Customer Reviews

National Geographic Traveler: Taiwan

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

 

 

This book had excellent pictures and background information. For a resource to read before you go it is informative and helpful but as a resource on the ground it lacks some details. I did find the resources in the very back helpful. I used the book to plan the generals of my trip but relied on tour gides and local friends for the details. I liked this book, it was helpful and I'm glad I bought it but I don't recommend it to be your only resource on Taiwan.

I bought both the National Geographic Traveler and Lonely Planet guides for Taiwan before working there for a month. While I was there, I found that National Geographic Traveler was more useful for planning places to go and things to do because it uses in depth highlights of tourist spots to visit and has full color photos and drawings throughout. However, I found that the Lonely Planet guide had more information, both useful and not. It had descriptions, hours of operations, and costs for many destinations that both tourists and residents would frequent. It could be described as an insider's guide of what to do in Taiwan, but the quantity of information was more than the quality. Lonely Planet's few color plates were okay, but not as helpful as those found in the National Geographic Traveler. This made the Lonely Planet harder to decide what to do from the many options provided because the choice was usually only based on a couple of sentences. The maps were better in Lonely Planet, but I ended up using a tourist map when I was in Taipei.
I recommend getting both. I found that I would see interesting photos in National Geographic Traveler and then look up the information in Lonely Planet to decide if it was worth doing or not.

This guide is full of pretty pictures and nice background text, but practically useless on the ground. For all the information that this book contains you will have a hard time getting where you want to go. Unless your destination is on the MRT (subway) or Taipei City buses, there are no directions. The maps are so general that only major highways are included. Forget trying to navigate street level. Worst of all, many of the destinations are named in English and the Romanized Chinese, but there aren?t any characters for you to point at when conversing locals. Taiwanese taxi drivers are great, but that won't help if you can't tell them where to go!

Beyond some nice photography, there's not a whole lot of substance to this guide book. Descriptions are brief and not entirely comprehensive. One positive was the introductory pages that explained the history and culture.

I found this book to be about the most useful travel book I have ever purchased. I work for a major US airline, was formally a college Geography professor, and have traveled to over 30 countries, so I have used just about every kind of travel guide. I purchased it because I read a review by a person who also swore by Lonely Planet (as I have always done), but ended up using this more on her trip--which was exactly what I ended up doing. I purchased both this one and the Lonely Planet Taiwan, and hardly used the Lonely Planet. This National Geographic guide made my whole trip better, and enabled me to see more than I ever would have using the other guide. I rented a car from Taipei and drove almost the whole country in 3 days--stopping at all of the major interest points along the way with the help of this book. It has driving maps with all of the important things listed along the routes, and best of all has glorious photos of things, so you know what you want to see in the first place. I would suggest anybody going to Taiwan purchase this fantastic book! I would also suggest that anybody driving in Taiwan purchase a Taiwan map before you go. It is hard to get a good map over there. Driving over there is pretty easy, as long as you stay out of the big cities. You can't see the many beautiful national parks on the east coast without a car.

I purchased this book based on reviewers' comments. I'm delighted with the book and will use it, in conjunction with Passport Taiwan, to map out our itinerary. I would certainly recommend both books -- and a map of Taiwan -- to anyone considering a trip to that country.

I brought both the Lonely Plant and National Geographic Guide to Taiwan. The Lonely Planet book was great, because the names of places were given in both English and Chinese characters. The Chinese characters are a must for taxi drivers. There are not a lot a pictures, so the National Geographic Guide came in real handy as well. If you are only buying one, the lonely planet guide is esssential.

This is hands down the best guidebook on Taiwan that I was able to find. All the pictures in the book were great. Only wish there were more walking tours around the major cities such as Taipei and Taichung. Well worth the money!