Lonely Planet China (Country Guide) [Paperback]

Damian Harper (Author), Daniel McCrohan (Author)

Book Description

Series: Country Guide | Publication Date: May 1, 2007

Discover China

Walk the watchtowers at Badaling, where President Nixon once said, 'this is a great wall.'
Knock back a shot of Confucius baijiu firewater in Qufu, hometown of the sage.
Find out how a local farmer first uncovered the Army of Terracotta Warriors.
Perfect your Monkey Offers Peach strike at Wudang Shan, birthplace of taichi.

In This Guide:

12 authors and 483 days of in-country research
Special coverage of pristine Ming and Qing dynasty villages for the first time in English
Content updated daily - visit lonelyplanet.com for up-to-the-minute reviews, updates and traveler insights

Editorial Reviews

Review

For sheer global reach and dogged research, attention must be paid to Lonely Planet…' --Los Angeles Times, February 2, 2003

From the Publisher

Who We Are
At Lonely Planet, we see our job as inspiring and enabling travellers to connect with the world for their own benefit and for the benefit of the world at large.

What We Do
* We offer travellers the world's richest travel advice, informed by the collective wisdom of over 350 Lonely Planet authors living in 37 countries and fluent in 70 languages.
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* We tell it like it is without fear or favor in service of the travellers; not clouded by any other motive.

What We Believe
We believe that travel leads to a deeper cultural understanding and compassion and therefore a better world.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 1028 pages
• Publisher: Lonely Planet; 10th edition (May 1, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1740599152
• ISBN-13: 978-1740599153
• Product Dimensions: 7.7 x 5.1 x 1.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 2.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (37 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #675,259 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

69 of 76 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Good for package tourists; not for exploration, March 5, 2004

By 

Tom Reynolds (Wuhan, China) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Lonely Planet China (Paperback)

They say that everything you hear about China is true somewhere. Everything you read in LP China may also be true somewhere but unfortunately not always where you are. Originally published in August 2002 this book is well past its prime. It is still superior to the Rough Guide but could use a serious update. Speaking of which the overleaf promises guidebook upgrades on the Internet but they discontinued this in favour of user discussion.

Pricing - the cost of tea in China, you say? Like most things in China, prices are in constant flux and I question the value of including them. They are more misleading than helpful. Tourist attractions will generally be higher than what the book says but other prices will be close.

Locations - I live in the city of Wuhan and in the last two year it has undergone tremendous changes. There is simply no way for a printed book to keep up with them. For example, in the last six months the bus routes in WuChang have changed four times.

If you are going to travel around China be flexible! Expect that nothing in the guidebook will be where you expected. Expect to bargain for everything, hotel prices included. Remember that any guide book is only a starting place. As I have travelled around southern China I have used this book as a starting point and then asked the locals what they would do. Most have never been to the "tourist sites" but can show you a great street restaurant just around the corner.

This book is great for those thinking of going to China but who will never make the trip, or for those who are going on a package trip to fourteen cities in eight days. For those who want to explore China on their own I would advise caution.

31 of 33 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A good review of LP., November 23, 2004

By 

J. Shaw (Australia) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Lonely Planet China (Paperback)

I arrived home from China 2 weeks ago after being there for 2 weeks. I visited the most amazing places, and yes, I took the most recent LP with me. Alot of reviewers here have stated the lack of important information in this publication, however, I found this book to be valuble on my journey. China is a tough place to travel, English isnt spoken in most places and the general public (outside of those who deal with tourists often) are not a particularly friendly bunch to westerners. In reading this guide, you must take into account that it ISNT a tour guide, it is simply a reference to sites and popular places. I found the Chinese text to be very helpful when using taxi's. China is an ever changing place, and if you have ever been there, you will know how vast it really is. A mecca of laneways and confusing streets. LP was an invaluble read for me and I would recommend this guide for those who are imbarking on thier first trip to this wonderful place.
As a well travelled person, I have used LP many times in different places, I think some people forget to step outside the book and just find things on their own will...

37 of 41 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Use With Caution!, November 8, 2007

By 

A Reader (Seattle) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Lonely Planet China (Country Guide) (Paperback)

It is confusing that many of the reviews here are for the National Geographic Traveler China book, by the same author as the Lonely Planet book. The National Geographic book has lots of pictures and is a good "idea" book. The Lonely Planet is geared to the independent traveler, with much more specific information about how to get around. This review is for the Lonely Planet.

My husband and I have successfully used Lonely Planet books on many other trips, but we were disappointed in the China book. Obviously China is a huge country, and it is changing very quickly, so we were not surprised to find that many places no longer exist and that some of the information was out-of-date. But we WERE surprised at the amount of blatantly wrong information. For example, the section on Jade Dragon Snow Mountain near Lijiang was so mixed-up that we ended up spending the day at the wrong hiking area.

In most countries it would be fairly easy to double-check the accuracy of a description by asking a hotel concierge or taxi driver. In China, though, we often had problems communicating, so we relied much more heavily on our guidebooks.

The book is huge, but it didn't need to be quite so big. Many of the descriptions are excessively wordy, and sometimes it seemed like the author was more interested in writing a clever review than clearly giving the facts.

The best thing about the book is that names of places and most streets are written in Chinese. It was incredibly helpful to be able to point to the place we wanted to go. We found that our accents and pronunciations were so bad when we tried to read pinyin that most people didn't even realize we were trying to speak Chinese to them.

We looked through other guidebooks at some of our guest houses, and unfortunately none seemed to be much better.