Insight Guide Taiwan (Insight Guides) (Paperback)

~ Vivien Kim (Author) "Ilha formosa! IIha formosa! Portuguese sailors shouted with admiration from their ships as they sailed past Taiwan, en route to Japan during the 16th century..." (more)
Key Phrases: karaoke facilities, international tourist hotels, forest recreation area, Chiang Kai-shek, Taipei Tel, Sun Yat-sen (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

This guide includes a section detailing Taiwan's history, 12 features covering aspects of the country's life and culture, ranging from the legacy of Confucius to the high standard of living, a region by region visitor's guide to the sights, and a comprehensive Travel Tips section packed with essential contact addresses and numbers. Plus hundreds of top-notch photographs and 15 maps.

About the Author

Since 2000. Hammond, American Map, Langenscheidt Dictionaries, Insight Travel Guides, Delorme – the famous names in the Langenscheidt family. These represent the most authoritative, up-to-date, and extensive travel and reference products available. In January 2003, the renowned Berlitz Publishing became part of the Langenscheidt Group. The Langenscheidt Publishing Group, the premier group of map and travel companies, offers over 4,000 North American and international street maps, road maps, atlases, language-learning, bilingual dictionaries, and travel-related products covering countries, cities, and languages in every continent.

Product Details

• Paperback: 337 pages
• Publisher: Insight Guides; 4th edition (January 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 9812349669
• ISBN-13: 978-9812349668
• Product Dimensions: 8.7 x 5.9 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #774,008 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Beautiful, October 11, 2003

By	T. Hooper "thdizzy" (Osaka, Japan) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

The keyword for this guide is photos. It's packed with full-color photos on almost every page. It seems almost like a National Geographic magazine. In fact, this is why I like this guide. It also has a lot of information about the culture, history, and people of Taiwan in the first half of the book. The second half is dedicated to an overview of the major cities and sights in Taiwan. Again, these are well illustrated with full-color photos on almost every page.

This guidebook has a few bad points though. The section on hotels and restaurants is very weak. You could probably find more information at the information counter at the airport. Also, the maps are a bit difficult to read. And finally, the transportation information is entirely inadequate. It doesn't tell you how to get around the country at all. For me, this is the weakest point. I feel uncomfortable traveling with this kind of guidebook.

I don't recommend using this as your primary guidebook. I do recommend this as a secondary guide though. It can help you choose destinations because it has a lot of full-color photos and also the culture section is excellent. I think this book is especially good for armchair travelers.

14 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars good background and photos but not a useful guidebook, May 26, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Insight Guide Taiwan (Taiwan, 3rd ed) (Paperback)

I enjoyed reading about Taiwanese culture and looking at the lovely photographs, but then realized two major drawbacks with this guidebook. For one thing, it says that everything is wonderful, making it difficult to decide what to see and do. The bigger problem is that it has no information about how to get to a sight it reccomended, not even an address or phone number. So we ignored it the rest of the trip and got along great with the Lonely Planet.

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Good Photos, but Insufferably Inadequate Travel Guide, October 7, 2004

By	Matthew P. Arsenault (SW Michigan) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Although the photographs are brilliant, and the descriptions of Taiwan's more famous sights are interesting; the practical travel necessities are sorely lacking.

There is hardly any mention of the means to arrive at the locations illustrated in the book, and relevant information regarding cities or transportation is nonexistent.

If one is looking for a book simply to admire Taiwan through photos and occassionally insightful prose, Insight Guide Taiwan is an adequate choice. However, speaking from experience, for helpful travel information, stick with Lonely Planet.