Customer Reviews

The Rough Guide to Yucatan 2 (Rough Guide Travel Guides)

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

 

 

Before traveling to the Yucatan for a week, I used a number of guidebooks to plan my trip ... Frommers fell short, Lonely Planet was uninspired and seemed targeted for the backpacker crowd. Mexico is cheap enough (outside of the resort areas) that my wife and I weren't looking for the kinds of bare-bones places Lonely Planet leaned toward. In the end, I gravitated toward the Rough Guide and the Moon guide ... I found both excellently written, with the Rough Guide falling perhaps a very close second to Moon. One area where the Rough Guide had the edge was the helpful marking of one-way streets in the towns and cities. For Merida in particular (but also Valladolid to a lesser extent) it was nice to know ahead of time which streets were headed in the direction we wanted to go.

The food and hotel recommendations are a little more sparse than Moon, and for roughly the same price, the Rough Guide had about 100 fewer pages. Still, the Rough Guide and the Moon book were the two guidebooks we brought with us to the Yucatan and I found myself using them interchangeably. I'd give Moon the slight nod over the Rough Guide, but you won't go wrong with either (or both!)

I have very mixed feelings about this guide book. I purchased it because I wanted an "off-the-beaten path" perspective, and I certainly got that. We stayed in many of the recommended hotels and ate in many of the recommended restaurants, and for the most part, definitely agreed that they were worthy of being recommended by Rough Guide. On the other hand, we travelled with small children - ages 5 and 11 - and the guide book doesn't do a very good job of including attractions that are appealing for young children. For example, it makes no mention of CrocoCun, which was one of our kids' favorite attractions. It also focuses too much on night life (though not as much as Lonely Planet), which, when you're travelling with young kids, isn't of much interest. The other criticisim I have of it is it gives very detailed directions if you're backpacking or hitching and relying on buses, etc. It does a very poor job of giving those same directions if you're driving. (See my review of Rough Guide map of the Yucatan which is similarly not car friendly.) Overall, though, I still think I made the best choice and will use Rough Guide in the future. My family likes to avoid the tourist traps and get off the beaten path, and Rough Guide definitely helped us meet that goal!

Used in conjunction with other Mexico/Yucatan travel guides, The Rough Guide has been helpful in planning our upcoming vacation. I like the fact there are specifics in the book. Where the post office is located, an ATM, gas stations, good restaurants, etc.

book arrived in perfect condition, and arrived quickly. would buy from this seller again.