Moon Handbooks: Ecuador (1st Ed.) (Paperback)

by Julian Smith (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
Ecuador Handbook: Including the Galapagos Is lands is a comprehensive travel guide that focuses especiall y on history, nature, strenuous tourism and outdoor recreati on. '

From the Back Cover
PACIFIC, ANDES, AMAZON Hidden beaches, snowcapped peaks, lush rainforest: veteran South America adventurer Julian Smith guides you to the very best of Ecuador and its Galapagos Islands, with: Descriptions of outdoor adventures, including backpacking, kayaking, and mountain-climbing, and details on navigating the infamous Nariz del Diablo on the roof of a train Discerning reviews of hotels and restaurants for every budget, from luxury rainforest lodges to getting by on US$10 a day Extensive coverage of the world-famous Galapagos Islands, including hints on finding the right tour and where to swim with sea lions 44 detailed maps

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Product Details

• Paperback: 418 pages
• Publisher: Avalon Travel Pub; 1st edition (March 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1566911079
• ISBN-13: 978-1566911078
• Product Dimensions: 7.5 x 5.2 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,588,762 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

34 of 34 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars excellent guidebook, January 11, 1999

By A Customer

i've travelled a lot, and i've usually just picked out the lonely planet book on wherever i'm going almost by habit. but i was getting sick of how dull they are, so i decided to try a different one for this trip. this seemed like the most interesting among the competition.

i like dhow the author took the time to explain so much about the history and ecology of the country. in two and a half months i only found a few places where the travel details weren't accurate, which is pretty good for these books. but it was all the rest that made the difference. it was great to actually learn something from a guidebook for once. the stuff about the galapagos especially gave a much better sense of the islands (DONT miss them if you go) then just listing the plants and animals.

i used this book for ecuador and another one for peru right afterwards, and there was no comparison. so i knew where all the hotels were in peru and how much everything cost (at least when that author was there). but in ecuador i read about local legends and famous people, which may not seem that important when you're looking for a hotel at midnight, but trust me it can make a big difference in your experience.

plus i liked how much there way about outdoor activities like surfing, rafting, hikingand mountain climbing, since i did all of them while i was there.

great book!

18 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The best Ecuador guide going, January 27, 1999

By A Customer

Informative, entertaining, obsessively comprehensive--you have to love a guidebook that quotes Kurt Vonnegut and describes Galapagos penguins as looking "as out of place as eskimos at a beach party." Makes you realize how dull most other travel guides are. And all the travel details are dead-on, too. My wife and hiked around Cotopaxi volcano, rafted in the Amazon, and went birdwatching along the coast, and in all cases the information was accurate and complete.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Good overview but get something else to plan, May 31, 2006

By	Anne-Lise (United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Moon Handbooks Ecuador: Including the Galapagos Islands (Paperback)

I first bought this book a couple of months ago and was really pleased at first. It seemed to give good information on a variety of areas and gave recommendations of things to do that were probably off of the beaten path. Based on the book I drew up a list of the places in Ecuador that I would like to visit and laid the book down for a little bit until I had firmed up my plans some more.

On picking up the book again I started to see some of the glaring errors I had missed in my first reading. There are very few maps of the cities that are spoken of in the book so it doesn't really do you any good to know an address if you have no idea where in the city it is. When there is a map it will label all of the things mentioned in that section on that map. When you're talking about Quito or Cuenca or even significantly smaller cities you have to search the entire map to find the name of a hotel or museum. It would have been so much easier if there was a key to the map where all the locations were given numbers and you could say that Hostal Maria is #5 which is located in square B-3.

This guidebook also wasn't very helpful in planning because it wouldn't give very much information on the transportation section. You could be in a section on the southern coast and it will say that the bus takes 11 hours to Quito. Well, what about Guayaquil or other closer cities of importance? Also, how frequent are the buses? Is it once a day or do they leave every couple of hours? Very few travelers are going to keep going to the capital in between cities. Rather they will probably be making a circuit and it's really necessary to know how long it is between cities in a region.

In addition it will mention towns that are major transportation hubs (like Jipijappa) but doesn't give any additional information like travel times to various places, accomdations if you need stay the night, etc.

One last pet peeve was that frequently they would mention a hotel or a restaurant and just give the name of the place with no address or phone number.

Having said all of this the Moon guide was informative about various places and it was nice that it included pictures in the text, though as usual, more would have been nice. I had bought the Lonely Planet Peru and found it far more helpful in planning for that country. Unfortunately, however, the LP for Ecuador hasn't been updated since Ecuador switched its currency. Oh well.