Customer Reviews

The Unofficial Guide to New Orleans (Unofficial Guides)

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Although we'd been to New Orleans numerous times and thought we knew the city pretty well, this guide took us places we'd never been before and really helped us discover parts of the city and its people that it would have taken years for us to accumulate on our own. It guided us so artfully that our experiences in New Orleans led us to move here full-time.So many guides steer you to this or that, but one of the biggest assets of this guide is what it steers you away from: the bad restaurants and ones that aren't worth the money, the overpriced amusements, and high crime areas.What it does give you is not so much of "what" is in the city, but the "how's" and "why's" of life in New Orleans. And it's pronunciation guide to street names and the like in New Orleans is as valuable as if you were going to a foreign city. Which, of course, you are--New Orleans is the United States' most foreign city!

I used this book to guide me through a recent visit to New Orleans and it proved invaluable on numerous ocassions. The writing is tight, informative but not dry, and it covers a lot of issues which other guides fear to address. The section on avoiding crime and scams.."I know where you got those shoes" was invaluable and saved me some money and some strife! The restaurant guide is excellent and the affordability rating very accurate. Using this guide it was easy to get the best for the least at every meal. Pay attention to the guide, especially about "Mothers" and "The Gumbo Shop" and you can't go wrong! The swamp tour info was also a great help and the guide wasn't wrong when it recommended one over the other (we did both). I highly recommend this guide and really...can't praise it enough!

My wife and I had never gone anywhere near New Orleans. The Unauthorized guide pulled no punches and gave amusing and thorough advice on subjects we hadn't even considered. It is very useful and we heartily reccommend it to everyone.

The authors of this book blend refreshing frankness, exceptional research and tons of information into an indispensible guide for the Crescent City and a lot of the area around it. It is the book you want if you only want one; the only thing some other guides have on it is map quality. It will help you with the top-to-bottom planning of your trip, as well as greatly assist you once there.

I've used quite a few guidebooks, but have to say this is the worst I've ever come across. I was given this book as a gift before moving to New Orleans, and was hoping to get a good idea about the city before arriving. Had I looked at the book myself, I would never have purchased it.

The prose is confusing and overwhelming, the maps are difficult to find and sparse (the book offers an entire section of walking tours without highlighting a single route on a map). Additionally, the authors seem to constantly be telling the reader how they're different from other guidebooks, touting themselves as easier to use. The comparisons get old, and lend the unofficial guide a sense of amateurishness.

Extremely disappointed in this book, threw it away upon my arrival for something easier/more useful, with actual maps, and pictures.

Early on in the Guide, the author mentions that the average visitor to New Orleans only stays 2-4 days. Despite being a relatively small city (you can bicycle across the entire city in less than an hour, even at a relaxed pace), there's an overwhelming amount to learn or experience within it. Accepting that getting the "real" picture, or a complete one, is impossible, this Guide is actually full of informative and accessible information.

The restaurants, hotels, and attractions mentioned aren't ones that I, personally, would frequent, sometimes due to expense (I don't know many locals that can afford to eat at Emeril's or Commander's very often), and sometimes because, well, they'd be full of tourists. And a few of the eateries that I adore, such as Port of Call and Lil' Dizzy's, are given shockingly low ratings. But as a tourist, who may want to return home with tales of great, if brief, experiences of the city, perhaps K-Paul's is the right way to go, although I'd rather regale friends with a story about how I sat next to a shedding cat in Coop's eating red beans and rice with an Abita in hand while people screamed at the televisions.

The "local" information is sometimes accurate, other times puzzling, and sometimes outright incorrect. However, the inaccuracies are mostly harmless, and heavily related to information about the city's neighborhoods. Discussing the various histories of neighborhoods, including their boundaries, is likely to inspire a lively and heated debate even amongst those of us who live here or grew up here, but by any metric many of the maps and neighborhood comments (such as placing Lil' Dizzy's in "Mid-city") are grossly inaccurate. Which is unfortunate, since the maps are touted as one of this book's strong points. The cover also claims a "Full Post-Katrina Update", but this must consist of some hurried revisions, as there are bizarre anachronisms, such as referencing the streetcars (which, by the way, I hardly ever hear anyone, even a "local", call a trolley) as a "secret weapon", since when this book was published they weren't functioning. At another point in the book this fact is referenced, stating that they will be working "soon", but have been replaced by bus lines (they're working again, for the curious, but for the 3 years after the storm it took to get them running, this guide can't have been helpful.) The short section on how to pronounce the street names is gold, however, as there are few things more irritating than a tourist claiming we pronounce them "wrong". It's our city, and you'll damn well say "Ka-lee-ope". Other great restaurants, such as Elizabeth's, aren't deemed worthy for the guide's pages, and these omissions would only be minor if not for some of the crap that does get rated.

The section on crime may strike some as being alarmist, but since it follows discussing how dangerous it is here with how friendly the people are, it's also humorously accurate. I tend to skew towards the alarmist scale when talking to visitors, because the worst that will happen is they'll go home safe and make fun of me for claiming how scary it is, instead of getting hurt or killed because they were cocky, arrogant, and careless.

So to sum up this review, if you're passing through town, on a business trip, or on a short vacation with or without the family, the Unofficial Guide to New Orleans is a great book chock full of lists and ratings that will help you narrow down and select from among our city's many great attractions, and no doubt you'll go home having had a great time. Which is the entire goal of a travel or tourist's guide. However, if you're planning to stay for any length of time, or even considering moving here, then toss it in the nearest trash can and make friends with a local. What you learn from your local friends may be less comprehensive, but it'll damn sure be more adventurous, unique, "off the beaten path", and fulfilling.

I travel as often as I can with my family, so we have many different guides in the house. I will never buy another Unoffical Guide again. The information is very limited and I did not find it to be of much use. I was better off lifting tri-fold brochures from the hotel lobby. I will stick to the Eyewitness books in the future.

Great tips from a New Orleans native. What you read about in the book matches what you find on the streets once you're there--something that can't always be said about travel guides.

We haven't been to New Orleans yet, but this book is wonderfully written in terms of points of interest to certain areas to stay away from after dark. There are a lot of areas covered, including hotels, resturants and tours. We are looking forward to using all this information on our trip.

I bought this for a trip in 2009. It was an invaluable resource. I gave it to a coworker who was also going to NOLA, and he found it very useful too.