ecuador. The only changes we noted were that train service to Cotopaxi was discontinued and the Devil's Nose train ride no longer allowed riders on top. With assistance from Footprint, we were enchanted by Ecuador and will certainly bring Footprint the next place we explore.

This is a review of the 2010 guide. I have used various guides to explore South American and sometimes Footprint was the best (i.e. Peru Handbook). However, in this case FootPrint Ecuador is the worst of the lot. The guide is difficult to use, uses symbols for restaurants that define price but not quality, symbols for accommodations L,AL,A,B etc. that give you a price range but nothing about the quality of the place. Then there are the advertisements; the guide is peppered with advertisements which causes one to question the integrity of the guide, especially when a travel agency or a hotel, that has a full page ad, is strongly recommended by the authors. Hum.
But the worst part of the guide is the insipid, anemic write ups on restaurants which are absolutely worthless.

For example, just to pick a few from the guide (in Cuenca) the El Jardin Restaurant > "Good International food, pricey", or the El Jordan > "Middle Eastern and Ecuadorean dishes. Elegant Décor". Whereby, Frommer's Ecuador (recommended) writes a paragraph on each of its recommendations, it rates them by the quality of food, the service & the ambiance then gives you a price range. For example it wrote about the same restaurant, El Jardin >" This elegant restaurant has dimly lit dining room features wraparound wall of glass with view of the Rio. Tables feature... Spaghetti Carbonara or Veal Cordon Bleu...everything is wonderfully prepared and presented", and it goes on. Wow! what a difference. Accommodation reviews, in this guide, are a bit better but not by much.

The history, politics and culture sections are basic, but do not give you any more information than you could get out of Wikipedia. The index is basic and could be much better. The guide also lacks an accommodations or restaurant index.

If you want a good guide I recommend Frommer's Ecuador or Lonely Planet Ecuador. There are many good guides out on Ecuador & the Galapagos, this is not one of them. Not Recommended

Great guide, particularly for hikers, trekkers, outdoorsmen. Not ideal for folks wanted 4 stars resorts only.

Having used a couple of Footprint Guides in Southeast Asia, I came to think of them as the best of all guidebooks. So I was really excited to see a new edition of this book coming out a month before I'm due to leave for Ecuador - both the Lonely Planet and Rough Guide were last published a couple of years ago, making the information several years out of date.

The book is a real disappointment for the independent traveler. Descriptions of sights are terse, more on the level of Lonely Planet than Rough Guide's sometimes overly detailed enthusiasms. That would be excusable if the coverage of basic travel information were complete, but it's not. Worst of all, there's a single bus chart at the front of the book, with prices and travel times but not frequencies. Individual cities sometimes have bus schedules, sometimes not, and some bus connections that are in RG and LP simply aren't listed. Does the bus to where I need to go run once a day, once an hour, every 10 minutes, or never? Tell me, dammit...I'm sorry, that's a lot more important information than where to get a great French meal in Quito. (The authors basically say, "There are a lot of excellent luxury restaurants in Quito, so we'll tell you where to find expensive fondue, but we can't be bothered listing inexpensive places." Jeez...)

Astonishingly, there's not even a schedule of when and how often buses leave Quito for other destinations. That's understandable in a Fodor's, but when the much shorter Ecuador chapter in the South American Handbook is of more concrete help in planning a trip than the new Ecuador Footprint, something's wrong.

Used to be that Footprints had compact and reliable hotel, restaurant, and transport information. In this one, the list of Quito restaurants and nightclubs is nearly as long as the entire section on sightseeing. It's not a total disaster, but it's really a letdown. I'll be taking the Rough Guide, too, and if this weren't a lot more current than RG, I'd return it.

Maybe it's because this book is now 2 years old, but my husband and I just came back from 11 days in Ecuador and felt it necessary to report that we hated this book. The price listings were usually off by 10-25%, and the reviews of various restaurants were inaccurate. We also found the book somewhat difficult to use. After staying at a relative's condo and finding a different guide book there, it became all the more apparent how frustrating this book was. Nevertheless, sometimes it was accurate, so I still give it a couple stars... and it's important to bear in mind that one's personal preferences might not always jibe with the authors.

We did find that more than once the book would refer to something on another page and then that whatever we were looking for wasn't on the specified page. Maybe related to the various versions/updating, but irritating all the same.

I do NOT recommend this book.

(review of the 2010 edition of Ecuador/Galapagos)

In the past, I've flitted between Lonely Planet, Blue Moon, and Footprint guides. Thanks to this guide, I will not buy any more Footprint guides.

Why? First, who makes a travel guide a hardback??? It makes it very difficult to tear out the parts of the book that you want to take with you, as there are invariable parts of the guide you don't need for the trip & who wants to carry that extra weight?

The second reason, and the one I'm most upset about, is the abundance of ads throughout. On the opening endsheets alone, 3 different ads. Throughout the guide, there are more. If I wanted a commercial guide, I would have selected the more popular Michelin or Frommer's. But I wanted something with independent feedback and information. Footprint guides no longer do so. I'll be sticking with Blue Moon and Lonely Planet in the future.