Frommer's Portable Puerto Vallarta, Manzanillo and Guadalajara [Paperback]

David Baird (Author), Lynne Bairstow (Author)

Book Description

Series: Frommer's Portable | Publication Date: October 17, 2003

Frommer's Portable Guides offer all the detailed information and insider advice of a Frommer's Complete Guide but in a concise, pocket-sized format. Perfect for the short-term traveler who insists on value and doesn't want to wade through or carry a full-size guidebook, this series selects the very best choices in all price categories and takes you straight to the top sights. Get the latest on hotels, restaurants, sightseeing, sports, shopping, and nightlife in a nutshell in these lightweight, inexpensive guides.

Written by an American journalist who lives in Puerto Vallarta, this concise guide is clearly the work of an author who knows her destination inside and out. You'll find candid reviews of the best resorts, inns, restaurants, and nightspots, all sprinkled with valuable tips on local culture, etiquette, bargaining, potential pitfalls, and much more. Enjoy the best beaches and outdoor adventures, then come along with us as we explore the cultural treasures and fantastic shopping in the intriguing city of Guadalajara. With accurate maps and a glossary of handy Spanish phrases, this concise guide puts the best of Mexico's Pacific coast at your fingertips!

Other pocket-sized guides to Mexico's leading resort areas include Frommer's Portable Cancun, Frommer's Portable Los Cabos & Baja and Frommer's Portable Acapulco, Ixtapa & Zihuatanejo. Full-sized, more in-depth guides include Frommer's Mexico and Frommer's Cancun, Cozumel & the Yucatan.

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

Experience a place the way the locals do. Enjoy the best it has to offer. And avoid tourist traps. At Frommer’s, we use 150 outspoken travel experts around the world to help you make the right choices. Frommer’s. Your guide to a world of travel experience.

Put the Best of Puerto Vallarta, Manzanillo & Guadalajara in Your Pocket

• Plenty of activities to keep you busy–both on and off the beach.
• Outspoken opinions on what’s worth your time and what’s not.
• Exact prices, so you can plan the perfect trip no matter what your budget.
• Off-the-beaten-path experiences and undiscovered gems, plus new takes on top attractions.
• The best hotels and restaurants in every price range, with candid reviews.

Excerpted from Frommer’s Mexico

About the Author

David Baird is a writer, editor, and translator who doesn’t much like writing about himself in the third person (too close to being an obituary). Texan by birth, Mexican by disposition, he has lived several years in different parts of Mexico following his interests, which include food, drink, and the afternoon siesta. Now based in Austin, Texas, he spends as much time in Mexico as possible. At home, his hobbies include painting, scraping, mowing, patching dry wall, and extemporaneous engineering.

For Lynne Bairstow, Mexico has become more home than her native United States. After living in Puerto Vallarta for most of the past 11 years, she’s developed an appreciation and a true love of this country and its complex, colorful culture. Her travel articles on Mexico have appeared in the New York Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Los Angeles Times, Frommer’s Budget Travel magazine, and Alaska Airlines Magazine. In 2000, Lynne was awarded the Pluma de Plata, a top honor granted by the Mexican government to foreign writers, for her work in the Frommer’s guidebook to Puerto Vallarta.

Product Details

• Paperback: 212 pages
• Publisher: Frommers; 4 edition (October 17, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0764538187
• ISBN-13: 978-0764538186
• Product Dimensions: 7.7 x 4 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,338,370 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #40 in Books > Travel > Latin America > Mexico > Puerto Vallarta

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Pretty Helpful, August 18, 2006

By 

Liz M. (New Jersey) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Frommer's Portable Puerto Vallarta, Manzanillo & Guadalajara (Paperback)

I got some good tips from the book. It helped me get familar with the layout of the area. In short, the top things I learned from the book were:

1) At the Puerto Vallarta airport keep your head down and don't talk to anyone. They're all trying to sell you something.

2) Use the pedestrian walk to cross over the highway and get a cheaper cab than from the airport. (We bargained and got a $13 USD ride to Nuevo Vallarta)

3) Vallarta Adventures is a reputable tour group in the area. We booked all our tours through them in advance on their website. www.vallarta-adventures.com

19 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Fine for restaurant and activity advice, otherwise mediocre, December 3, 2006

By 

The Belgo "lebelgo" (Walnut Creek, CA USA) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Frommer's Portable Puerto Vallarta, Manzanillo & Guadalajara (Paperback)

As someone who was on my 5th trip to Puerto Vallarta, I bought the book for some new ideas on restaurants I hadn't tried, and on new activities. The book does a good job for that purpose, and for its $10 price on amazon, I can't complain. However, its coverage of other subjects is fairly poor; I would almost say downright silly. For example, it spends 75 pages going through oodles of general information with limited to no relevance to Puerto Vallarta, such as how many Starbucks in the U.S. have T-mobile hotspots, the relative benefits of Yahoo versus Hotmail accounts, and the location of the South African embassy in Mexico City. For example, it goes through pages of customs formalities on taking your car into Mexico--yet I feel it's unlikely that someone who's going only to PV is going to drive there.
What makes this all the more silly is that the book devotes only 7 pages to hotels in PV. It describes two in the Marina Vallarta area, two in the northern Hotel Zone (one of which it doesn't particularly recommend, giving it one star), three downtown, and 3 in the southern Hotel Zone. Of the three hotels discussed in the downtown area, one has been long torn down (the Molino de Agua), one is kind of yucky (the Playa Los Arcos--I've stayed there), and the third is a rather quirky choice--the Hacienda San Angel. This last hotel is a long hike to any beach, and its rooms range in price from $310-$590 depending on the room and season (except one room which goes for as little as $235 in low season). I'm sure it's a fine hotel for a small niche of customers, but it's not what I would include if I had only very limited space for hotel choices in my book.
The book also has some space devoted to other cities, and another one of the other hotel recommendations which I found bizarre was the "Hotelito Desconocido" (unknown little hotel). Again, there must be a market for places like this, but I suspect that the market's pretty small for a hotel with no electricity (lit by candles), almost no activities, a beach with water unsafe to swim in (no swimming allowed), and mosquitos galore with rooms going for $300-$600 a night, not including a required meal plan.
I don't mean to imply this book is useless. I did learn about new places to go with it, and the price is right. However, I have issue with the choices of material the books covered: to much of certain things, and too little of others.

22 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Frommer's Portable Puerto Vallarta, August 2, 2005

By 

A. J. Kelly (Coos Bay, OR) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Frommer's Portable Puerto Vallarta, Manzanillo and Guadalajara (Paperback)

I enjoyed this guide book. It's not super comprehensive, but then it's not meant to be. The small size enabled me to slip into my pocket and carry it with me. It had enough information to guide me around Puerto Vallarta, and we tried several of the restaurants that it recommended with good results - the La Palapa restaurant was superb! I loved that place - slightly expensive, but worth it. A very romantic beach front restaurant.
Buy this guide-book and the Moon guide-book and you'll have enough information to explore the Puerto Vallarta area.