Customer Reviews

Lonely Planet Syria & Lebanon (Multi Country Guide)

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

LP, like all guidebooks, varies in quality depending on the author. While this guide on Syria/Lebanon isn't the worst, it could be much better.

The main problem is that it is extremely limited in its scope. Both Syria and Lebanon, but Syria in particular, have literaly hundreds of sites to see, but you wouldn't know it with this LP. It only gives you the most popular sites and then a few it claims are "off-the-beaten-track" but really aren't. It misses some of Syria's best out of the way castles and ruins. Great stuff that if you only relied on LP, which promotes teh beaten backpacker track, you would never find.

I would give it a 1-star, but it is saved by the hotel recommendations. Syria is a place where knowing what hotels to hit up can be hard, and LP does a good job giving you affordable ones that are tourist-tested.

Still, though, the guide lacks any real historical or cultural insight and really only gives the illusion of leading you down the "road-less traveled."

I lived in Syria for a year and tried to take in as much as possible and thus found myself sifting through numerous guides. The one I found to be the best was Footprints, but they haven't published an updated version since 2001. The new Bradt is quite promising, but if you really want to know what Syria has to offer, you need "Monuments of Syria" by Ross Burns. It doesn't have many glossy pictures, but it does have every single cultural and archaeological site worth seeing in this great country.

"As you wish" is the response to most questions in Syria, making the LP Guide very necessary. It contains excellent information on rarer sites and ruins along with very good historical information about them.

The hotel information was very helpful since good lodging in Syria can be hard to find. The information on the souks is very good for those that like to shop. Finally in the same vain, their food section was very helpful for different budgets.

The LP Guide is more detailed than the new Neos Guide published by Michelin, but unfortunately the maps are awkward to read in the LP guide and the detail maps to some of the less well traveled sites are not very reliable and the directions are poor. (I searched for a specifically described site near Aleppo for over an hour.) Overall though, it contains very detailed information, which is definately necessary in Syria since one is unable to find such information locally without considerable effort. I would recommend the Neos Guide for an overview and quality maps, and the LP guide for more detailed information. Both guides are necessary for a meaningful and hassle free trip.

I can't say I won't recommend this book but I would suggest looking at other travel guides if possible. The Lebanon aspect of the book was much better than the Syria section. The food section for Beirut is knowledgeable and accurate. I was living in Lebanon at the time so I can't speak for the hotel selections accuracy. The book does do a good job on describing the more cultural aspects of Lebanon and what to visit and what is worth a miss.

I spent a bit of time traveling in Syria and I can not give this guide a positive review. This is a complete guess and biased of me but I would think the couple that wrote the book are Lebanese and didn't properly investigate or travel enough to Syria to see the best it has to offer. As with the Lebanon chapter the food section was good, it gives a pretty good description of the eating varieties. The hotel guide was useful in it gave names and phone numbers of hotels in Syria. As for the reviews, well I didn't find them to be accurate or useful in any sense. Some reviews were close and some were completely off base. I do agree with another reviewer that the book misses some really great cultural aspects of the trip that I would have missed if I didn't have friends living in Syria who recommended them.

Just got back from three weeks in Syria and Lebanon, using this LP guide. I tried to stay at the cheapest possible option for the cities I visited but splurged a few times on the restaurants. Prices are hopelessly out of date... for Syria cheap hostels/hotels 200% higher, restaurants about 50%, taxi fare 200%-up. Lebanon's price disparity wasn't quite as bad and may have been researched more recently. Curiously enough the prices for museums, historical sites, etc. were correct.

City maps are awful, especially for the larger cities. LP doesn't include all the street names and in some cases not even all the streets. Get a local city map before walking around. Smaller maps for museums and sites are useful though.

I did a lot of traveling by public bus and shared taxi. Syria built new bus stations in Damascus, Hama and Aleppo. LP was absolutely useless for logistics as a result.

Now for the positives. Every English-speaking tourist in Syria seemed to have a LP so there doesn't seem to be any good alternative. Food, history, and sightseeing sections were great. I'm not sure about the shopping suggestions. I visited a few places but most offered stuff well out of my price range.

I strongly recommend this book if you are on a guided tour and have hotels and transportation already arranged. It even recommends tea houses and massages where you can relax after a hard day's shopping, lucky you! On the other hand, if you are traveling independantly, go ahead and get this book... but double-check the logistics on the internet or with other travelers when you arrive.

I've just arriving from a travel to Syria. I've travelled a lot and I've ever used LP guides. This is one of the best. During my travel in Syria sometimes I had asked to myself: where can I find this, that, those...all the answers, the most weird too, are in this book. During my visit to the dead towns (near Aleppo)the guide wared me about wild dogs. So, you can't believe it, I'll find the dog. The guide don't say how can I save my pour legs...but this was a my problem not of the book. Is like to have a friend with you who knows everything about this country

I only used a small section of this book, the section on Beirut, but it was a very useful guide that helped me make the most of my limited few days in the city, particularly the recommendations on fantastic hole-in-the-wall restaurants I would not have otherwise found. The only disappointment was that the author wrote that travelers should shun the public beach and head to one of the exclusive private beach clubs, but I found the public beach quite pleasant, particularly when trying to save money because Beirut isn't all that cheap.

The new July 2008 edition has just reached me. It's a great advance over previous editions (see other reviews on this site). Many text-boxes and references to more specialist guides have been added. Everything has been updated and substandard accommodation deleted. It's very compact, light and easy-to-use - except for the street maps. These seem more difficult to read than ever! Extra plans showing the layout of ruins and of some museums are great. However, the prices given for flights and accommodation are already well out-of-date. Judging by the introductory sections, the guide was completed in about February 2008. Lonely Planet needs to speed-up its printing schedule, although I'm sure the Chinese printers were not to blame for any delay. This is an excellent,compact guide to wonderful countries of great antiquity whose friendly inhabitants are so warm to visitors, putting to shame Western notions of hospitality. While not nearly as comprehensive as the outstanding 1991 Footprint Syria & Lebanon Handbook, it is a quarter of the weight and a very handy introduction to people planning to visit. I won't go without it!

I was so excited to travel through the Middle East as it's not something that happens regularly in the region if you're American. I was wowed by the overall accuracy of the book and while I wasn't taking pictures or shooting video, I was reading my LP guide :).

Aside from a few wrong numbers and a little exaggeration on how "friendly" people are, it was a gold mine of information. The info on Lebanon was great and useful. I only wish I could spend more time there instead of 3 days. For the most part, it really helped in Syria and I stand by the hotel and restaurant recommendations.

Good book for those wanting an alternative to the more mundane travel guides. I used it for a trip to Lebanon and was much better prepared than I would have been without it. Good pictures, maps and information, well presented!

It is a great book with great content, Damascus was a good high light. I am very looking forward to the new version of Syria Lonely Planet.
Good buy! Happy customer.