Customer Reviews

Lonely Planet Mexico, 11th Edition

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I have been traveling to Mexico since studying Spanish in Cuernavaca in the mid-1980's. I just purchased this volume to have a more current guide for a trip I am making to Mexico and Guatemala this summer. I was particularly looking at Oaxaca, Cuernavaca, Palenque, and San Cristobal de las Casas. Things I really like about this guide:

1. Pretty good city maps which show bus stations, dining, lodging, banks and places of interest. Unfortunately, at my age I now find it easier to read maps with some type of magnifier, but they are helpful.

2. Not bad recommendations of things to see and do and helpful information about how to get to nearby places of interest.

3. Small tables of bus destinations from major cities giving approximate cost, travel time and some idea of the number of daily departures.

4. Occasional data on such things a local bus rutas for getting around a city -- particularly liked the ruta for getting to the Casino de la Selva bus station in Cuernavaca for picking up a direct bus to the Mexico city airport. I may use a taxi, but it is nice to know how to do it by the city bus.

The descriptions of places I have been look pretty well written and that gives me some confidence that the locations I have not yet visited are equally well-described.

My favorite places in Mexico include Guanajuato, Mexico City, Cuernavaca, Morelia, Patzcuaro, Palenque, San Cristobal de las Casas, Puebla, Guadalajara and environs and Oaxaca. The information for those areas looks solid.

I have many Mexico guidebooks and this one is perhaps the best I have used to date.

I bought this book to read up on whats new in Mexico... i think its a great book. You would be pretty lucky to find a travel book that covers "everything" you like to do and see while traveling. I found most of it to be pretty comical as if Bourdain had a hand in this book. This is one of the better travel books i own. Has everything in it so you can make some pretty good decisions about where your gonna stay, play, and eat. All the great stuff you expect from Lonely Planet in it. A+

Just came back from three weeks in the Western Central Highlands of Mexico. My first impression, what a joy to travel with this guide book. As an experienced budget traveler, I look for the following in guide books (1) detail city maps, (2) budget hotel listings, (3) detail information on getting from the bus station to the interesting part of town. After all, it's easy to arrive in a bus station and hail a cab; it takes a little more effort to take public transportation. This guide gave me the information needed to do this, plus the money saved will easily pay for this book and heighten your travel experience.
I look at this book like a good friend giving me advice on the best places to go and the experiences not to miss. Kudos to the "Highlights" that LP has incorporated into each travel section, it made me read those sections more thoroughly. In conclusion, the writing is fresh and full of emotion along with the accurate travel details listed above made this the best Mexican travel book I've ever used.

this is an excellent over view of mostly mainstream Mexico,with a few off-the-wall eclectic destinations and side trips..all and all an excellent introduction to Mexico travel,but for detail you need some back-up..i.e.,Footprint's Mexico/Central America Handbook and esp. Moon regional guides ,i.e. Northern Mexico and also ,Oaxaca handbooks..much needed are guide books and references for the less developed and wilder south-west Sierra;particularly the Cordillera in Michoacan,Guerrero ,and Chiapas... those interested in this project and or travel to this(or other magic) region[...]

I have not used it for travelling to México yet but the trip planning has been smooth and rewarding. From reading it after a short 5 days visit to Mexico City I would recommend to follow closely this Lonely Planet guide on Mexico to explore the vast universe of the vibrant megalopolis.

I just came back from a trip over the Yucatan peninsula. In general, the choice, description and evaluation of places is good, as in most of the lonely planets. However, the choice of hotels and restaurants, at least in the budget and mid-range section was only helpful in maybe 50% of cases. The other 50% were rather epxensive, no longer existing or just bad tips. Obvious and locally known good places to stay for the night (which are cited in other books) where missing for almost all the towns we went. In general, the prices in the book are completely outdated, in reality everything was more expensive by 20-100%. Over all, it seems that either the tourism industry in Yucatan and Quintana Roo has changed immensly in a very short time period, or this section of the guide has just not been updated for a while...

My book order was processed with haste and delivered well within the estimated time period. Thank you for the excellent service.

Its OK, I guess, but to me a bit dissappointing compared to previous Lonely Planet Guides that I have purchased. You can tell that it was written by different people. Not up to the usual standards as far as reviews of lodgings and night clubs, restaurants, etc. Lonely Planet has changed -and not for the better.

I have about five editions of Lonely Planet Mexico. All previous editions (this is the 11th) were better, if not a lot better. They have quit pricing in dollars, so you have to convert to pesos (admittedly not too hard when the exchange rate hovers at $10M to $1US) for hotels and restaurants. (Forget that travel guides for high inflationary countries are obsolete the day they are distributed.) Worse, they have ceased categorizing hotels as "Budget," "Mid-range" and "Top End," instead using a listing in ascending order of price (no help if the lodgings remodel and go up in price). Worse still, they continue to avoid money saving tips, like staying in San Juan del Rio (which they oimit entirely) when hotels and restaurants in nearby Tequisquiapan are out of sight: the latter caters mostly to rich "Chilangos" (Mexico City people), who go over for a weekend getaway. Some of the comments are downright absurd, e.g. calling Orizaba an industrialized dump, while praising the pricier, relatively boring Cordoba. All in all, this is a B- effort. I am considering taking some other travel guide next trip. In L.P.'s favor, I must admit it still covers small, out of the way spots that are in reality must see's: Rio Atoyac for its tasty, garlicky langostinos and Cuetzalan, Puebla, for its charm.

The Lonely Planet books are famous -- and rightly so. This book has great maps and a lot of useful information. It also has some information about transporation schedules -- something that's often hard to pin down even when you're fluent in Spanish, as I am. The cultural information it contains is great and I enjoyed reading it.

Really serious explorers however, can never go wrong with Carl Franz's book: The People's Guide to Mexico (Peoples Guide to Mexico)

If you are a more conventional tourist, one who seeks a few of the comforts of home, you'll want a phrasebook that is not designed for the backpacking crowd. You might want a phrasebook with a more intuitive pronunciation guide, something you can read as though it were meant to be read in English, yet comes and is understood by Spanish speakers!

Sincerely,

Eric W. Vogt, Ph.D.