Customer Reviews

Lonely Planet Guatemala

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

 

 

I have travelled to Guatemala, Belize and Honduras several times over the last 4 years. I met Conner at a friend's office in Guatemala City while she was researching and writing this book. My husband and I had a fantastic time visiting with Conner and sharing travel stories. I see from some of the other comments that readers felt that the book was rushed and not well researched. I know for a fact that Conner had lost valuable notes on the highlands while in another part of the country and was going back thru the highlands to rebuild her notes. I'm not surprised that this section is not complete. Additionally, I met Conner the day after the WTA Riots in Seattle, Washington. That was in December 1999. Things can change quickly in some areas of Guatemala. Other others don't ever change. Depending on the government. She did tell us of her harrowing hike to El Mirador. In general, when I reviewed the book, I found information to be OK.

However, I have found over the years we've travelled that the Rough Guide is more accurate. We have also met the writer for the Rough Guide, Peter Eltringham while travelling in Belize. Peter has a wealth of information and is brutally honest about what to expect. Especially if you want bus schedules, travel times for busses, dangerous areas. The Rough Guide makes sure that travel advisories are noted. For instance, the danger around the Lake Atitlan area for tourists. I've also found that the Rough Guide is considerable more accurate with regard to price ranges for accomodations. The maps that are included are also very good.

For those of you who have never travelled to Guatemala. It is a beautiful country. The people are poor but friendly. Just like travelling anywhere -- don't leave your better judgment at home. If it looks like a rough area, it probably is. We never travel at night. We always check with out local host/hostess at whatever accomodations that we are staying at for information about the area -- crime, areas to stay away from etc.

That said -- I've camped in the jungles at Mayan ruins. I've hiked into Salpeten. I've taken a pickup truck from Copan to the border of Guatemala, then the chicken bus to Chiquimula and then a bus to Guatemla City and to Antigua in one day. I've travelled overland from Belize City to Flores more times than I can remember. I'm looking forward to spending more time at Lake Atitlan, probably in Santa Cruz or San Marcos. Also, looking forward to Rio Dulce and Coban.

If you've never travelled independently before, I'd say get both books. The Lonely Planet and the Rough Guide. Both writers are experienced travellers. If you get hooked on travelling independently (that is no formal guide service) -- you'll start to develop your own resources.

I have been buying and recommending Lonely Planet guides on Latin America for 25 years. They have been indispensible for the budget traveler. I know I have saved probably thousands of dollars. I have pushed the books on many places on the internet including my own web sites and on Lonely Planet. Why? Love the layout. They are particularly good for someone arriving in new city who needs to get quickly and safely from their transport to hotel. The maps are generally accurate. LP editors have kept a consistency of design across the different books. The reader who is used to one will find using the others easy.

I also like the LP guarantee of integrity where LP authors do not accept free rooms, meals, etc. from places they review. I know the travel industry and this is not a universal practice.

Of all the countries in Latin America, Guatemala is my favorite. If you can only visit one, that's the place to go. I am saddened by what has happened to the latest volume. The other reviews here and on other sites point out omissions and places where the author has not updated widely known facts. That could be excused if taken in an isolated form. Anyone reading a guidebook must wonder how they check out all the places that are reviewed. But what concerns me the most is an apparent relaxing in Lonely Planet's standards of journalistic integrity. Until a short time ago, the author was the editor of a magazine and web site based in Xela, Guatemala called Xela Who. The magazine was a free publication that supported itself on the sale of advertisments, as did the web site. This is a direct conflict of interest. How can the author justify a review of an establishment that he sells advertising too? The author was directly involved in selling advertising. Any tourist related firm in Guatemala who receives a good LP review is bound to see it's business grow. How can they say no to someone trying to sell them ads in this situation? In a recent issue of Xela Who, the author, Lucas Vigden, was interviewed by a staff member as the author of the new Lonely Planet Guatemala. Never during this interview was it stated that Lucas was also the editor of the magazine. Numerous other readers and myself have contacted Lonely Planet and it's new corporate owner, the BBC about this situation. After several months there has still been no response.

Were this an isolated incident, in a vast publishing empire, one could expect Lonely Planet to reply and suggest a remedy. However, on a recent followup, the new LP Panama published a glowing review of a hostel. This place came in highly rated with the author proclaiming it their favorite. Reviews like that can double or triple an establishment's business. The problem: the hostel never opened. A Lonely Planet editor put it all off to an editing problem. One does not accidently write a glowing review of a non-existent at the time establishment unless some major conflict of interest is taking place. A concern amongst many long time LP readers is that now that the BBC, with it's well known journalistic bias, is in charge many LP authors will feel that since a concept such as integrity isn't maintained by BBC reporters, they won't have to either.

Let me start by saying that it is very difficult to keep up with the changing situations in Central America. However, Lonely Planet has chosen to flood the market with their books, which look to be hastily written and contain some glaring errors, such as identifying Agua Volcano as Fuego. Another suggests that there is a bus from Panajachel to San Antonio Polopo. This is not the case, you either have to go by private taxi or a "colectivo" (basically a pickup truck). Some of the ruins in Antigua have also been mididentified. I would suggest that they go back and do some personal research, Guatemala is a fantastic place to visit, I know, I've spent at least a month in the "Land of Eternal Spring" every year for the last 6. It's the best kept secret in Latin America.

I bought this book and Moon Guatemala (Moon Handbooks) (they came out at the same time) and decided to write reviews for both. Unlike the Moon guide, I found Lonely Planet's Guatemala guide extremely disappointing. I expected much more from a resident author.

Where do I begin? For starters, you'll see the tourist hordes in Guatemala sporting this book and the previous edition of LP all over the place. It's like standard issue for people who haven't the ability to discern quality or think for themselves. You can be sure that if your hotel, restaurant or language school is in this guidebook it will be packed with the Lonely Planet sheep going along for the ride. Strangely, the author acknowledges this phenomenon in a sidebar and encourages travelers to seek out new places on their own. Speaking of sidebars, these are mostly a series of superficial interviews with local people; a nice idea in theory but not very well executed. I think the most helpful sidebars tend to expand upon material covered in the main text, which this book does not do very well.

The book also doesn't go into nearly as much depth as some of the other guides in terms of helpful background info, history and the like. Worthwhile destinations covered over several pages in some of the other guidebooks are often glossed over in a one-page summary here. It's like the abbreviated version of everything. In this regard, I think both Rough Guide and Moon do a much better job of giving travelers all the information they'll need. I also noticed that it seems very little updated from the previous edition. I'd say about 75% of the material already exists in the previous edition, sometimes verbatim, though they are different authors. Finally, the writing isn't the greatest. It might be nit-picking, but it was seriously hard to read the poor writing sometimes and you won't find yourself wanting to read this book from first page to last.

These are just a few issues off the top of my head. I know some well-heeled Guatemala travelers and residents who absolutely hate this guidebook and could probably do a much better job of pointing out its specific flaws. But if you're just along for the ride then by all means be my guest, though I'd at least consider a back-up plan. You'll thank me later.

Consider Moon Guatemala (Moon Handbooks), which I gave 5 stars. Rough Guide The Rough Guide to Guatemala 3 (Rough Guide Travel Guides) is also OK as a back-up.

I used this guide for a three month trip to Guatemala June-September 2001, during which time I spent six weeks in Antigua improving my Spanish at the Sevilla school and another six weeks travelling through the Western Highlands, El Petén and a quick trip into Honduras to the island of Utila.

Generally Antigua was covered adequately, though many things are already out of date as there have been many changes. Judging by the listings this guide was researched a long time ago, as according to my Spanish teacher many of the restaurants and bars recommended had been closed for several years. Also in this section the book mistakenly labels "Volcano Agua" as "Volcano Fuego". As this peak (Agua) is directly to the south of the town, and every language student uses it as a landmark, this is a pretty fundamental error. Not the most promising start, for a budding volcano-climber like myself - I ended up taking a volcano tour (around $6) rather than risk it.

Things didn't improve much in Lago de Atitlan, where I also studied for week. There are now five Spanish schools in San Pedro, though the book only mentions one. Also the book seems to have a rather naive, hippy-dippy sensibility towards the nature of the village, talking about "being greeted by the sweet waft of marijuana" and so on. Yes, San Pedro has a dope-smoking scene, but several travellers were being busted (some set up) for a joint or two while I was there, and there was also a (un) healthy cocaine (including crack) "scene". The LP seemed be blissfully ignorant of all this, locked in some sixties nostalgia timewarp. There are also serious social problems, gangs and abject poverty in San Pedro. Travellers are being mugged on a very regular basis on the volcano. A warning wouldn't have gone amiss.

In Peten, the LP covers Flores and Tikal reasonably, with accurate maps. There's no real coverage of the more remote sites however, the author dismisses the hike to Mirador as a five day hell-hike, while Yaxhá, Piedras Negras, Cancuén and many other sites are not even mentioned or barely touched.

In the east of the country, the Jungle route to Honduras that the author describes has no longer been necessary since 1998, when a new bridge was built over the river Montagua that divides the countries (which the guidebook spells "Monagua" on its cover...).

So overall, I have to say I was pretty disappointed with the guide, which for such a recent edition should have been better researched. I did find myself casting an eye over Rough Guide and Footprint readers' guidebooks when I could. This guide needs to be sorted out.

Tom

It looks like the new author of this November 2010 guide did his homework AND actually visited Guatemala and my favorite region, Petén. It looks like LP has come back to producing a useful updated guide for Guatemala. In looking at that area, it looks like the book I want with me when I return.

There are some small things: In Flores I would not recommend Los Peches as a place to eat unless a person has a lot of time to kill, and it only advertises opening early, so I have never had breakfast there. The info about getting to Carmelita is partly wrong, but that will not affect many people. The buses leave Santa Elena for Carmelita (AKA Carmela) from the market, not the bus station. I happened to find that out, because I showed up very early for the 1 PM bus and spotted the bus and driver, who was there only to drop off paperwork. I rode around with him, while he gassed up and ran some errands and then he headed straight to the market, where people swarmed in.

There were 2 buses continuing onward through Tikal to Uaxactún in 2007. Perhaps, that has changed and they have dropped the 1 PM from Santa Elena and moved the 3PM to 2, but I doubt it. By taking the 1 PM that came through Tikal at 3 PM, we were able to order our dinners at El Chiclero and head up the hill to see one section before dark.

People should disregard older reviews. This book is a much better update than previous ones.

While the other reviewers clearly know more about Guatemala than I ever will, I found this book much more helpful than the Rough Guide. The maps were easier to read, and the hotel places had prices, which was very helpful to me...

I have used many different guidebooks in my travels and have never come across a more basic, substance-less work. Is the author actually contributing to the growth of this country with his job in Xela...or just hanging around the country like the bum, pothead travelers in San Pedro. Take this guide off the shelves and promise us better in the future. No Stars.

I just returned from my second trip to Guatemala. The first time I went to visit my wife's family. This time we went to see her family, but I also wanted achance to see the beautiful tourist attractions and experience more of Guatemala's wide spectrum of history and culture. It is interesting that for a rather small country, Guatemala has a fair amount of diversity in terms of culture and geography. Antigua Guatemala has qualities of Spanish colonialism. Coban is a mountain city with a cold and raw climate and German architecture: a remnant of what was once a German settlement. Livingston is tropical and Carribean in feel and it has a predominant African population. Indeed, in Livingston, one can almost make believe one is in Jamaica instead of Guatemala. Sayaxche is a swelteringly hot little town in the Peten region. All throughout the country are beautiful lakes and green mountains. The people are interesting and amiable, although most of them the area is quite obviously poverty-stricken. Also, the ruins are spectacular, especially Tikal.

I found the book be very helpful in giving me just enough guidance into exploring my way around Guatemala, especially in the the historical and cultural background information that was provided. The author does preface the book, however, by saying that the most interesting things that one might might not even be mentioned in the book. It is not meant to give one a complete step-by-step itinerary, but rather to provide one with a loose framework of what one might do. He leaves much of the journey to your own imagination and I liked that approach of taking to traveling with a fluid rather than a fixed plan.

Even so, there was so much in the book that I have yet to realize. I didn't make it to Lake Atitlan or Quetzaltenango or the Pacific Coast. There was more I wanted to see in Rio Dulce and the Copan ruins just over the border in Hondorus seem to be things that will have to wait until another trip. However, the author of this booked has spiked my sense of curiousity and that is, after all, what travel books are basically for: to make one interested in finding things out for himself or herself.

Two weeks didn't do justice to seeing Guatemala as well as visiting with my wife's family. But there is always next time.

I think this book will be of great use, it was read and re-read many times over before and during my visit.

We spent about two weeks in Guatemala (late Jan. of 2011) and this book was very helpful. It was pretty accurate on prices and had good recommendations for places to stay and eat.