Customer Reviews

Lonely Planet Tokyo (City Guide)

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

 

 

I found the previous edition of the Lonely Planet Tokyo city guide handy as an independent traveler. Unfortunately, the new edition appears to be a reformatted version of the 2006 edition, rather than an update.

For example:

pp. 62-63 - The guide bizarrely claims that the Ghibli Museum is located in Ginza, when it is in fact located in a western suburb of Tokyo (the correct information appears on p. 112).

p. 64 - The guide fails to note that the hours for tourists to visit the Tsukiji fish market have been officially restricted since April 2008. Incredibly, the lead author of the guide wrote in his blog about this very issue in April 2008 (http://www.gadling.com/2008/04/05/big-in-japan-tokyos-top-tourist-attraction-is-limiting-access/) - so he certainly knows about the new rules.

p. 125 - The hours for the Edo Tokyo Museum - apparently copied from the previous edition without the editors verifying them - are wrong and have been so for at least a year.

p. 242 - The guide describes Passnet cards as an option for train and subway travel. Passnet cards haven't been sold since January 2008 and haven't worked since March 2008.

Much as I would like to give the new edition of the guide a more positive review, I can't do so; a shiny new cover doesn't offset the unrevised content. Given that Lonely Planet's website says the next edition won't be out until 2011, there is no excuse for not having updated basic information in the guide.

I just returned from Tokyo barely 24 hours ago and wanted to relate my feelings on the latest Lonely Planet Tokyo Guide. I'm a hard core Lonely Planet reader, which is why I bought Lonely Planet's Tokyo Guide without doing any research about the latest edition. I spent four days in Tokyo as a tourist with the Lonely Planet Guide as my only source. The writing within the guide is generally good. However, and this is a big however, the editing and the maps are absolutely horrible. There are numerous editing inaccuracies within the guide, which I am amazed by. I'm fairly certain that the editor just gave a cursory nod to the latest edition without doing any actual work. A good example of this conclusion is that the location of a restaurant within the guide that I really wanted to go to turned out to be on a completely different map from the one specified in the guide, and the location of the restaurant on the correct map also turned out to also be incorrect. Additionally, the maps had numerous errors and were usually on such a general scale that they were for the most part useless. In cities like Paris or Istanbul where street signs are in Roman script, this wouldn't be a huge difficulty. In Tokyo, however, there is almost no street signage in English, so you unfortunately have to completely rely on the maps within the guide. The author is also to some part to blame in that they give no written directions about how to get to places and restaurants that are written about in the book. As an example, the written directions that are given for a particular onsen in Northern Tokyo are factually inaccurate. I had to seek help from people on the street and was introduced to a social work office where they gave me a photocopy of a very accurate map with the route that I needed to take highlighted. Without the help of that office, I never would have found the Onsen.

Additionally, I have noticed that in recent editions Lonely Planet has begun to steer away from a mini city atlas in the back of their guides in favor of a detachable map of the city. The detachable maps are also to a great extent useless.

In conclusion, and I hate to say this as a faithful reader of Lonely Planet Guidebooks since 1997, I would recommend that you steer clear of this edition of the Lonely Planet Tokyo Guide.

This is a very bad and inaccurate re-tread of the previous Kara Knafelc authored edition (2003), which itself was inaccurate and highly disorganized. Poor editing and fact checking throughout, and even maps are out of date. The new cross-metro and JR Lines PassMo card information is not included (and old information on a discontinued card is), although it has been online since March 2007.

It looks like LP has a dud on the top destination for those who first experience Japan (Tokyo), which makes me sad.

As of March 2009, I have to say "any guide but this one."

I just returned from a 10 day trip to Tokyo. What was otherwise a great trip was marred by having this guidebook as a companion. It has to be one of the worst organized books I've ever used on a trip. Each section of the city appears in separate sections under sights, food, sleeping, etc. forcing a reader to leaf through the book to see what is available to see AND eat in Shibuya, etc. The maps are hard to read and unreliable but, unfortunately, everything is pegged to these maps.

Plus one gets the sense that the author(s) didn't really like Japan that much...a lot of the comments about Tokyo focused on where the ex-pats hang out (i.e. who cares?) or where one can go to get drunk (or see drunk Japanese). In other words - buy a better book than this and have a great trip.

I have been to 69 different countries around the globe, and mostly use the LP guides as my guidebook of choice which is why I was severely disappointed in this city guide.
The text of the guide was heavily biased towards venues preferred by gay travelers. What to find a good Onsen? well, there's heaps of stuff about Gay onsens, and not a scrap for the straight traveler. Bar? Yup same story.
The book is also full of undefined terms - What does "Golden Gai" mean? Don't know, but it's a term used throughout to describe places.
The maps contain references to places not elaborated upon in the text, and the text contains places not plotted on the maps. When a place is plotted on the map the location may be wrong.
The text tells you which subway exit to use to visit an attraction, but in many cases the subway exit mentioned in the text does not exist (for example to see the imperial palace it tells you to use the Tokyo station's Western exit - there is no such exit)
It also strangely omits some things you would think should be there - for example; in the neighborhood of Asakusa there is an amusement park. Not a word about it in the guide book. The Asahi Brewery? Nope. Despite the great tours they give. Disneyland? nada.
Thumbs Down.

I just returned from a trip to Tokyo and used Lonely Planet Tokyo as my reference. It provided me sufficient information to get around and since I'm used to LP guidebooks, I've learnt that detailed information e.g. costs is sometimes outdated.

The main draw of this guide is its coverage of the different neighborhoods that a tourist to Tokyo would want to experience. Each neighborhood section provides useful information on what the sights are, including the train or subway station that is nearest. The guide even provides the exit number at each station you'll want to take for each of the sights which, as you'll find out in Tokyo, becomes extremely important when it comes to finding your way around.

The difficulty in using a guidebook like Lonely Planet Tokyo which doesn't get updated yearly is that things change and information therefore changes too. One of the restaurants that I went in search of that was recommended had shut down. Costs had also changed. As long as the traveller using the book realizes this, the book is useful in providing general information; information that is enough to give any traveller a starting point to explore.

For a place like Tokyo, relying on a book like Lonely Planet for maps isn't the best idea. Tokyo is one of those cities where getting general direction and information is all one can expect ... to truly experience the city requires straying off the path.