Customer Reviews

Lonely Planet Yucatan (Regional Guide)

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

I always travel with a Lonely Planet guidebook. This past trip to the Yucatan we used a combination of Lonely Planet and Frommers and got along fine. I will say, however, that getting the guidebook on the kindle was a mistake. The maps were too hard to see. Also, unlike when I read a novel, when I use a guidebook I flip around constantly. That is not easy to do on an ereader. I recommend Lonely Planet if you are going to the Yucatan, but not the kindle version.

While there is nothing specifically "wrong" with it per se, the Lonely Planet Yucatan guide falls a bit short. The details are a bit sparse and the book is aimed a little more toward the backpacker crowd than I was looking for. Mexico is inexpensive enough (outside of the resort areas, that is) that one can "splurge" a bit on food and lodging while still paying budget prices, by U.S. standards ... so the bare-bones focus of Lonely Planet was not quite what I was looking for.

Again, while not the worst guide on the Yucatan, there are better out there. My favorite was the Moon guide, with the Rough Guide falling a close second. Those books have more detail, have livelier writing, and better recommendations. The Lonely Planet books have been a great resource on many of my travels, but in this case, it fell a bit short.

We bought this guidebook for a recent trip to Playa Del Carmen, Mexico. I found the section on that area to be extremely small and poorly researched, with only restaurants on or near the main tourist strip of 5th Ave to be featured, and pratically no local or even slightly off the beaten path eating places that any local or frequent traveller to the city would recommend, and not a good overall description of PDC and what it offers, which we found out for ourselves by trial and error. In terms of things to do, the information on side trips such as snorkeling in Cozumel and trips to Chichen Itza was totally inadequate. This is the first time I have been so disappointed in a Lonley Planet guidebook. Next time I will do more research and make sure I am getting the best guidebook for the region.

I felt like the guide could have had more detail in terms of budget hotels or hostels. I ended up staying in places I found on hostelworld.com that weren't even listed in the Lonely Planet guide. In terms of scuba diving in Cozumel, the book listed only two recommendations, including the random name of a person the writer had met back in 2006 when he was doing his research. Turns out there are over one hundred dive shops in Cozumel that offer to take people out on trips of varying lengths.

The food suggestions in the guidebook were good. The maps of the cities were helpful as were the transportation information tables. The descriptions of the ruins weren't enough to go by without hiring a guide. Still, it was better than the Frommer's guidebook that my sister brought with her.

Having used Lonely Planet Guides on past occasions, the Cancun, Cozumel and Yucatan fell short of what I expected. It lacked depth and the recommendations for restaurants in particular were not very exciting. Nevertheless, I still recommend it as a supplementary reference to additional research.
CS

I brought this book before my trip to Cancun. It was fine for a general overview and history of the region, but for practical information it was just OK and often worse -- especially for a book whose spine reads "100% researched & updated." Some of the information was outdated -- such as the name of and admission for a couple parks on Isla Mujeres, and a restaurant that just no longer existed in Tulum. At other times it was inaccurate, like the kilometer markings of some sights on the way to Tulum. Unless the Mexican government has renumbered its entire highway system since this book came out, I think Lonely Planet just got it wrong. The book's food recommendations were skimpy and its snorkel recommendations (at least for Isla Mujeres) were disappointing. It made frequent mention of how damaging tourism has been for the area's environment and traditional Mayan culture, and gave some examples of ways to support the local economy. But other times it would offer no helpful alternatives. For example, there is a section about a lot of the enormous snorkel/zip-lining/outdoor aquarium parks that have sprung up, like Xel-Ha and Xcaret, and it points out that they are all overpriced and have questionable environmental records. It then says there are better and cheaper alternatives, but it won't tell you what those alternatives are. You can infer a few of them by subsequent recommendations in the book, but the book could have done better to identify and highlight these options.

An o.k. Lonely Planet guide. Opt for: Yucatan & Mayan Mexico, 3rd (Country & Regional Guides - Cadogan) instead.

I always use Lonely Planet and no different this time. We rented a car and drove around Yucatan state. Had a great time. Lonely was excellent and 100% accurate for lodging and food. I also had a Cadogan Guide as well. Cadogan specializes in the culture and found it better for the Mayan sites than Lonely. Cadogan was never accurate for food and so-so for Lodging. The Rough Guide Map was an essential for driving as well. The Lonely map was better for Merida as the Rough guide gave no city level detail at all. So if you plan a self guided drive you really need all three of these.

I have always had good luck with Lonely Planet books, I found this to be lacking information in the depth needed. The Moon book we took seemed to have better, more accurate and just plain more information. Good if you want a smaller, abbreviated book with you.

When I go travelling I always look at different guide books to try to find the best one. I didn't go backpacking in Yucatan but stayed in Cancun and travelled from here to see Isla Mujeres, Playa del Carmen, and pyramids among other places and for this the Lonely Planet book seemed to be the best. I found a very nice and cheap place to eat in Cancun and one of the last day there I found out that this place was in the book also... I just hadn't been using the book for this purpose :D