Customer Reviews

Frommer's Irreverent Guide to New Orleans (2nd Ed)

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

A friend and I went to New Orleans for 3 days with this book as our compass. It was wonderful. Insightful and honest. Descriptive to the nth degree. It really gives you the low down on food, shopping, lodging, and the different areas of the city and its many attractions. A very enjoyable read.

This isn't one of those exhaustive travel books that tells you everything there is to know about a place. Instead, the authors selectively present everything you actually need to know. The dining section was particularly helpful. It wasn't an exhaustive list of restaurants, but it did give you a choice of a few places in each category. The authors were also good about pointing out where the locals go and warning you about the places that are for tourists only. Even better, they distinguish between the tourist places that are all hype and those that are still worth seeing. The maps were helpful, and the book is small enough to fit into a purse or pocket. You will eat well and have a great time in New Orleans with nothing but this book to guide you.

While this is a perfectly adequate guidebook (it will give you the address for Brennan's, the current room rate for the Maison Dupuy and the phone number to call for a Swamp Tour), it does itself a disservice by claiming to be irreverent. There is nothing even faintly irreverent about this book. It's basically cribbed from Frommer's non-irreverent guides, thereby shorter and less informative.

This guidebook provides some great background history and color to New Orleans. Great restaurant recommendations with quality information. The maps, however, were a bit lacking.

This is one of the better guides. I like they way they are set up, chapters covering one subject, (ex: accomodations) then an alphabetized list and map of all the sites. I use this book a lot when I need to look up an address or phone number.

It could have more, but works perfectly well as it is.

After buying this book I began appending it with my own notes gleaned from the internet, my own experience, and other books. After awhile I ran out of margins - in other words there is allot of information that should be in this book but it's missing. This is especially true in the Dining section. Although no guidebook should cover all restruants in a city, all should cover the notable ones.

This book gives you an insiders view on a fun place. So many books give a fellow traveler's opinion on the city. Thw gems this book reveals are worth a look.