Customer Reviews

The Rough Guide to Bali & Lombok 6 (Rough Guide Travel Guides)

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

 

 

This was the one book I used during my visit to Bali in January 2009, after having purchased it and the Lonely Planet guide. What made this book so much more useful was the vastly better details on restaurants and lodging in towns and villages away from the "Banana Pancake Trail," easy-to-use maps, and Rough Guides not joining Lonely Planet in adopting a "preaching greenie" tone.

I've used these guides in the past. I do like to have a sort of basic nuts-and-bolts guidebook when I travel but I find Lonely Planet to be so popular that everything they recommend is overwhelmed with other LP readers. That's nothing against the LP books which are almost always really good, but I sometimes feel their popularity can make for a less than great travel experience. You know, a "backpacker" guest house or whatever might be totally mobbed because of its mention in LP and the just-as-good place down the street has no customers because they didn't get included.

So, whatever, the Rough guides are pretty popular too but a bit less so, and they're really more or less the same as LP in terms of quality, so nothing really to lose. Hopefully mitigates the problem I mention above. As for Bali, this was also I think the most recently published book oriented to a more budget type traveler (though it isn't limited to that type of customer at all).

I've been to Bali and Lombok a few times, but it has been a while, so I just wanted a little something to help with whatever might have changed. Will try to update this review when I return in a few months. I suppose soon we'll only be using i-phones or netbooks or whatever for this sort of thing...but internet penetration isn't all that it could be in places like Lombok, and thank God too...who would want to be called or emailed in a place like that while you're trying to relax?

This guidebook is standard fare - providing nothing special. It's a compilation of sights, some poorly researched, presented in a wordy envelope that bulks up the text without adding any useful information. Given that Bali is so rich in culture and history, I would say that is pretty weak. It's also a confusing book. Information isn't presented in a straightforward manner, forcing you to skim through pages and pages to find the information you are looking for.