Customer Reviews

Lonely Planet Southeast Asia: On a Shoestring

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

 

 

We travelled in SE Asia in the Summer of 2008...you would think the 2008 edition would be helpful and up to date. A friend gave me the previous edition but I saw there was an updated version and decided to buy it while on the road - very expensive! I have travelled extensively in many countries and continents. I will never buy a Lonely Planet Guide again. This book inaccurate, the information and prices so inaccurate you wonder if they were ever right (museums, palaces, etc, were 7X more expensive)misleading, did not give pertinent information, descriptions were "cutesy" rather than factual, you couldn't get from place to place with this guide, just the regualr tourist trail that you could find by yourself int he dark ...You really wondered if a person had actually been there. Totally useless and a waste of time.

Yes, Lonely Planet usually delivers with lots of tips and great recommendations. However, this particular guide is almost worthless. Not only did we encounter numerous inaccuracies in terms of transportation availability, restaurant and hotel existence, and false information about visas and entry fees, but also poor recommendations. There is traveling on a budget, then there is traveling like a homeless person. This Lonely Planet landed us in some of the least clean and least safe places we have ever stayed--but only when we were "lucky" enough to find that the book's recommendations were still open. I would not recommend this book and will seriously think twice about buying another Lonely Planet book in the future.

I bought this book just before my trip to Thailand and Vietnam. It was useful, but it lacks of maps of the capitals or main cities and a couple of picture of the main attractions. The rest os ok.

I travel on a very tight budget and this book totally helped me out with hostels,restaurants, transportation to surrounding countries. Asia has to be one of the cheapest places to travel.

Well although there are no color pictures to make it attractive, theres alot of info.. in fact maybe to much which is a good thing and a bad thing depending on how much u think is right. overall its a good starting point!

Absolutely love this book. I wish I would have got it sooner when I was trying to plan my trip. It's even better than looking around on the internet because you don't have to sift through a ton of irrelevant information. This is all stuff you want to know.

4.0 out of 5 stars VERY concise backpacker's guide, August 10, 2008

I used Lonely Planet's "Southeast Asia on a Shoestring" guide exclusively on my last trip to SE Asia. I visited Singapore and parts of Indonesia and Malaysia. Just like every other Lonely Planet Shoestring Guide, it was pretty amazing. However, this guide was much more concise than other shoestring guides I've used, probably because of how many places are being crammed into one book. Yes, it does a great job of covering a wide range of places in Southeast Asia. It just sacrifices detailed info and maps of many of those places to do so. This book generally sticks to times, costs, and locations, plus a very brief description of many of the places it covers. If you think you'll want more than that, you might consider the individual country guides instead. All that being said, the book does a great job of living up to it's motto: "Big Trips on Small Budgets." The info it provides was all very accurate and very useful. Recommended.

LONELY PLANET IS THE IDEAL RESOURCE FOR PEOPLE LIKE US...BARGAIN-HEADING BACKPACKERS!THIS ONE WAS ABSOLUTELY AMAZING DURING OUR DAYS IN THA SE ASIA!RECOMENDED!!!

This is probably the worst travel book I have purchased in the last 12 yrs of traveling. I covered 7 countries and virtually all of them were out-of-date. Not only that, the recommendations for accommodations and restaurants were awful. We ended up using hostels.com and just guessed when it came to food. It was better than what they outlined, and that was if the restaurant was still open.

What else was horrible was that a couple of friends bought LP specifically for the countries. "Our pick" did not coincide between the two books and theirs were more outdated than mine. I personally believe that they must have made a couple minor edits to get the 2008 copyright date when, in fact, the book overall is completely out of date.

The options are limited for SEA but in the past I had luck with Let's Go. I'm thinking their 2004 version would be a better bet than this. At least your expectation would be that restaurants might be closed. This book, SEA on a Shoestring, ended up being more frustrating and a waste of time rather than a source to reduce stress. Very disappointing!

The book has everything you need if you want to make the trip of your dreams, and I hope to test its usefulness this summer.
Detailed budget, good hints, clear explanations.