Travel to South America

Moon Handbooks Ecuador (Moon Handbooks : Ecuador)

Format: Paperback
Author: Julian Smith
ReleaseDate: 09 November, 2005
Publisher: Avalon Travel Publishing, Moon Handbooks
Rating:

Good overview but get something else to plan
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. I first bought this book a couple of months ago and was really pleased at first. 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.

For sale at any price


Whom has he bribed and who bribed him. A travel writer casually speaking of the tour company he touts as having bribed the army for permissions that the environmental agency in the area denied is not someone I would trust on any level. Would you trust his information? I wouldn't. .

Moon Over Ecuador
The index helps finds things faster if you are not quite sure, or even if you know the exact subject matter. Very informative and as I have used Moon publications before I knew exactly where to go for the things I needed to look at. It goes in the suitcase first!.

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

	Lonely Planet Ecuador & the Galapagos Islands (Lonely Planet Ecuador and the Galapagos Islands)
	Insight Flexi Map Ecuador & Galapagos (Insight Flexi Maps)
	The Rough Guide to Ecuador - Edition 3