Lonely Planet Ecuador & the Galapagos Islands (Country Travel Guide) [Paperback]

Regis St. Louis (Author), Lucy Burningham (Author), Aimee Dowl (Author), Michael Grosberg (Author)

Book Description

Series: Country Travel Guide | Publication Date: August 1, 2009

Nobody knows Ecuador and the Galapagos Islands like Lonely Planet. Our 8th edition gives you the tools you need to create your own adventure, whether you want to browse colorful handicrafts at Otavalo's Saturday market, climb active Volcan Cotopaxi, swim with the Galapagos penguins or relax in chilled-out Vilcabamba.

Lonely Planet guides are written by experts who get to the heart of every destination they visit. This fully updated edition is packed with accurate, practical and honest advice, designed to give you the information you need to make the most of your trip.

In This Guide:

Dedicated Outdoors chapter: hiking, biking, surfing and kayaking
Insightful, respectful coverage of Ecuador's rich indigenous cultures
Green Index identifies sustainable options

Product Details

• Paperback: 432 pages
• Publisher: Lonely Planet; 8 edition (August 1, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1741048281
• ISBN-13: 978-1741048285
• Product Dimensions: 7.7 x 5 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #13,558 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #1 in Books > Travel > Reference & Tips > Guidebooks
  • #1 in Books > Travel > Latin America > South America > Ecuador & Galapagos Islands
  • #38 in Books > Sports & Outdoors > Nature Travel > Adventure

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Pretty good guidebook, July 10, 2010

By 

Jenfromalaska - See all my reviews

This review is from: Lonely Planet Ecuador & the Galapagos Islands (Country Travel Guide) (Paperback)

I spent two months in Ecuador (including about a month in Cuenca) with this guidebook and was overall pretty satisfied with it. In general, the hotel recommendations were good, and there was good information about interesting things to see and do. Even places that aren't super touristy, I was generally impressed with its coverage. It failed to note several interesting festivals that I attended, so I think that coverage of events could probably be improved. On the whole a solid four stars.

17 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Do not buy this book, June 3, 2011

By 

antarctica - See all my reviews

This review is from: Lonely Planet Ecuador & the Galapagos Islands (Country Travel Guide) (Paperback)

I have traveled to six continents and used a variety of guidebooks for each trip. Never have I encountered a book that was so inaccurate in simple information (facts like when the rainy season is) and grossly bombastic (singing praises of mundane structures). The worst part of my trip was getting robbed twice, both times in broad daylight and both times in places that the book highly recommended (walking tour of Quito). The book failed to warn travelers of common scams (evidently, it is so common for tourists to get feces thrown on them as a distraction tactic that there is a checkbox for it on police report forms). The police regularly hand out slips of paper with a list of common scams. When speaking with my tour guide the day after getting robbed, he shook his head and said that there are several places he would definitely avoid and the "walking tour" recommended in my Lonely Planet book covers some of those dangerous areas. The authors did not do diligence in their research.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The usual LP quality., July 21, 2010

By 

Joseph Morris (Berkeley, California) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Lonely Planet Ecuador & the Galapagos Islands (Country Travel Guide) (Paperback)

I just spent three weeks in the Galapagos and then biking around central Ecuador, and LP was impressive as usual. Other than one restaurant in Quito that I felt was a somewhat misdescribed, I cannot think of anything else that was inaccurate, and most days I was looking up at least one business in it. Unlike previous LP guides I have used, there are now "our picks" that highlight unique or remarkable restaurants/lodgings; these were awarded judiciously and sparingly, which hopefully remains the case.

The maps are where LP really shines -- I often wish I could just get a set of just the maps without the book, as they are the most useful part (and it is a pain to have to whip out the whole book to check the map). They have well-selected map sets, giving good coverage of both cities and regions. The beginning of the book also has pretty good trip-planning guides that slice up Ecucador regionally and thematically . . . didn't really notice it was in the book until the last week I was there, but seems like it would have been useful if I had seen it earlier. The main weak point I noticed is that the Spanish phrase section is fairly thin, so if you're planning on brushing up on your Spanish, don't count on this to be much help.