Customer Reviews

The Rough Guides' Antigua Directions 1 (Rough Guide Directions)

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This book was well written, organized, and designed. The maps throughout the book were informative and helpful. (Although we did not use them for driving, just for orienting ourselves on the island and for figuring out what to do and where, we used taxis). Nice photos and clear and easy to understand system of listing places to stay, eat and things to do.

Almost all of the prices are outdated, so our trip was even more expensive than we accounted for. And some store times were outdated, but that kind of stuff is to be expected.

Whenever I travel I usually buy two books about my destination to be able to compare and see different points of view. And although this book was by far the more comprehensive of the two, the other book Antigua and Barbuda: Island Guide by Christopher Beale did have more emphatic personal recommendations which I found useful. Although Beale's book had faults, I found that the combination of the two books to be complementary.

I couldn't find many guides on Antigua. I ended up buying both this one and the Insight Guide. We used the Rough Guide more as it was organized in a way that I preferred and seemed to contain more information. At the end of the day, it's really not that hard to find your way around Antigua - nothing is terribly far away (it takes ~1/2 hour to drive across the island), the roads are decent, and there aren't too many twists and turns to get lost. There are only a few sights that you really ought to see and the rest of the time is easily filled at beaches (there are an endless number of pristine, undeveloped, private beaches and a few developed ones that seem to attract the masses if you prefer that sort of thing) doing whatever you like to do at beaches. My only complaint is that it would have been nice to have a solid snorkelling guide. For some reason, we had the impression that Antigua has quality snorkelling, but we did not find much of it (and the guides did not help in this regard). It seems there are about three places with reefs offshore that you can boat to, and one reef that you can access from onshore that is decent, but really, snorkelling is not one of the big features of the island and most beaches are sandy (and pristine - really lovely).

Anyway, you really can't go wrong visiting this island. I would put some quality thought into what part of the island you would like to stay before you go. It really depends on what you are seeking: if you like to be around touristy crowds, go to St. John's or Jolly Harbour, if you are seeking a different, more private experience, I would head South and/or East.

Best of luck!

Have not had a chance to use this book for touring the islands since we won't be traveling to Antigua/Barbuda for another 5 mo., but it appears to be the most comprehensive guide a tourist can buy for these places. If it's anything like the Rough Guide we used for Trinidad/Tobago, it should have the islanders in awe of all the information it contains. Looking forward to carrying all around Antigua & Barbuda when we get there.

This book neglects to mention one important aspect about traveling to Antigua. You must pay $20 USD in cash to get out of the country. When I was there, both ATM machines were out and no one seemed to care.