Lonely Planet China [Paperback]

Caroline Liou (Author), Marie Cambon (Author), Alexander English (Author), Thomas Huhti (Author), Korina Miller (Author), Bradley Wong (Author)

Book Description

Series: Lonely Planet China | Publication Date: October 30, 2000

More than 220 detailed maps with keys in English and Chinese script. Easy-to-use, wide-ranging Mandarin language section. Places to stay and eat, each with pinyin pronunciation. Practical travel advice, tips and warnings. Comprehensive coverage of Hong Kong, Macau, Tibet and inner Mongolia.

Product Details

• Paperback: 1088 pages
• Publisher: Lonely Planet; 7th edition (October 30, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0864427557
• ISBN-13: 978-0864427557
• Product Dimensions: 7 x 4.9 x 1.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,084,401 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

45 of 46 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Necessary but unsatisfactory, March 20, 2001

By 

Timothy Lamb (Glendale, AZ United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Lonely Planet China (Paperback)

The lonely planet China guides, for the two years that I taught in China, were indispensable for its general information about places that do not disappear overnight, e.g., train stations, large hotels and hostels. It is relatively useful in physically orienting yourself with cities and the larger tourist destinations. If you want a more informative guide on the history of places that you visit, I would suggest the Rough Guide. General information on what to expect when traveling in china is also useful however some of this is outdated as well.

Outside of this, the Lonely Planet essentially provides you with a tour of China without being on a tour. Everyone and their Grandmother that has a backpack will have this book. Do not expect to find little known attractions with this book, as when a site shows up here, it immediately becomes an overnight success. This is particularly true of all of the restaurant listings and entertainment venues as many of them actually vie to be mentioned in this book. I have also seen many a decent restaurant ruined by callous and hastey remarks.

I have good reason to believe that the Lonely Planet does not verify all that they publish from one edition to the next. While I lived in Chengdu, a new edition came out and listed several restaurants and bars that had been closed for over a year and a half- more than ample time for the Lonely Planet to verify their existence.

With all of this said, no other guidebook remotely comes close to matching the utility of the Lonely Planet. Its an essential point of departure, that I would recommend augmenting with other resources, to discovering your own adventures in China.

64 of 68 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Needs massive overhaul - 3 1/2 stars, April 27, 2001

By 

Renee Thorpe (Karangasem, Bali) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Lonely Planet China (Paperback)

Just got back from China and used the latest edition as guide. That's all it is... a guide. Tries to be your "insider" pal but fails on several fronts. China's too darn big and changing too fast for any publisher to dare think a single "China" volume is sufficient. I mean, would you trust a single "USA" guidebook? Of course not, even if it's as thick as a phone book (and this ungainly little brick is just that).

Many wonderful sights/attractions/wonders are not even mentioned... Did editor decide to excise them, or do researchers look only so far?? I, for one, would have liked to see more attractions mentioned. But if the LP people are going to keep up the chatty little comments with every such entry (a Lonely Planet hallmark), they will have to break up "China" into many volumes. For example, book does not even show on Wuhan map the fascinating, large Taoist temple there... cutting the chit-chat about Mao's Villa there (worth visiting but the text on it is useless) could have made room. But if they want to keep the cute comments (surfing buddhas on a temple wall in Kunming, overrated herbalist in Lijiang, Europe in miniature in Chengdu), they are going to have to break the book up into at least three volumes.

Restaurant reviews could be chopped in half, that's for sure. They are boring, outdated, sometimes wholly erroneous. Phone numbers have always been a joke in LP editions for any country I have used ...I own some seventeen LP's... but these numbers were wholly useless to me on my recent trip.

As other reviewers note, it is necessary to concede that China is always changing, and with growing speed. Perhaps LP just can't send their researchers out fast enough. But there are enough expats living in Chinese cities to be tapped for updates. Incidentally, expats are a great resource for any traveller... already Shanghai and Beijing have weekly "what's on" style tabloids in English that are very helpful to the visitor. Anyway, on the expat account alone, generally clever LP editors really have little excuse for not having a finger on China's latest and greatest.

What's good about Lonely Planet China?? Liberal use of Chinese characters and Pinyin romanization, for one thing. Made it super easy to communicate with taxi drivers. The Orientation section for each city is excellent... three paragraphs to prepare you for the layout and characteristics of the city. History section is good, too. I truly love the off-the-beaten path viewpoint that makes Lonely Planet so much fun... so I hope future editions retain this, while getting on the ball with useful / necessary details.

Using this book, traveller / reader will get a generally good trip, but will be led astray / waste time more than once by old info (where to catch bus to Buddha, where to find Muslim food, etc), and from incomplete phone numbers.

35 of 37 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars There are better guides, November 22, 2001

By 

Patrick Jennings (British Columbia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Lonely Planet China (Paperback)

China continues to change at a hair-raising pace so I can almost forgive the fact that Lonely Planet can't seem to keep up. Except that it should be able to catch up after three editions yet somehow manages to lag behind even that schedule.

I can't forgive at all the snarky attitude of its writers who seem to operate on the principle, "if you don't have anything nice to say, try at least to make it sound witty and superior." The result is usually smug cynicism, which is an unattractive attitude in a traveller, and all the more trying when all you really want to do is find the hotel after 36 hours in hard class. Sometimes I get the feeling these guys don't really like to travel...

Rather than simply being obsolete, or imprecise as another reviewer notes, Lonely Planet is often simply inaccurate. How do they do it? I'm not sure. I've had reports that the underpaid and tightly itineraried writers can't always complete their assignments and sometimes rely on second-hand information from other travellers. I've met a German guidebook writer (not lonely planet) who admitted she'd done the same, so it's not all that far-fetched.

China can be a frustrating country for budget travellers, particularly those with no other option than train or bus on long journeys. Not much english is spoken, even in the major cities and the whole country appears to operate under alien premises. (These happen to be two of the best reasons to travel there.) However, outdated, imprecise and inaccurate guidebooks just exacerbate the potential frustrations.

There are better guidebooks. Consider titles in the Cadogan Guide series, particularly "China: The Silk Routes" by Peter Neville-Hadley. Read the editorial and customer reviews on its Amazon page, which are bang on.

Oh, by the way, I took one star off for inaccuracy and two for being unpleasant. China's a tough assignment but it's no reason to get nasty.