Customer Reviews

Fodor's Dominican Republic, 1st Edition (Travel Guide)

5 star:		(2)
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1 star:		(1)

 

 

Not to be overly harsh, but if you're looking for a good guide to the Dominican Republic this is not it.

I used this guide for a February 2009 trip to the Dominican Republic. I traveled to Santo Domingo, Santiago, and Punta Cana and found that many of the listings in the guide no longer exist. For the museums and public tourist attractions that were still operating the prices were generally twice as much as those listed in the guide. Additionally, the included maps were, on occasion, grossly inaccurate. When I showed a business owner what was written about his store he was shocked by the inaccuracies.

Bottom line when I looked at other guides after my trip I found that they better represented the on the ground truth. Reputable Fodor's just missed the mark on this first edition.

Enjoy the DR.

I was hesitant to buy this as a Kindle book because I was worried how the format would translate, but I found that the publisher did a good job of converting it to Kindle. The maps are a bit hard to read but that is the only limitation of not having a hard copy. Other than that it is a typical Fodor's book about a country, it does a good job giving the reader an overview of the location but does not drill down very deep into the various cities. Example, for Punta Cana it reviews about eight or ten resorts and all-inclusives when there are dozens available.

We wanted to learn as much as possible about the Dominican Republic before our trip. This book was a great source for historical, cultural and local information. If there are multiple guides published for your destination buy at least two; no one book is likely to cover everything. This book helped us learn before we left home, helped us get around when we were in the DR, and probably helped us avoid a few dumb turista mistakes.