We got this book and a Mexico travel book before we left for a week trip in Oaxaca. Just myself and my son, age 15. Other than assuring we had a hotel in Oaxaca the first night and a car, we made no other plans.
Old motto: "Good travelers don't know where they are going. Great travelers don't know where they've been." (My personal addition: "And even better travelers have no idea what they just ate!")
While the 'map' in this book is not to scale (some roads cross that do not cross in the maps inside; distances are not to scale) and the hotels/pricing is out of date ... we found this book to be 100% indispensable.
We joking referred to it by saying 'consult the good book' when we were coming up to towns and wondered what, if anything, was there. We found ruins that locals wondered how we found and a few hot springs that were off the beaten track. The one north of Ixtepec (more a warm stream than a bath) was worth the whole trip.
We barely cracked the Mexico book (it got relegated to the bottom of my suitcase) but this book was in hand the whole trip and came back dog-eared ... and covered with red dirt.
On the last night, we used the book as our sole map of Oaxaca city and found a couple nice places we doubt we would have located without it.
Of course, we stumbled onto a few places that were not listed (Tip: Arrive early to the cultural museum in Oaxaca City and walk around the Church to stroll through the botanical gardens) and some sites were not accessible any longer or (more likely) we could not get the locals to comprehend what we wanted to find from our limited Spanish ... but simply put:
This book was worth every penny. Buy it before you leave for Oaxaca.
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