Customer Reviews

Fodor's Southeast Asia, 22nd Edition: Indonesia, Malaysia, Brunei, the Philippines, Singapore, Vietnam and Thailand

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I love the Rough Guides, Moon Guides, and Lonely Planet. The only problem is, they often assume you're going for 3 weeks or 6 months. I can seldom get away for more than 8-10 days at a time. Fodor's doesn't just dump a lot of destination info on you. They help you prioritize by listing "must-see" sights and presenting multiple alternative itineraries for trips of different lengths, etc.

Last December, Fodor's SE Asia guide helped me figure out that the Thailand-Malaysia-Singapore odyssey we wanted just wouldn't fit comfortably into 10 days. So we postponed that trip until someday when we have at least 2 or 3 weeks. Instead, we simply flew into Bangkok and immediately booked a 3-day Phnom Penh/Angkor tour. In all, we did 3 days each in Cambodia and Bangkok and 4 days in Tokyo. It was a fabulous trip.

This time I'm using Fodor's Japan, together with the Moon and Rough Guides (and of course the Internet), to plan a 10-day solo trip to Hokkaido. From Fodor's I get the highlights, along with a good idea of what I can expect to fit into 10 days. From the other two I get obscure (but equally important!) details, such as the fact that the little farming town of Furano (not mentioned in Fodor's) gets a lot of Japanese tourists because it was the setting for the long-running TV drama Kita no Kuni Kara (From the North Country). I've only seen a few early episodes of that show, but it's enough that now I want to see Furano too.

To sum up, I use Fodor's as my starting point, then read other guides to get extra details. I've done 2 Asia trips this way, and I'll be doing the 3rd one very soon.