Customer Reviews

Let's Go 1999: Italy

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

 

 

Usually I'm a big fan of Let's Go, but in this case, I have to say that their Italy guide was awful. They were misleading about the distances from stations to hostels. You'd think it wasn't far to walk but these places were often a long 2 or 3 km walk. The maps of Rome were simply inadequate and I spent so much time finding my way around Rome. Everytime I'd step into a new city, I was always disregarding Let's Go's orientations of the cities because it made no sense. Places to eat and so forth were based on which neighborhood they werre located in, and so the lack of clear neighborhood locators or lines in the maps to illustrate where neighborhoods were located really confused me. For Italy I would seriously recommend the Insight guides. Nice glossy pictures so you can see where you are and a nice, hefty indexed map of cities in the back. Don't make the same mistake I made with Let's Go Italy.

I want to side with the others that gave this book a big thumbs up! Let's Go! provides sufficient information for a traveler. The only thing that you need to keep in mind is when you are traveling in Italy, things change often. Don't get disappointed, charge on, have fun because you never know when you'll return. Let's Go! offers enough inside information to get you to specific areas. The fault is yes, some information is incorrect (like schedules, numbers, etc. this is purposefull sometimes) especially since I visited most of those places and knew it as something different. My only suggestion to Let's Go! is to offer a little more info about smaller villages, especially in the Italian Alps and near the Riviera.

Let's Go books are recognized as the definitive guides to budget/student travel, and are written and edited by students, not always with the most accuracy. The general information is usually correct, but my travelling companion and I found that a good amount of the other information (about services, schedules, phone numbers, and locations of shops, etc.) in the books tends to be out of date. When I used Let's Go Italy to find a foreign-language bookstore in Venice, for example, I found that the one listed in the guide had been closed for years. If you're really worried about your budget, you'd be better off with an International Hostelling membership and a Lonely Planet guide.

I must disagree with the man from D.C. I think this guide is fantastic. I used it when I traveled around southern Italy in March. From Rome to Pompeii to Ischia to Sicily and the Aeolian Islands Let's Go 1999: Italy helped me with all my travel needs. I especially enjoyed using the Italian phrases in the Appendix. I would never hesitate recommending any Let's Go books. I have also used Greece and USA successfully.