Customer Reviews

The Rough Guide to China 4 (Rough Guide Travel Guides)

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Using solely this book as our guide, my girlfriend and I navigated Beijing, Xian, Guilin, Yangshuo, Guangzhou, and Hong Kong completely on our own without getting lost once. The maps are absolute life-savers (though they would be even more useful if they included the Chinese characters for the street names), the descriptions of place generally current and accurate (though they might have mentioned that, as of May of 2006, Yangshuo is no longer a mecca of calm and relaxation but rather a maddening gauntlet of pushy vendors and tourists), and it even provided enjoyable reading material on the long train rides.

A lot of people in the anti-tour-group set go with Lonely Planet for whatever reason, but I'm very glad I picked this one up. Next trip: RUSSIA -- I'm picking up the Rough Guide for it now.

Although I always buy Lonely Planet guides to every foreign destination, I tried Rough Guide this time. I liked the format, the readability, and the information I was looking for. It is almost 200 pages larger (but because of a quality thin paper is less thick), and has less fine print. I would rate it a bit above the similar Lonely Planet guide to China, and still buy the Lonely Planet. Those two rate way above the competition such as Fodors, Frommers and the like. Of course, the China Eyewitness Travel Guide is in a different class altogether.

Having consulted the Rough Guide, Lonely Planet, and the Eyewitness guides to China on my last trip to the country, I can definitely vouch that Rough Guide is the way to go, with Eyewitness taking second and Lonely Planet a distant third. For my money, the Rough Guides have the edge on Lonely Planet in their critical-but-not-jaded tone, detailed practical information (more detailed than Lonely Planet), superior maps, informative and comprehensive background essays, and general elan (subjective, I know, but there you have it). That said, Lonely Planet does seem to have a slight edge in restaurants, but every place we ate at out of the Rough Guide was delicious. In the end, of course, which guidebook you buy depends on the kind of travel you'll be doing; I would recommend the Eyewitness guides without reserve for armchair and group travelers, or for those map-obsessed travlers who compulsively want to find their way around on their own. That said, the Rough Guide maps are more than sufficient, especially when supplemented with local tourist maps, which will inevitably be more up-to-date.

That really is my only caveat about the book; things in China (especially Shanghai and Beijing, cities most travelers pass through) are changing so rapidly that a new edition can't come soon enough. I marked an additional 20 subway stations on the Shanghai map in January 2007; this book was published in October 2005. In the meantime, I'll just say that the Suzhou Museum is now a must-see.

I took this book for two weeks of travelling in China with my husband. At the time, it was the most recently published guide book. I also like Lonely Planet and others, but felt that recent trumped other considerations.

We didn't use any tour company - we just set it all up ourselves. It was much easier than you'd think - don't believe anyone who tells you otherwise. Get some good travel books like this one, so you can learn which Websites are in English and let you buy flights with a credit card. And how to respond when someone says "Hi Kind Foreigner! I'm an art student and we're doing a showing. Would you like to see our work?" (Answer: No, thankyou, scam artist, I'm sure your work is nice but grossly overpriced.) Important things like that.

We used this book in tandem with the photo-rich Eyewitness Travel Guide to plan a volunteer vacation in China, with 2 weeks of volunteering and 2 weeks of free travel time. If I had to pick just one for deciding where to go, I'd go with the photo book, because nothing beats photos if you are trying to decide whether to take the Yangtze River Cruise or go to the Li River valley. But if I had to pick just one to actually get myself around China, no question it would be Rough Guide. Whereas the Eyewitness guide has lots of useful info as well as photos, the Rough Guide has ten times more (more pages, no photos, lots more space) and all the details needed to actually know exactly where to catch the train in the town, what bus number, etc. Rough Guide is what you'll need to actually get around. It was up-to-date enough for our use, and it's reassuringly detailed. If you can swing both, get 'em!

We just got back from two weeks in China. This Rough Guide to China helped us navigate the 3 cities we visited in China (Beijing, Xi'an and Shanghai). We opted to explore the cities on our own without relying on tours. We mainly used this guide to get to the main attractions it suggested to see, to communicate with people and to select certain restaurants. Overall, we recommend this guide for the traveler who is interested and willing to explore China without the expense of tours. We are so glad we skipped the tours as exploring the cities on our own gave us a pretty good taste of the country's culture and peoples. Some of the things that are outdated in the guide are a function of the rapid development that China is experiencing. In spite of some of the outdated details, the interested traveler will still be able to navigate the country as the guide currently is.

I purchased Rough Guide to China as a gift for my daughter who lives in Beijing. She has many guides for Beijing but for the whole country, she needed a good guide book. She examined both Rough Guide and the Lonely Planet Guide, which I own, and thought that both were excellent. The only advantage that Lonely Planet has over Rough Guide is that the names of places also have the Chinese characters along side the English name.

Used both this book as well as Lonely Planet to travel many, many places in China during the summer of 2006. Found Rough Guides much more accurate, not to mention more interested to read. It gives a very candid description of places, so you know exactly what to expect (well, usually). A great guide to China!

The book is sober and a pretty good guide to what to see and what to skip.

In fast-changing Shanghai, however, the map and recommendations on some locations were already outdated, about a year after printing, but I guess we can't blame it on the authors.

The dictoinary in the back and the dictionary of relevant places and restaurants in cities were also very helpful.

The main competitor is Lonely Planet of course, and since I haven't tried it I can't compare, but I never regretted buying the Rough Guide.

This book is the cream of the crop in China travel guides. Its is large and thorough and indispensible.

All information in this guide is thoughtfully organized and easy to follow and read. I also had the LP guide and did not find it as useful when navigating my way around the country.

As with any travel guide, it will not serve as your only travel resource, but will no doubt start you in the right direction when you are looking for something not covered in this book.

Well recommended, don't leave home without it.

After faithfully using Lonely Planet for my trips to Western Europe and Southeast Asia, I can honestly say that I am a Rough Guide convert and will be using Rough Guide books from now on after using this book on my recent trip to China. Aside from the good maps, one thing I love about this book is the depth it takes to explain the historical and cultural significance of the places being described. The logistics isn't bad either since it contains information how to get from one place to the other. This has been a good read while on long-distance train rides and have been with me throughout my trip to China.