Customer Reviews

Let's Go 2003: USA

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Let's Go guidebooks have, in the past, been hobbled by inaccurate maps, varying degrees of poor local coverage, or out-of-date information. The new 2003 USA guidebook seems to have solved these problems. This books looks completely overhauled compared to previous editions. The maps are excellent, the coverage seems to be hitting the right spots, and the practical information is better-researched. I've been a critic of Let's Go in the past, but I'll give credit where credit is due. This is an improved product. The new covers also came along with better coverage on the inside. Good work.

This new edition by Let's Go isn't too different to its predecessors but it is slightly smaller in size. Every centimetre and gram of weight does count when you're lugging the thing around North America. Let's go has also introduced some new small features down it's left hand columns on some pages. They are In Recent News which reports on regional issues that may affect you tells you about recent local council works or stuff like what is happening with local known people. Irrelevant, yes and weight adding. The Local Story, From the road, The Big Splurge are a few of the others which are equally irrelevant to most backpackers and seem to have been created just to give the book a new look so you'll buy the current instead of an older version.

Let's Go USA 2003 has vastly widened the extreme gap between itself and it's main competitor Lonely Planet. Already lagging behind with previous editions Lonely Planet will have to pull out all stocks in September (when they update their version) to catch Let's Go. The main difference between the two versions except for a few colour photographs in Lonely Planet is that Lonely planet seems to be written for your American audience so includes a lot of information those of us from elsewhere have been taught in school. Let's Go assumes you know the basics and tells you other things which are left out of Lonely Planet for space reasons. There's still a lot of irrelevant space and weight taking information such as hotels and restraints which is irrelevant to backpackers. They should put out a backpacker version and hotel staying tourist version to reduce space.

I would highly recommend Let's Go over Lonely Planet in all versions except New Zealand where they're pretty even. I would actually recommend not buying either as it's much more finding out stuff for yourself and creating your own tales and memories and not reliving someone else's experiences. Asking other backpackers is the best way to find out good hostels, transport companies etc and they'll have the up to date knowledge. If you feel you need one of these so called bibles buy Let's Go.