Customer Reviews

Lonely Planet Boston Encounter

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

 

 

The LP Boston guide is fine. It's encyclopedic in nature with all the detail you'll ever need ... and more. Everything in it is accurate and quite interesting, and the restaurant suggestions are all quite good. It's clearly written by people who know and love the city. But, and here's the reason for my 3-star rating, I find it a bit overwhelming and without a sense of prioritization. If you know the city already, hey, the extra stuff is a bonus. But if you're visiting and not intending on becoming a scholar on Beantown, I'm not sure you need everything in this book. And it's hard to sift through what you need to know and what you don't. So bottom line: if you are looking for more of a reference-type guide book on Boston, this one's for you. If you're looking for a single-volume I'm-going-to-take-it-with-me-everywhere book to bring while visiting Boston, I'd look at Frommer's or Michelin first.

This is the Encounter version of Lonely Planet, which means much less content and much more photos and other stuff that you don't really need. On the other hand lots of useful stuff that is usually part of the regular Lonely Planet are missing, so I'd buy the regular version instead!

My qualifications to review: I've been to 24 countries and have a LP for each... plus, the city LPs. It's rare to have a bad LP. (Like, for instance, LP:Tokyo sucked. The author was def somebody's niece who was a wanna-be writer!) And this is yet another winner! Lovin' the Lonely!!! It even has an Itinerary Builder that is basically a graph. It lists the 'hoods, then 3 of the best sights, eating, and drinking in each 'hood. Never seen LP do that before but it's great!

I went to Boston in the middle of winter over the long-weekend. Without this book, I would have probably been lost and much colder than I was. This book covered the things I looked at and much more... and has given me the chance to think about going back to Boston in the summer or fall.

The details on the hotels, the areas, the closest metro stations and the Boston in X days features are common to Lonely Planet books and are very useful.

This guide is great as an overview to this fabulous city and accurancy for the more permanent tourist attractions (Freedom Trail, for instance!) is good - but several restaurants have already shut down/changed names/management so be wary of those reviews.

Every time I travel, I have purchased Lonely Planet Travel guides. They offer accurate and "real time" facts about the place you're visiting, as well as the most complete information in comparison to other travel guides. The best travel companion.

Bought this guide because the reviews were good. We are taking the train across the country to Boston in September, and I think this guide will come in very handy (won't know till we get there), but it's loaded with great information. Thanks.

This book is more than sufficient guide to Boston, especially if you like to visit cities in the north-east over the weekend. I have been a fan of the lonely planet-encounter series since I traveled to Madrid and Barcelona a couple of years back. Highly recommend this book.