Customer Reviews

Lonely Planet New Zealand's South Island (Regional Guide)

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This "new" South Island-ONLY offering from LP is simply their regular country guide New Zealand (Country Guide)cut in half. This South guide has 444 pages vs. the full-country guide's 765 pages. The weight difference is about 7 ounces.

My take on this book is "WHY?". Even if you're traveling to ONLY NZ's South Island, I feel that you'll still benefit from LP's insights about the entire country. In your South Island travels you'll constantly meet folks who'll invariably tell you stuff about what they saw up North, and if you can't pop open your book to read a bit and gain a better overall insight to the country...then it's only you who'll miss out on getting the "Full flavor" of NZ.

This South guide, other than a few extra pages of "front matter" and a more exhaustive index...is word-for-word, page-for-page simply the bigger book cut in half. I looked thru it hoping to find more detailed insights about tracks or hot springs and such. Nope, just the big guide re-packaged and re-priced. I don't think that saving 3-4 bucks and 7 ounces is worth it. Get the full country guide. LP does a great job detailing all the history and culture stuff for NZ. I say get the full book rather than the half, I say don't overlook the hidden wonders of the North Island. I say that if you are going for only two weeks or less, then you should only choose ONE island to visit.

Having just returned from 3 weeks on the South Island, we found this LP guide to be a trustworthy companion, full of valuable concise information. Since we were only visiting the South Island (not too uncommon), why carry the bulk of a full-country guide? LP led us to many excellent out-of-the-mainstream restaurants and wineries. At times we traveled off the main roads, even on some gravel roads, but LP usually had current information for wherever we found ourselves. Without their suggestions it would have been easy to miss many interesting attractions.