Let's Go China (Let's Go China) [Paperback]

Let's Go Inc. (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 18, 2004

Completely revised and updated, Let's Go: China is your comprehensive guide to Asia's most exciting destination. Let's Go's forty-five years of travel savvy deliver must-have practical information. This edition boasts more outdoors activities, expanded must-see historical sights, and brand-new coverage of trekking, ethnic villages, and daytrips. An extensive chapter on alternatives to tourism helps you find ways to extend your stay and make a difference, while a phrasebook in Mandarin, Cantonese, Tibetan, and Uighur will help you get there, get around, and get busy, no matter where you may be. So, whether you'd rather chat it up with monks or trek to alpine lakes and glacier-capped peaks, Let's Go's intrepid researchers can lead the way.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"For independent travelers on a budget, with an emphasis on whatever's hip, fun, or free."
- Associated Press

"Guides that penetrate the veneer of holiday brochures and mine the grit of real life."
- The Economist

From the Inside Flap

For forty-five years, Let’s Go Travel Guideshave brought budget-savvy travelers closer to the world by providing the most up-to-date information.

Includes:
Entries in a range of price levels for lodging, food, attractions, and more
Advice on obtaining travel permits for Tibet and other closed regions
Tried-and-true tips on bargaining for lodging and tourist services
Extensive inclusion of Chinese characters and pinyin
Opportunities to get involved, from teaching English to learning martial arts
Detailed maps with labels in both English and Chinese characters

Featuring Not-to-be-Missed Experiences

Cultural Connections
Measure your height against the world’s tallest stone Buddha in Leshan.

Inside Scoops & Hidden Deals
Bargain for silks and knives at the thronging Kashgar bazaar.

Off the Beaten Path
Bed down in a yurt or ride a camel through the Mingsha Desert in Northwest China.

Product Details

• Paperback: 912 pages
• Publisher: Let's Go Publications; 5 edition (November 18, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312320051
• ISBN-13: 978-0312320058
• Product Dimensions: 7.7 x 5.1 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,349,632 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Not Useful for the Atacama Desert, true-but fine otherwise, December 4, 2004

By 

Roland Priebe "travel enthusiast" - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Let's Go China (Let's Go China) (Paperback)

The only other review declared that they "used this book during our trip to the Atacama Desert. It was not helpful..." Well, I imagine it wouldn't be very useful, seeing that the Atacama Desert is in Chile, not in China!

I generally prefer the Lonely Planet guides over the Let's Go guides, which tend to sound like they are written by know-it-all teenagers with too little life experience to be offering advice to real grown-ups. This guide on China, in contrast, is informative and pragmatic rather than preachy. Just one cautionary note: If you are actually planning on traveling around China on your own and don't speak Chinese, get a couple other guides and review them also-China is one of the few remaining countries where you cannot count on every shopkeeper and hotel manager conveniently being able to speak English.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars OK guide, but needs some serious improvements!, June 22, 2008

By 

Benoit Cote (Taiwan) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Let's Go China (Let's Go China) (Paperback)

I used this book two years ago during a trip that took me from Hong Kong to GuangZhou, XiAn, TianShui, JiaYuGuan, DunHuang and Urumqi, and even though it was useful as a geographical and cultural guide, ALL the prices were way way off for all the places I visited in XiAn and Western China. I don't know about Eastern China, but the prices to most of the hotels and sights/parks were actually DOUBLE what they were supposed to be, according to the Let's Go guide. Big big disappointment there.

I ended up expecting prices to be double what the book said, and was able to plan the last part of my trip pretty accurately.

Another big mistake was NOT to include the PinYin accents on all the city and sight names. In the Lonely Planet, you just look up a section about a city and you get the PinYin for it AND the accents, which are important if you want to pronounce the name properly. I had to borrow a Lonely Planet on China in order to find the names of the places I was going to and write down the tones so I could say them properly. Miss your pronunciation, and most Chinese people won't understand right away what you're talking about!

Note that the Lonely Planet other travelers had was way wrong about prices as well for the whole of XinJiang and GanSu.

I love Let's Go in general, but they need to work on this one a bit better! I recommend this guide, BUT be careful when you make your budget! Expect some prices to be much higher than anticipated, and if you speak mandarin, double check how to pronounce the names of the places you're going to. Have a great trip!

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Lived in Beijing, October 16, 2005

By 

Pastry Princess (Los Angeles, CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Let's Go China (Let's Go China) (Paperback)

This book was indispensable when my husband and I lived in Beijing for 6 months. I bought it together with Lonely Planet's The Best of Beijing, but found later on that I preferred to use this book because it contained a lot of leads to great deals on shopping, restaurants, etc. (Read: Good but cheap, and that's where most locals go) After checking out places from both books, I found Lonely Planet's contained a significant amount of "high end" places. Gave this book four stars only because I found that some prices quoted on particular restaurants are a bit outdated. Other than that, I loved it.