Customer Reviews

Tahiti Handbook Including Easter Island and the Cooks

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

 

 

David Stanley has covered the Pacific Islands for a long time with his various guidebooks. He continues doing an incredible job with his latest Tahiti Handbook. This is a very comprehensive, readable and accurate guidebook on travel through Tahiti and the islands of French Polynesia plus the Cook Islands and Easter Island. This books covers a huge chunk of Polynesia and it does it well. The 140 pages of intro material, important background and travel info is very useful. First-time South Pacific visitors intending stops in Tahiti, the Cooks and/or Easter Island will find this book essential. It's well-organized, easy-to-read, has great maps and interesting historic and contemporary photos. Knowing a bit about the complexities and problems associated with travel between and among these far-flung islands, I think the indepth coverage says much about Stanley's journalistic skills and diligence in collecting information and presenting it in a practical, useful manner. He covers just about everything necessary to know about travel through Tahiti and related island groups, the Cook Islands and Easter Island. There is a very useful resources listings as well with website/internet sources, bibliography, glossary, an Islands at a Glance vital stats table, accommodation and subject indexes, etc. You won't need any other book to travel easily, comfortably and intelligently through these islands.

The Tahiti Handbook is an excellent book. My wife and I traveled only on Moorea and Bora Bora, but I found the historical/political/sociological sections on the Cooks, on the French nuclear testing, and on the cultural history of the other islands absolutely fascinating and enlightening, something I never would have expected in a travel book. They certainly gave me some much needed perspective to appreciate current day French Polynesia.

We found the information on sights, accomodations, restaurants, and even prices to be mostly very accurate for the two islands we spent time on, and there is no question in my mind that we would have missed a lot that was just beyond the corner of our vision if it hadn't been for the book.

I'll be looking for a book by David Stanley the next time we set out for an exotic destination.

I purchased this book because of the description and several favorable reviews. I had hoped it would be an excellent resource for my first trip to Tahiti and the other Society Islands. This book was a very poor choice.

This book provides a wealth of historical information about the islands, but all of the practical information is weak. If this is the "2000" edition of the book, why does it list a hotel that closed in 1998 (The Bali Hai on Huahine)? What good is trail information that tells me I can get halfway up a mountain (with detailed directions), but after that point I'll need to hire a guide?

Buy this book (or consult an encyclopedia) if you want to learn the history of the islands, but if you're looking for practical information on exploring and adventuring I am certain there must be better options out there.

All in all, a huge disappointment. Not worth the space it took up in my suitcase.

High prices in Tahiti and the other islands of "French Polynesia" forced me to choose other destinations in the South Pacific so far. Reading Stanley's book, however, I found out that even in these islands there must be good and inexpensive places to stay. As a user of other books by David Stanley I do not fear to rely on his findings. Stanley's remarks are based on personal experiences as a traveller rather than on deals wih tourist agencies, hotels, and so on. Besides, his personal involvement with and love for the people in the Pacific favors his book to similar publications by other authors. You do not need to agree with all his political and other statements, but I personally appreciate that Stanley does not present only the sunny sides of life in the area. He also dares to point at the darker sides as well. This enables me to arrive in a country with a more balanced view of it and its society, rather than only the perspectives given in the more general tourist brochures and travel books.

This is the only book you need for a trip to Tahiti, catering to luxury travelers right on down to backpackers. The author separates the Polynesian island chains into different sections, giving complete coverage to history, accomodations, food (including cooking local cuisine), getting there, getting around and more for each island. The maps are simply spectacular, starting with the entire region (including air travel routes) all the way down to individual island and primary city maps. In fact, individual maps even have exact, pinpointed hotel and attraction locations, an extremely useful reference during your actual trip.

The Tahiti handbook also contains useful background on this region. Topics include the coral reefs of the Pacific, typhoons, Tahiti's climate, plants, animals and local customs. Show me another guidebook that has such unique content like Polynesian dance diagrams or instructions how to buy a black pearl.

The book concludes with a complete bibliography, related Internet web pages and some useful direct email addresses of contacts in the region. Overall, I highly recommend this guide book to anyone planning a trip to Tahiti/French Polynesia, Easter Island or the Cook Islands.

Dog eared. Water damaged. Trampled, underlined and torn. That's how my copy of David Stanley's excellent Tahiti Handbook looks after my first trip to French Polynesia. It's been to luxury resorts, great restaurants and in my back pack on the trail between Vaiare and Pao Pao on Moorea. It's been up jungle trails on Huahine and along on scuba trips on Bora Bora. It helped us find Lou Pescadou in Papeete, light years away from the tourist traps, although only 300 meters off the main street.

This is the best investment I could have made prior to embarking on my trip. It saved me hundreds of dollars and helped me make the best of use of my vacation time.

One exception to Mr. Stanley's recommendations. The Sofitel Heiva on Huahine is a huge disappointment, a poster child for Deferred Maintenance Syndrome. This hotel property offers all the quaint charm and run-down qualities of a Baja California beach motel at ten times the price.

Hi--- I live here on Rarotonga and am the author of the "Cook Islands Companion" guidebook, which is in its second edition. We are just about sold out, however, and I don't plan to do a third edition, as I am operating my Shangri-La Beach Cottages... here on Rarotonga.

I got a copy of David Stanley's guidebook, which now includes the Cooks with Tahiti. It is very accurate, fun to read, and provides almost all the information a visitor to the Cooks would need. I highly recommend it.

Now, I must admit it's not as in depth as my own guidebook, but of course mine is just about the Cooks. And, of course, I am a bit biased.

The Lonely Planet guide is OK, but I think if you are serious about coming down here to Rarotonga, you should definitely pick up a copy of David Stanley's Tahiti/Cook Islands guide.

As someone who lives here, and has been involved in travel to the Cooks since 1977, I think he's done a great job in letting people know about our little paradise.

Since I won't be writing a third edition, let me suggest that all of you take up Mr. Stanley's guidebook as the best one available on the Cooks....

While he provides a great deal of useful information to the reader, it is necessary to sort through Stanley's gratuitous political viewpoints in order to reach the useful advice. In his discussion of health Stanley spends an entire column discussing how AIDS is contracted and moralizes upon the appropriate treatment of HIV positive individuals -- while good advice, it was misplaced in a book entitled the 'Tahiti Handbook.' Similarly, in a discussion of mahus (Polynesian males who take on the role and often appearance of a female), Stanley asserts that the emergence of 'Miss Male' beauty contestants and mahu prostitution 'may be seen as a degradation of a phenomenon that has always been a part of Polynesian life.' In so asserting he imposes his opinion on the reader and discounts countless anthropological papers which have made a thorough study of the place of the 'third sex' in Tahitian culture. Furthermore, Stanley's grammar is horrible -- occasionally to the point of obscuring his meaning. While his insights into travel in Tahiti are invaluable, I was aggravated by the feeling that Stanley was placing himself on a moral pedestal and preaching to his reader.

We used a combination of the old version of this book, the Lonely Planet book, and Jan Princes book on our trip in 1998. We found a few things in all of the books that weren't in the others. I'd say we used this one the least. We had the old version though. I've reviewed the new one. It has some additional info in it. Since I didn't use it when travelling it's hard to compare with the others.

It's nice to get a book that covers the Cooks as well. If you didn't know what islands you wanted to go to, you might try this one or step up to the Moon S. Pacific Book. Check out our trip report which details how we used these books at DiveAtlas.com

I have never read a more contradicting book. He is writing a travel book, but seems to despise tourists. At one point he describes Bora Bora as reaching a "tourist glut". And in the next sentence says the luxury hotels "stand almost empty". It does provide some helpful information but this man does not seem to be very happy with society or his life. He manages to turn a beautiful location into something terrible. (Both Fiji and Tahiti.) If you are travelling to a luxury hotel he seems to be angry at you and definitely promotes pitching a tent instead. He does impose all his political beliefs. I have returned my two books by him to the bookstore and did not ask for my money back. I wanted them to know I just did not like the book. I will never buy another book by David Stanley.