Customer Reviews

Lonely Planet Beijing (Lonely Planet Beijing, 4th ed)

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

 

 

The Beijing City guide, is one of poor quality that lacks a lot of information, I was just this past Christmas and New Year on a holiday trip and I was frankly disappointed. These guide included some really inaccurate information on restaurants, the maps are totally inaccurate and the information given is scarce. I really expected more seriousness in this guide -being a Lonely Planet one- that leaves me asking why is Lonely Planet guides so popular? With the maps on this guide instead of finding my way, I got lost! As for the information, it was OK but just imagine trying to find a restaurant that does not exist. Well I think there might be better guides out there.

I have used this book on a six day trip to Beijing over Xmas 1999. In my opinion the July 1998 edition of this book is too far out of date, and contains an unacceptable level of inaccuracies and inconsistencies. I would also endorse the previous reviewer's comments about the tone of the book, although I would say that a 'right on' sneering attitude seems to be written into too many Lonely Planet books and Rough Guides in general. This book is not worth buying in its July 1998 (3rd) edition. It needs to be completely rewritten and not reissued in a 4th edition.

I have been a big fan of the LP guides, up to now. I have used them for more than ten years, with great pleasure. This one takes a snide, critical, wiseguy tone, as if the writer didn't really like China much and thinks you won't either.Guides are supposed to show you how to enjoy a place, not load you down with critical material. A sadly deficient departure from LP's previous level of quality.

In contrast to another reader's review who thinks all travel books should have a positive slant, I enjoyed the frank criticisms - they make me put more trust in the author's recommendations. This has usual tourist information such as places to stay, eat, visit and shop, but also lots of unique info on things such as toilets, spitting and hygiene. I find this book much more useful than the "cookie cutter" travel guides such as Fodors.

I returned from Beijing last week after spending about 2 weeks in the city. I had and used the Lonely Planet Beijing guidebook extensively. It was at least partially wrong about almost everything. Museums, resteraunts, and other things it recommended were closed. Every phone number was wrong. The guidebook lacked useful information about how to get places, how to orient self, and hours of an establishment. Also, the guidebook was judgmental. I think it is the worst guidebook I've ever used.

An excellent resource for getting around in Beijing. Perfect for visiting tourist sites such as Forbidden City and numerous other parks. The maps included are great. The pricing information is slightly out of date. China no longer uses duel pricing for foreign tourists.

I think the other raters have been vastly overcritical in their assessments of this book. True, the tone of the book is somewhat cynical, but I found it nonetheless to be invaluable in a solo two-week trip to China in June. Robert Storey is very knowledgeable on China, Beijing in particular, and I found most of what was written to be quite accurate. I had two problems with the book. First, the book (at least the version I received) was outdated. It's hard to blame the publisher though, given the rate of change in the city. Second, the maps in the book are pretty bad. Make sure you get a better map to supplement what's in the middle of the book. In fact, ignore the maps altogether.

Many of the things that I tried to do in Beijing failed because the book was inaccurate. Because there has been a lot of construction and renovation in the city since this book was published in January 2001, Lonely Planet's Beijing is already out of date.

As a fan of LP I was very dissapointed in this book. It seems like the person who wrote this book has been living in China for a while and is not particularly interested in seeing the sites around town. There were plenty of places to eat, stay and party, but not a lot about the amazing things to see in Beijing.
For examply it had good instructions on how to get to the summer palace, but no info on what you were looking at once you were there, compared to Egypt guide (for example) where you could happily wander around a temple and happily feel that you don't need a tour guide to tell you anything, the Beijing guide had a paragraph or two saying this building and that building are nice.
Also very dissapointing was the history section, As the capital city of a coutry with so much history, old and new, I think that it deserved more than 3 pages.

I found the 2000 version of this guide to be indispensable on a recent trip.

Beijing is a city with an incredible amount of things to do and thanks to this guide I was able to get around with ease. The information on attractions was accurate and detailed. For instance it tells you exactly which window sells Forbidden City admission tickets, the exact corner where you can catch a bus to the Badaling Great Wall etc... In addition it had some great recommendations such as the Lao She Tea House.

The maps in this guide were not very detailed but were adequate as long as you stuck to the major streets and attractions. One thing the maps have going for them is that major street and places of interest are labeled with Chinese characters, making communication with Taxi drivers a lot easier.

The description of the airport shuttle bus routes is confusing - it could have been so much easier had they drawn the bus route on the map.

The restaurant recommendations are lame and inaccurate and a couple of the hotels that it mentions were already out of business.

Despite some shortcoming, I would rate it as one of the better LP guides that I have used.