Travel to Latin America

Lonely Planet Baja & Los Cabos (Lonely Planet Baja and Los Cabos)

Format: Paperback
Author: Danny Palmerlee
ReleaseDate: February, 2005
Publisher: Lonely Planet Publications
Rating:

Easily Readable But Lacking Correct Information
I actually enjoyed Palmerlee's writing style and his side commentaries on the Baja music scene and other topics of interest. My wife and me chose this LP guide for our recent trip to Baja Norte. However, there were just too many cases of inaccurate information. For example, Palmerlee says a taxi from Ensenada to La Bufadora is about $12 when actually the round trip cost given to us by numerous taxi drivers was $40. He then says (correctly) that you can save money by taking a $1 bus to the town of Maneadora. But from there, he says, you must hitchhike to La Bufadora. The truth is, as we discovered by talking to the locals, you can easily catch another $1 bus from Maneadero to La Bufadora. Thus avoiding the hitchhiking which many people, including my wife, would not want to try.

Another problem was that the hotel recommendations were too often off the the mark. For example, at the highly recommended Hotel Los Pelicanos in Rosarito we were taken to a dark, dreary room by a very unfriendly hotel receptionist. Of course, we chose not to stay there.

I know that prices change and good places go bad. But still this book just had too many inaccuracies for me to recommend it. In fact, my wife started saying we should read what the Lonely Planet guide said and then do the opposite. I think this was probably a bit of an overstatement on her part. But still I'm sure this is the last thing LP wants to hear from it's readers. By the way, Lonely Planet is still my favorite publisher of travel guides. But hopefully the book we purchase for our next trip will provide better information. .

compact and user friendly
the costs of rooms and cafes are in layers, $ $$ $$$ or over $25, $25-50 etc, and you never really know if it costs $25 or $50, same with meals, and it has no easy to find color map, requiring one to search thru the different sections to find a black & white map covering a large area, and then you have to try and find the area of interest. the moon book is like reading a code many times, difficult to obtain the info you desire.
the lonely planet is about 1/3 as thick, has prices for room and meals in every range, and specific dollar amounts. somehow it was able to jam enormous user needed info into a small space and leave out much of the vague data in the moon book. Easy to carry and a real joy to look thru. .

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Related products:
click image or link for details on these Latin America travel books.

	Moon Handbooks Baja
	Frommer's Los Cabos & Baja (Frommer's Complete)
	The Baja Adventure Book
	Los Cabos Guide to Good Eating and More