Customer Reviews

Footprint Central America and Mexico 2004 (Footprint Central America & Mexico Handbook)

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I drove to Panama with a friend of mine this last summer, using this book as a guide. It was accurate, useful, and led us to many places that we would never have found otherwise. I cannot speak highly enough of it. If I am traveling anywhere else in the future, I am buying a Footprint guide. The maps in the back proved accurate, too, succesfully getting us all the way to Panama. I looked at a Lonely Planet guide to Panama once I was there, and found that it was not nearly as accurate or useful. If you are traveling anywhere in Mexico or Central America, this footprint guide is all you need. Buy it.

I used this guide during my three weeks in Nicaragua and enjoyed the excellent writing style. His accommodations and restaurants recommendations are up-to-date and reliable. I found his recommendations to always be valid and that says a lot about a guide.

Hutchison's writing is succinct and unencumbered by the superfluous. He gives you a solid mental picture, within a paragraph or two, of what to expect and how you can enjoy it. I also enjoyed his "Further Reading & Cinema" sections that he has with each country.

Because this guide covers all of Central America and Mexico, the history, economic, culture and environment sections are abbreviated and you may wish for more. Thus, if you are going to visit just one country, as I did, you may want to buy only that country's guide. For Nicaragua I also bought "Moon Travel - Nicaragua". (see my review)

The guide could improve it's weak, mediocre maps. Also frustrating, in all Footprint guides, is the use a price guide for accommodations. Instead of just stating the price per room, Footprint gives you a cumbersome group of letters that correspond to the cost of the room. The problem is that you may forget that LL=$... and up. Or that the letter "A" next to a hotel means it costs around $... So you have to find the legion again and figure it out. You would think that as many years as FootPrint has been around, they would have realized that just quoting the cost of the room in dollars is the best way.

Also, there was no mention by Hutchison regarding the rising problems with crime and gangs in Managua (Capital of Nicaragua). In fact he recommends seeing the old Cathedral "at night" and, for the past few years, this is and has been, a dangerous area for violent crime. In fact, when I asked to go to this area in the daytime, even then the taxi driver told me be careful using the words: "peligroso, peligroso". While I was there I talked with the Cathedral's resident shoe shine man and he also told me the area was very dangerous at night, and he leaves every day at 5pm because "me gusto mi vida."

That said, this is a very impressive guide which I strongly recommend for those going to various Central American Countries. Strongly Recommended 4.5 stars

This is the most complete and reliable guide for everyone - from budget/alternative to business travelers. The information given is useful and accurate, even for the most remote areas. I have spent a lot of time in Mexico, Central and South America over the past 25 years and the Footprint guidebooks have always turned out to b e far more useful than any others.

I love Footprint! Since I began traveling I've used these books. Everyone has their opinion, but I trust only these. I'm moving to Mexico in a few months and this is the only guide I'm bringing with me. Very detailed, readable, with good maps and contact info.

This book is great for those travellers in the mid to upper price range (those tour and hotel ads every few pages can get annoying though). If youre looking for organised tours and comfortable travel then I would recommend this book. If your after a travel experience on a tight budget, then I would suggest another book. It has great background information on everything you could possibly want to know, but most times you have to sift through pages and pages just to get to the point.
Overall, this is a thorough and well researched book and accomodation guide. But not for the budget backpacker.

We recommend this book for RVers and other drivers. It has more to offer including hotels for all classes and even some camping places.

We drove to Panama and back in our RV using Lonely Planet's "Central America on a Shoestring" and the Footprint "Central America and Mexico" guides as our main references. Both are written primarily for the backpacker taking public transport and staying in hotels, but we found Footprint had more information for camping. Both were helpful, but ultimately we ended up finding our own camping places and writing our own book more focused on driving and camping. If you are spending time in one country and not just passing through, it is better to have a Footprint or other guide for each country. For example, we found some camping places in a Panama guide which weren't in the Central America guide.

Some years ago I solo travelled (backpacking) all through Central America from Panama to Yucatan Peninsula (Mexico). I tried Footprint guides for the first time and I was absolutely amazed.

This guide is absolutely great. I do agree with other reviewers: the paper is very thin (how to place so much info in a handy guide), maps could more precise and in a huge guide there may be some mistakes (I assure you that, for instance, the guide was really concerned about safety in El Salvador, and that was totally right).

BUT... it is concise, precise and realistic. I have enough of this kind of comments that you may have read in other guides: "the hostel is run by a Danish former sailor called Jürg and his wife Ingrid who will make you feel like at home. She cooks delicious crępes and are very helpful and you will enjoy their anecdotes, etc, etc, etc". Thick paper, tons of photos and tons of rubbish like that: you get to the hostel, there is no Danish sailor, no crępes, no anecdotes and lots of noise in front of a road. By contrast, Footprint says: noisy, avoid the rooms overlooking the bus station, not that clean, but cheap and very well located. Safe area. That is real, but other guides avoid such comments because they are too much diplomatic.

When you have to read a guide while sitting in a yellow former American school bus in an extremely potholed road, you need that language: direct, precise, concise and avoiding those unreal idylic stories.

I carried two guides: CentralAmerica in a "Horshoe" and Footprint. They cover several countries, so sometimes one may provide more information than the other on a certain field. But, no doubt, Footprint was much, much better and the best guide I have ever had. And, please, do not mislead people: IT IS ABSOLUTELY BUDGET TRAVELLER GOOD.

Now, I will be going to Malaysia and, apparently, Footprint does not publish such "country/region guides", but only about cities, maybe thanks to comments like "this is not a budget traveller guide..." : oh, no, it covers a whole underdeveloped region, but it is intended for rich people going to stay a week in an expensive resort in the Mayan Riviera... Come on!

I feel sorry about that, so as many other times I will have to buy the typical guide with nice photos, which is ok, although not that good since it is too politically correct and provides so much absolutely unuseful info. But, even if not up-to-date, I guess I will buy a used 2002 Footprint edition just to compare again...

First of.. don't even begin a trip without getting this book. I found that out on my first trip to Mexico and Belize after constantly borrowing other travellers editions. So it's as comprehensive as you'll get in a multiple country handbook (if you're planning on spending a lot of time in one country get the footprint guide for that country-as this book will have it's shortfalls if that's what you're doing); with some good info and if you're really looking to get down to the nitty gritty of the country then this book is for you. However, I found that sometimes the author was a little too critical of places and towards the end of our trip when we decided to kick our heels and say goodbye to the bus trips and backpacking and head off to a resort town for 3 days before heading home, the book was really lacking. The Frommers Guide more than made up for this and I think that next time I go back to travel around Central America and decide to spend some time in Mexico do yourself a favor and get the Frommers guide and travel with both.

Before you drag out your cyber shotguns and head out after me...

Basic and fundamental entry requirements need careful research and careful editing. I rate an error that may keep people from visiting, performed out of sloppy research and editing, a big error. A big black eye.

Hold on, what was published in the last edition WAS NOT TRUE FOR THE PREVIOUS SEVEN YEARS.

OK, what was this "glaring" error?

The book specifically said that VISA, MasterCard, American Express and Diner's Club credit cards would be accepted as payment for the 180-day temporary car importation bond.

The MINOR error is that American Express has not been accepted for two years and Diner's Club refused for eight years.

The book verbatim says "ATM CARDS ARE NOT ACCEPTED AS PAYMENT"

VISA logo ATM cards have been accepted for car bonding purposes at all POE's for the last eight years, meaning a couple of revisions of this book.

Some errors are not errors at all; things change; other errors are attributable to different people seeing things different ways; still others cause minor to moderate inconvenience but in the end ruffled feathers get smoothed out.

But then there are those that can quash dreams of a trip and my gripe about this guidebook is that not only does it do exactly that, it has done so for more than one revision. Books cost money and people buy them because many times books have more reliable and accountable information than other sources. I didn't say updated or current information I said reliable.

When a basic and fundamental piece of traveler's information is treated so cavalier, it immediately makes less important information equally suspect.

Thumbs down on this product I'm afraid