Lonely Planet Madagascar & Comoros [Paperback]

Gemma Pitcher (Author), Patricia Wright (Author)

Book Description

Series: Lonely Planet Madagascar & Comoros | Publication Date: August 2004

Madagascar is the world's fourth largest island, and Comoros boasts unique blue pigeons and rare black parrots. Paul Greenway provides travellers with all the information they'll need when visiting this destination.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Nobody covers the world like Lonely Planet.' --New York Post, May 2004
--This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

From the Publisher

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

What We Do
* We offer travelers 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.
* We are relentless in finding the special, the unique and the different for travellers wherever they are.
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* We tell it like it is without fear or favor in service of the travelers; 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. --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Paperback: 272 pages
• Publisher: Lonely Planet Publications; 5 edition (August 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1741041007
• ISBN-13: 978-1741041002
• Product Dimensions: 7.7 x 5 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,683,636 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #24 in Books > Travel > Africa > Madagascar & Comoros

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars AWFUL: Shallow, carelessly-compiled and full of inaccuracies!, December 13, 2008

By 

Laszlo Wagner (Hungary) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Lonely Planet Madagascar & Comoros (Lonely Planet Madagascar) (Multi Country Travel Guide) (Paperback)

I am writing this review after having been unfortunate enough to have to travel with this book in Madagascar for 2 months.

It must be one of the very worst Lonely Planet guides ever.
It is a result of several personal disasters: the original author died while writing it, leaving the publisher to fly in another author with zero experience to finsish the book. And that one broke her leg upon arrival, proudly announcing she had researched the title on one leg!
Well, that one leg certainly did not take her very far.

To start with, the book only covers the most superficial overview of the country. It lacks any real insight into the culture and history, and even the coverage of sights is so limited that I found more info on things to see in the local tourist office publications!

Now for the practical info, which is what most people buy Lonely Planet guides for.
This is even worse!
The maps are awful. Even the simple walking tour map of the capital has streets and attractions misplaced on it, making it obvious the author has never walked it on that one leg.
Hotel recommendations? I have very soon given up even reading them! For the budget category, the recommendations are totally useless, with much better value options readily found by simply looking or asking around. For the higher end, I often found that hotels described as the best in town were now ages old, run-down and certainly not the best in twon for at least a decade!
Transport? Now this is where sheer laziness and carelessness is most obvious! More often than not, totally different (as much as 10 times!) fares are given for the very same journey depending on at which of the 2 towns it starts/ends in you look up in this book. The very same road may be described as excellent (correct) from the north, but as awful (outdated info) from the south. In fact I am very surprised that LP's usually very strict editors failed to pick all these errors!

And I could go on endlessly...
But in short, if you are going to Madagascar, whether on an organized tour or as a backpacker, you should definitely avoid wasting your money on this book! Its sole English-language competition the Bradt Guide to Madagascar, is far more informative and accurate. In fact this is not much of a secret any more. Unusually for any country, I saw hardly anyone else in Madagascar travelling with Lonely Planet, with almost everyone using Bradt.

This book should never have left the publisher.
The only reason I gave it 2 stars is that if you simply can not get hold of the Bradt guide (as I could not in Asia) this one still gives you the most basic ideas about what to see and how to get around the country.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Stick with the Bradt guide, November 13, 2006

By 

bigbrownboy (Seattle, WA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Lonely Planet Madagascar & Comoros (Paperback)

I don't regret buying this because there aren't too many guides to Madagascar. But there is simply no personality to this book. If you are looking for some names/addresses, this would suffice. Otherwise, the Bradt guide blows this Lonely Planet guide away.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars A bit outdated, January 7, 2007

By 

Menjoe & Keflien - See all my reviews

This review is from: Lonely Planet Madagascar & Comoros (Paperback)

We used this guide, along with 2 other guides of Madagascar and we found this guide to be the least valuable of the 3 (a bit outdated, not into depth)