Customer Reviews

Lonely Planet Panama (Country Guide)

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(7)

 

 

I purchased the previous edition of the Panama Guide from the Lonely Planet a few years ago when I started to become a frequent visitor to Panama. That older edition offered alot of helpful information and I used it frequently.

Due to the rapid changes in Panama - i thought I needed to purchase an updated version to reflect the new hotels and rates and things to do . . . .

whoever allowed this latest edition to be published should just be ashamed. Panama has been growing and changing at an alarming rate over the last few years. This recent guide does little to reflect new places to stay, things to do and current rates. i got the impression that whoever revised it - did not even step foot in Panama, or if they did, did not spend much time there. did they just put a new cover on the old material?

Anyway - I was really disappointed and will not even give it away to friends who are visiting Panama because the information is lacking so much of what could add to a great experience in this wonderful country - especially for lodging options.

Lonely Planet - You really should spend a little more time in the country - i would say to trash this edition and start over.

This guidebook is a baffling mixture of recommendations that are dead-on and those that make you wonder "What was he thinking?" I also could have done without the author's insertion of his own political and social opinions. A travel guidebook is hardly the place for value judgements.

Would I recommend buying this book for an upcoming trip to Panama? Yes. It has a lot of good information and, as I said, some excellent recommendations. That is why I decided in the end to rate the book 4 stars instead of the 3 that I initially planned. But, I would definitely advise the user to supplement the book with other information, especially recommendations from local residents or people who have visited the country previously.

I live in Panama and have bought each of the Lonely Planet Panama books as they have come out. This edition seems to have less information than the last one. In my town, Volcán, there are about 10 places to sleep; six were listed in the previous edition, but just one in this book - and the one shown is an odd, out-of-the-way place offering large cabins for extended families.

I wonder if I can trust Lonely Planet to give me the information I've come to trust them for. I will look at other guides more carefully as options to LP for my other travels.

I travel quite a bit (for business and vacations) so I have purchased and read over 30 Lonely Planets. Of all of them, this one has more errors and is more out of date than any I can recall - much more out of date than the publishing date suggests, which makes me think the latest addition was not a thorough update. Over half of the restaurants they recommended, which I tried to visit, were either out of business or not in the location they listed in the book. Prices in general for everything from taxis to hotels were inaccurate. Some of the maps were inaccurate as well. Whole streets in Bella Vista were omitted. Sometimes this was a minor inconvenience, and other times it was a disaster (trying to get the ferry to Isla Toboga for instance - one of the ferry companies listed is out of business, and the docks from which the ferries leave moved nearly two years ago, but the old address and times are stilled listed in the LP - thus we missed our ferry). This guide is one of the only LPs (the LP Trekking in Nepal being the other) that I felt it was actually a hindrance to rely on because it was often so inaccurate. Unfortunately, this negates any positive aspects of the book.

I find it odd that so many of you are not happy with this book. I am a US citizen living in Panama -- we have been here for over 2 years now. And my family, friends and I use this book all the time. And I have the older version, not the new revised one. It has great information on how to get somewhere, what to expect, and what are fun things to do. The guide's discriptions are very accurate, sometimes painfully accurate. There are very few street signs in Panama which makes getting around difficult when you don't know your way. The book does a beautiful job discussing this. The culture is very differnt from ours so a "guide's" perspective is very much what you need to figure out your way around here. I have never written an review before for Amazon.com, but felt this book needed a better review by someone who uses it ALL the time. Before we take any kind of day trip or vacation we check this book and they haven't lead us wrong yet.

I agreed with other reviews in the sense that it left out alot. Maybe it was to out of date like others had suggested. We backpacked through the stretch of the pacific side of panama in a few weeks. The book left out parts of places we found, cabanas on the beach and so forth and roads that were supposedly non existant. Panamanians were extremly nice and helpful. Other books could probably tell more.

I agree with the previous comments here that this book is a less a guide and more of a 'I'll tell you how it is' type book. It is a GUIDE after all and I would expect to find some basic facts to get me around and certainly a few of recommendations but NOT the authors views and rants on certain subjects. I am going to the place to make up my own mind!

I like the new style Lonely Planet guides and find them much easier to navigate than the old ones but I want a travel guide to assist me not a book full of the authors narrow opinions!

In my view there are better guides to Panama on the market!

I've been a "lonely planet" traveller for quite some time, and have a whole bookshelf of their guides. However, Lonely Planet Panama was fairly inadequate. Luckily, we also purchased the Moon Handbook and were much more impressed with it. The LP guidebook was outdated, uninspired, inaccurate, and lacking significant detail. If you're heading to Panama, buy the Moon Guide instead.

In all fairness, the copy I have was published in 2004, so much of the pricing and other info is outdated. Nevertheless, I was disappointed in the overly-opinionated editorializing instead of useful and insightful traveller's facts that I expect from Lonely Planet guides. I think I will start giving a closer look to other travel pubs such as the Rough Guide series, which is a shame, as I have been a fan and loyal customer of LP since "SE Asia on a Shoestring" which was published the early 80s. This Panama guide needs updating, more detail and a cleansing of the overly-political content.

Living part time in Panama, i purchased this book to help me find out more interesting places to visit throughout the country. The information was so out of date I am embarrassed for the publishers. I have purchased Lonely Planet guides for decades, but no more. In this case, the new writer rehashes the same old information, and seems to never venture beyond the less traveled roads. Such an anti Lonely Planet thing to do. Matthew Firestone needs to get out from the popular surfers hangouts, and provide us with a better and more rounded sense of what is going on rather than what he has done in this last pathetic version.
From now on it is Moon Books for me!