Customer Reviews

Lonely Planet Tokyo (City Travel Guide)

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

 

 

When we were planning our trip to Japan, we purchased The Rough Guide to Japan and The Lonely Planet Guide to Tokyo. Reading through the Lonely Planet Guide, I found very little that sounded worth doing or seeing. The same items described in The Rough Guide were much more intriguing. So I chose what to see and do based on The Rough Guide.
Close to the time of our trip, someone who had just been to Japan recommended The Time Out Guide to Tokyo for the maps. But when it came time for planning the details of the tour - where the chosen attractions were located, when they were open, and how to get from here to there, the maps and the details in the descriptions in The Lonely Planet Guide were far more useful than those in the other two books. For practical use, I have given this book four stars.

The Lonely Planet guides are very often the best when it comes to providing practical information such as maps, changing money, the best way to get from A to B, etc. This edition of the Tokyo guide is no exception. It has everything you need to plan your trip and to get around Tokyo.

This edition is also an improvement over the prior editions when it comes to cultural recommendations, such as restaurants, walking tours, interesting shops, museums, etc. The "Time Out" guide is probably still better is the cultural department, but it is weak when it comes to maps, etc., so it may be worth taking both guides.

Tokyo can be really overwhelming because there are a million things to do! This book really helped with highlighting each area of Tokyo as well as providing hours and addresses of the places you want to visit. It also had fantastic suggestions for cheap eats. This author takes you into the back alleys (if you want to go - which you should!) or keeps you in the high class areas of Tokyo for a well rounded trip.

I coupled this book with the Tokyo City Atlas book, which made it possible to understand the crazy mapping system of Tokyo.

Have fun!

Lonely Planet used to have these big, thick books that were full of text and cheaply-drawn maps. That was what made them endearing, and set them apart from the other guides that were full of fluff and outdated photos. The guides were my lifesavers on many trips. The new Lonely Planet books seem to be going ever lighter on the text and heavier on the gloss, with maps that look nicer but are not necessarily any better than the old ones.

I ordered this book for my second trip to Tokyo (from the US), and found it to be somewhat lacking in detail. Instead of being divided by neighborhood, the book is divided by activity (attractions, shopping, eating, sleeping, etc) and then by neighborhood. Walking around Shibuya etc you'd have 4 or 5 sections in separate parts of the book relating to that area. It seems like most travelers would compartmentalize our trips based on geographic location more than activity, and I found that to be a really annoying aspect of this book.

Only a few attractions are listed by neighborhood, and the book seems to leave out a lot of great shopping locations. There are other guides to the city that are better, and you'll need a bilingual city atlas (an absolute must) if you're going to be doing anything self-guided.

My trip to Tokyo was decided 2 days before I departed so I didn't have a lot of time for research. This was one of two travel books I downloaded to my Kindle. It was very strong on practical information for navigating this beast of a city. Transportation tips and information in and out of Narita and on the train system were outstanding. I carried my Kindle with me everywhere and it was easy to look up details. I also liked that each destination had the name in kanji as well as English so I could look for signage or show it to a local when I was slaughtering the pronunciation. The disadvantage was that the graphics and maps were unreadable. My other book was a Mobi-guide which was designed for an e-reader or phone and much easier to navigate. However, it lacked the detail that this Lonely Planet guide had.
If this Lonely Planet guide had been set up to work on mobile devices, I would have given it 5 stars.