Customer Reviews

Fodor's Australia 2005 (Fodor's Gold Guides)

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

 

 

I've been ploughing thru Oz guides lately researching and planning a possible trip, and this one is comparable to the Frommer's guide. A good guide, less photos than the Dorling-Kindersley, Nat'l Geog., and Insight Guides, but then you're getting two to three hundred pages less of info for five to seven dollars more in those books.

I have a suggestion on how to use these two different types of guides, which is these beautiful, lavishly illustrated, glossy guides are great for looking at the photos of the sights and doing basic research, and for zeroing in on where you want to go, then you can pick up the Frommer's and Lonely Planet and Fodor's guides to get more information.

For a country as big and as diverse as Oz, one guide really isn't enough, so you could buy one of each, and you'd probably do quite well. (The only problem was, after I'd looked at all the spectacular photos in the Insight, DK, and N.G. guides, I felt like I'd almost been there, and was reluctant to spend several thousand dollars on an actual as opposed to an armchair trip :-)). Overall, a well written, detailed, and enjoyable guide on that mysterious and fabled land Down Under.

***Nerdy paleontological footnote. I have to say one more thing about Australia, which is that millions of years ago, I once read in an Encyclopedia Britannica article on Australia that there were 10-foot high, 600-pound carnivorous kangaroos that could probably have made short work of us puny humans. Fortunately, they all died out long before the arrival of the first Aborigines 60,000 years ago. :-)

In spite of the fact I'm not used to the fodor's books layout, I think it's a good guide.

Sometimes I feel it aims to a 'not low budget' public. (and I always backpack on low budget)...

Regarding the "paperback" quality: some pages got lost, the book spine got 'broken', that's something I miss about lonely planet quality.

The overall result of this guide, was, for me, good.