Customer Reviews

Moon Southern California (Moon Handbooks)

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This is a difficult review to write. In general, I admire the Moon Handbooks published by Avalon Travel. Of the twenty on my travel shelf, only this one on Southern California has serious faults. In contrast, the Northern California Moon Handbook authored by Kim Weir is quite good.

California is a huge state with a lot of people. Understandably, it has a lot of attractions, places to stay, and opportunities for eating. No guidebook can cover everything. Usually, Moon does a better job than many of the others, but not here. Other guidebooks often focus on the major population centers and shortchange rural communities. For Southern California, Moon has fallen into this trap.

Readers will sense a problem at first glance. The Southern California Moon Handbook, Fourth Edition, September, 2009, is less than half as thick (370 pages) as the guidebook for Northern California, Fourth Edition (1027 pages). It is almost as if the author got overwhelmed while covering Los Angeles and the Central Coast from Los Angeles north to Santa Cruz. In fact, the other sections cover only San Diego, The Deserts, and Yosemite. We recently visited Camarillo, Oxnard, Ventura, Santa Barbara, and Solvang. The American Automobile Association guidebook was much superior throughout for that area.

Hopefully, this edition isn't a trend for the Moon Handbooks

This is a book covering the standard places that tourists visit in Southern California. It is clear, concise and useful for that purpose.