Footprint Colombia Handbook: The Travel Guide [Hardcover]

Peter Pollard (Author)

Book Description

Series: Footprint Colombia Handbook | Publication Date: March 1998

Colombia, the country with the best coffee, is a gloriously fertile, green country with friendly, helpful people and a wealth of spectacular sights and many attractions little known, so far, by foreigners. The Caribbean coastline, the appeal of Cartagena and its rich colonial history, the magnificent gold museum in Bogota and climbing in the Andes, are all covered in this new guide.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Peter has a degree in Geography from Cambridge University and is a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society. He has worked in South and Central America for 12 years, has a Guatamalen wife and three of his children were born in the Americas. He has travelled extensively through Colombia.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 336 pages
• Publisher: NTC/Contemporary Publishing Company; First Edition edition (March 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0844249491
• ISBN-13: 978-0844249490
• Product Dimensions: 7.2 x 4.6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,390,974 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Though slightly dated this is very good, comprehensive guide, April 30, 2002

By 

Allan M. Gathercoal "fdoamerica" (Norcross, GA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

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This review is from: Footprint Colombia Handbook (Paperback)

I was in Colombia for three months and used this guide continually.

Peter Pollock writes for a broad audience, but he excels in providing insightful caveats for the adventuresome and ecologically focused traveler. He has information on shipping motorcycles and automobiles to Columbia. He has an excellent section on health, and his 'Background' section is succinct and informative (History, Culture Etc.). He covers the normal tourist destinations and encourages exploration of places that 99% of visitors to Colombia would miss (Tayrona National Park, Ciudad Perdia, etc.).

His accommodations and dining recommendations are adequate, generally accurate, reliable but are becoming outdated. Luckily, although this guide has been out for three years, the prices for lodging in Colombia have stayed relatively stable and accurate and eight out of the ten hotels I selected to visit in Bogota were still open.

AREAS FOR IMPROVEMENT: A serious omission for this 2000 guide is the absence of hotel web pages and hotel email addresses. Electronic addresses have become a "must have" for any competitive guide book. A good hotel web page allows you to view the property, get current rates (and specials), view the
property and rooms and make an on-line reservations. This is a must for the next edition.

Good maps are essential in a guide. Bogota, Cartagena, Barranquilla, Cali and Medellin are sprawling cities that desperately need good maps. Bogota has four maps, but they are upside down! Normally maps are oriented with North at the top of the page, not so here, North is at the bottom and South at the top. I had a hell-of-a-time orienting myself, until I got my compass out and discovered this wacko lay out.

Also confusing are references to map numbers that don't exist. Pollard mentions a number, IE in the Bogota section, 'Hacienda Santa Barbra #3 on the map', but the publisher did not print the numbers on the map. His recommended sleeping locations are noted on the maps, but not restaurants. Needless to say, this is an important area that needs significant improvement.

The above shortcomings notwithstanding, you will not want to go to Colombia without this guide. I strongly Recommend it.

16 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Mentirosos! Very inaccurate., July 1, 2009

By 

Travel SA (Fort Collins, CO USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Colombia Handbook, 3rd: Tread Your Own Path (Footprint - Travel Guides) (Hardcover)

The few good aspects of this book are completely overshadowed by the false and frustrating information that fills the gaps. Just a few of the many inaccuracies we found:
-The book says money can be exchanged easily in banks. Of the many banks we went to and asked they all said that it is "very difficult" to exchange money in banks. (some do however).
-Prices for sleeping and eating were way off!! Restaurants that were one fork ended up being the most expensive (and in most cases had the worst food for the price). Some restaurants listed were not even there.
-At least one "typical dish" called Rondon that was listed in the book was not known by any locals.
-Maps were inaccurate. Addresses were wrong and locations on the maps were usually on the wrong streets.
-Bus information-There are no direct buses from Salento to Medellin.
We used the book for three weeks around Colombia. It was helpful, but I expected much more from a book published in 2009.

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Shameful, but unfortunately it's the best out there, May 27, 2009

By 

Expat Colombia (Bogota) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Colombia Handbook, 3rd: Tread Your Own Path (Footprint - Travel Guides) (Hardcover)

I have used this guide in Colombia for more than a week and found it to be an absolute disaster. And I very much doubt the writer(s) actually visited many of the places they reviewed.

Problems so far:
-The majority of the web addresses listed for hotels are seriously outdated and non-functioning, this from a book which was published only a few months ago. Suspicious?
-No TransMilenio (Bogota Metro) map? What???
-Restaurants in the cheapest category turned out to be more than twice the price that was listed in the book, once again from a very recently-published book. Come on guys, you actually ate at these places?
-One of the restaurants listed in the Bogota section, in this brand new of brand new editions, has been closed for a long time.
-No section on culture and etiquatte
-There are dozens upon dozens of restaurants in Bogota's Zona T. You reviewed TWO??? From where, their websites?
-The Bogota maps are a disaster. Why wouldn't they think to include a map of Chapinero, one of the most popular neighborhoods for tourists?
-A number of addresses for businesses listed in the book are incorrect.
-The symbols used to denote prices for hotels and restaurants are needlessly confusing (not to mention the fact that the prices themselves are inaccurate).

Unfortunately, we have only this and the Lonely Planet to choose from, written by someone who admittedly never visited Colombia.

Maybe the LP coming out in June will be better?