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14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
not the best travel guide, June 9, 2002
This review is from: Lonely Planet Thailand (Paperback)
Since 1987 I have been buying each new edition of the Lonely Planet Thailand travel guide. Back in the 1980s, this was the only worthwhile travel guide to Thailand, but Lonely Planet and Joe Cummings are clearly resting on their laurels. There is very little new material in each new edition that comes out every few years. Now, in 2002, there are lots of new and better guidebooks out there. I can recommend Insight Guides, Rough Guides, and DK travel guides, to name only a few good ones. Joe Cummings has been the main author of the Thailand Travel Guide for over two decades. He is also the author of many other travel guidebooks published by Lonely Planet. The problem with his books is that he is not excited about travel, and this feeling comes through in his guidebooks. He is an expert on Asian art history, and I think that it would be more appropriate if he wrote books specifically about this subject, instead of travel guides for the general public. To get a good feeling about the kind of writer that Joe Cummings is, I would strongly recommend that you also read through the reviews of his Travel Guide to Laos, which is also published by Lonely Planet.
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11 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Not much of a revision, April 18, 2002
By A Customer
This review is from: Lonely Planet Thailand (Paperback)
I was surprised to see that this revision contained very little additional or revised information. During my travels up north, for example, I found in several cases that certain lodgings that had been shut for several years still appeared in the "new" edition. Coupled with other dated or inaccurate information, it appears that the authors actually visited and researched few of the locations that were off the beaten track. It is almost as though Lonely Planet have cornered the travel book market for Thailand, and there is little incentive to put a great deal of effort into the new revisions, since it appears that nearly everyone going to Thailand buys the LP guide anyway.
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10 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
best LP guide I've used so far, October 18, 2001
This review is from: Lonely Planet Thailand (Paperback)
I recently completed a trip through India, Nepal, Thailand and China, and used Lonely Planet guides for all four countries. They all had their ups and downs, but I thought the Thailand one was the best, by far. First it was the most accurate, that is the info was closest to what I actually encounted while travelling around. And second it had the most evocative and confident prose. One could really sense the authors' strong affinity for the country. Like another reviewer wrote, Cummings doesn't talk down to his readers yet he doesn't pander either. I felt very much as if I had my own personal guide leading the way with the Thailand book. The other three seemed more like compendia of information gathered without regard to any central zeitgeist. The Pattaya reviewers must have tourist businesses in that city! The authors seemed very even-handed in their treatment of the city nonethess. Furthermore 12 pages on any destination seems plenty to me, however, so I don't understand tte complaint. I also used LP's Thai Phrasebook and found it very useful.
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