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| Colombia (Country Guide) | 
 enlarge | Authors: Michael Kohn, Robert Landon
Publisher: Lonely Planet
Category: Book
List Price: $22.99
Buy New: $14.15
You Save: $8.84 (38%)
Buy New/Used from $13.01
Avg. Customer Rating:  (19 reviews)
Sales Rank: 53649
Languages: English (Original Language), English (Unknown), English (Published)
Media: Paperback
Edition: 4
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 276
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.6
Dimensions (in): 7.7 x 5 x 0.6
ISBN: 1741042844
Dewey Decimal Number: 918
EAN: 9781741042849
ASIN: 1741042844
Publication Date: June 1, 2006
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
Discover the best kept secret in South America. Colombia is safer than ever, affordable and still blissfully uncrowded - an independent traveler's dream. Laze on palm-fringed Caribbean beaches. Canoe slient rivers through lush rainforest. Stroll Cartagena's colonial old town. Salsa all night in Cali. Packed with practical advice and valuable tips for trouble-free travel, our peerless guide enables you to explore with confidence.
The Basics - detailed maps, tailored itineraries and easy-to-use directory help make the most of your trip.
Adrenaline Rushes - the best spots for diving, rafting, hiking, rock-climbing and other thrills.
Straight Talk - honest advice on where to go - and still risky spots to avoid.
Discerning Reviews - opinionated authors give the lowdown on where to sleep, eat and pain the town.
Colombia 101 - in-depth background chapters provide insight into the country and its people.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 14 more reviews...
 Don't spend the money! September 15, 2008
Lonely Planet should be ashamed to put their name on this effort. Why did they even bother putting out a book on Colombia without more comprehensive information?
This book contains very little accomodation information for Barranquilla, Cartagena, and the "coffee country" of Colombia.
There are not enough accomodation details for major cities other than Bogota.
There doesn't seem to be too much updated here at all!
 best of only bad choices August 20, 2008
just got back from colombia. i brought the Bradt guide and my friend brough the lonely planet. the Bradt is horrendous. both are weak, but the LP is by far the better of the two.
the most important thing about a guide, in a place like colombia is safety. the LP recommendeds hotels in the area by the cathedral in medellin. no one happened to go there or check with the police, quite obviously, because it's one of the sketchiest neighborhoods i've ever seen, and I grew up in brooklyn! transexual hookers who rob people with knives on the blocks all around it. one simple check with the police and they will tell you it's a "critical zone."
It also mentions how safe a city it is. i really wonder how much research was done. the day we got there we saw and arrest, someone tried to get into my daypack while walking around, and then we were walking, in broad daylight, in the very crowded Parque San Antonio, and my friend and i were jumped by 5 guys with knives. they were going for my camera, though i thought i was beign kidnapped, and i was STABBED IN THE BACK! we talked to the police who said exactly where to go and where not to, and that Medellin is not nearly as safe as the guides lead you to believe.
the maps should list areas that are known to be dangerous. it's not always so easy to figure out a sketch neighborhood from a safe one.
my advice is to get the Lonely Planet, despite it's flaws. Be careful in the big cities, don't carry anything that looks expensive, and take cabs at night anywhere that looks sketchy. that said, Colombians in general are some of the nicest people i've ever met, and the country has a lot to offer. i have travelled 35 countries all over the world and grew up in nyc in tougher times. i had no problems in any of my previous travels, including brazil, mexico, guatemala, indonesia, or otherwise. i would just warn anyone going to colombia to be on your toes, and ask a lot of travelers where they stayed and where to avoid. things do happen there, and though it's a wonderful country, well worth a visit, don't walk around blind to the realities. just because the crime statistics have gone down in a given city doesn't meant that they have actually been recording all of them. for mine, no report was ever created.
The Truth About the Book & the Author April 22, 2008
"They [Lonely Planet] don't pay me enough to go to Columbia," said Thomas Kohnstamm. "I wrote the book in San Francisco. I got the information from a chick I was dating."
I'm not joking. The author admitted this book is a fake.
Plagiarism April 14, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Just as former LP "writer" Joe Cummings plagiarized Bradt's Guide to Burma, so another LP author openly admits to plagiarism. No surprise there, the only surprising thing is how long he took to come out of the closet.
Demand your money back April 13, 2008
8 out of 8 found this review helpful
I earlier wrote a review of Lonely Planet's Guatemala where I reported indications the author had a conflict of interest. LP refused to answer any questions about this. The only thing they did was to prohibit my posting on their web site. Now the Daily Telegraph has published an article exposing further fraud. Kohnstamm, one of the authors of this guide said he never even went to Colombia. He said he wrote it in San Francisco with help from an intern at the Colombian embassy who he was dating. If Amazon wants to show any integrity in all this it should stop selling all known afflicted LP Guides until they can be vetted for accuracy by a reliable source. Obviously not an LP editor.
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