Customer Reviews

Lonely Planet Buenos Aires (City Guide)

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

I am an American studying abroad in Buenos Aires and I wanted to advise anyone who is considering buying this book to save their money. I had been using the Time Out guide in the city, which is infinitely better, but I brought this guide on a trip to Colonia and Montevideo because it had much more information. As it turned out, nothing the guide recommended for Montevideo was true or even open. It listed two vegetarian restaurants, one with three locations throughout the city. I spent the better part of a day walking around the city only to find that not a single one of those four was still in existence. I then found a Lebanese restaurant in the guide and walked there, only to find that it wasn't open either. I thought maybe some shopping would improve my mood... but few of the places listed still exist. We couldn't find the reccomended Baar Fun Fun or the Cafe Brasilero. At this point, I tossed the guidebook in the nearest trashcan. At least for Buenos Aires and Uruguay, its much wiser to stick with time out.

The three positive points to this map are that it is sturdy, waterproof, and colourful. For practical use it is difficult to use. You are constantly flipping the pages to find out which section you are looking for, and often the street you are looking for lies exactly in the part they decided to cut-off. I find it is not comprehensive enough, and think it would only be good if you were touring for one day in the touristy places. It's not really a map to get around the entire city with.

Anyone considering buying this book should be aware that the publisher and authors have gotten in trouble with the Argentine and Brazilian governments for suggesting that foreigners could cross the border from Argentina to Brazil at Iguazú falls by using false identification (see p. 157). Anyone attempting to do this might well end up in a Brazilian or Argentine jail in an area where smuggling of drugs, guns and people is epidemic. Visitors should always get the appropriate Brazilian visa.
The rest of the book, while not so bad as this, is awkwardly written, though this could partly be an editing problem--in one instance, there is a curious statement that appears to state that the Buenos Aires subway has been demolished (p. 84).

The book was written before the peso devaluation and subsequent crisis and is utterly useless unless you need a paperweight. This 3rd Edition is dated March 2002, and all hotel and restaurant pricing is from pre-devaluation. I spent November 2004 in Buenoes Aires and am headed back January 19, 2005. Buy Time Out Buenos Aires instead: Second Edition 2004. It is perfect!

I used this book right after it was published when it was already out of date in some regards. A lot of the book was interesting and helpful but you have no way of knowing which parts before you get there. The issue with the book is that somebody didn't spend enough time doing their homework.

Make sure you get a good guide for Buenos Aires. This city is too big for almost anybody to know in the way most people know their cities. It's also the city of condos, cafes and art. There is something to do and see without end. You can waste time looking for something that's not there, and things change quickly so you need a very recent guide.

The neighborhood maps in the book were helpful but there were also many unhelpful elements in the book. I found it wasn't realistic to use many restaurants suggested as they weren't the best places nor had the best food, but rather tended to be oversold to tourists. A genuine effort would not list tourist traps when there are so many spectacular venues. The book seemed like a form of advertising.

I took the ferry to Montevideo and recommend it. However, this book set me back in terms of wrong information on Montevideo.

Although the maps were helpful, much of this book seemed outdated. Addresses were wrong, business gone and reviews questionable.

This book is limited. It contains only basic information about Buenos Aires and leaves out plenty of interesting facts. For example, the Feria de Mataderos is not even mentioned once in the book and that is definitely worth seeing. The book contains a lot of photos, but I could care less about that. It seems like the boring postcard photos were simply stuck in the book to take up space and provide a superficial, worthless gloss (perhaps to up the price).

I expected much better quality from Lonely Planet. I bought this book because it was a Lonely Planet guide and I had been happy with these guides in the past. However, after this book, I have negatively changed my opinion of Lonely Planet. I will NEVER again buy another Lonely Planet book without looking at it first in-person.

This book is a total disappointment. For shame, Lonely Planet!

I have mixed feelings about this guidebook.

The Best:

1. Its walks are very good because they cover most "barrios" in Buenos Aires except "La Boca" and other less known ones. They give you a very good idea about how long to stay in BA considering your traveling interests. They include the length in terms of time and distance and there are suggestions of places where to have a snack break.

2. Every "barrio" features a map and a history & current situation introduction that it's very informative. I've checked other guidebooks and Lonely Planet's BA seems to be the best one in this sense. The chapter about general history & culture at the beginning of ther guidebook is also quite good.

The Worst:

1. Some sights are mentioned in the "best of", some in the "introduction" and some in the "self guided walking tour". This means I keep going back and forth from chapter to chapter whenever I want to read about a certain "barrio". In fact, some landmarks are not even mentioned in any of the above but in the "architecture" chapter.

2. Some landmarks receive just a few words; while hotels, restaurants, nightclubs, shops and bars receive a good paragraph. Is this guidebook about eating, drinking, dancing & shopping or sightseeing in BA? Sightseeing should have been the priority, but HALF THE BOOK is about neverending recommendations for eating, drinking, dancing & shopping.

All in all, while the history & culture chapter of this guidebook is good enough, I usually prefer National Geographic city guides because they focus more on culture and sightseeing rather than eating, drinking, dancing & shopping. DK's Top 10 guidebooks are very easy to use although they are more like brochures. Anyhow, I had to settle with Lonely Planet, which, to be honest, I've never liked that much because of their priorities when releasing guidebooks.

I bought this guide two months before my travel to Buenos Aires. I studied it and marked all interesting places in the city. Later in the Hotel I asked for a map (It was free)and marked all the interesting places.

The guide shows wonderfull places to go, beautifull monuments, good restaurants and coffee shops.

Don?t pay attention to prices in the guide, devaluation has changed everthing, You must know 1 US Dollar is equivalent to 3 or 3 Pesos. Also you can change Brasilian Reales, Euros, and Pounds. Example A Water Bottle is worth about 1.20 Pesos, a gooood and juicy Steak is worth 16 pesos. A Taxi is worth about 6 or 10 pesos. The guide say you could spent almost 60 US $ Day, I think it?s abou 45 US $ day.

Try central hotels, near "Teatro Colon" or Galerias Pacifico Shoping Center.

Conclusion: It?s a nice guide, but you will need better maps.

OK, Buenos Aires is a spanish speaking city; but when every other word of a sentence in this book is full of spanish, it makes the book very very hard to read!!!! "Facts about Buenos Aires" is nothing but that, a list of useless facts emblished with unnecessary adjatives: "...something that differentiates Buenos Aires' people from their North American or European cousins - a striving melancholy and a desire for something greater." HM??? What we travelers want is an easy to read book, not a trash compactor, TOO much information one after another in a paragraph with vague english + foreign words is a waste. The few pictures in this book don't do justice to the city, take a look at any "paris" book out there, your response is usually "WOW, I would like to go there." after reading this book, it's like "hm... why do I want to go there?" Choose a different book; don't waste your time and money.