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| Central America (Shoestring) | 
 enlarge | Author: Robert Reid
Publisher: Lonely Planet
Category: Book
List Price: $24.99
Buy New: $15.67
You Save: $9.32 (37%)
Buy New/Used from $15.00
Avg. Customer Rating:  (13 reviews)
Sales Rank: 21353
Languages: English (Original Language), English (Unknown), English (Published)
Media: Paperback
Edition: 6
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 788
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.3
Dimensions (in): 7.7 x 5.1 x 0.7
ISBN: 1741045967
Dewey Decimal Number: 917
EAN: 9781741045963
ASIN: 1741045967
Publication Date: November 1, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
 Great Guide January 30, 2008
I used this guide in Belize and Guatemala and found it very useful. I appreciate non-exhaustive guidebooks, they don't spoil the "discovery". This book has just enough information to get you by, you'll still have to talk to locals and figure things out on your own (this is a good thing!). The maps are very useful.
The hotel listings give you a price range in actual dollars, this is much more useful than lumping them into a few predetermined price categories like other guides. Even if it's been a couple years and prices have changed you still have a better relative idea of what you're going to pay at one place versus another.
If you want a super detailed guide, then buy the specific book for the country or city. If you want enough information to wet your appetite, get you around the country, and give you a general idea of prices without spoiling the "adventure" and "discovery" of experiencing a new place... this is the guidebook for you.
Get out there!
Very good, but in need of an update October 22, 2007
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
This guide would be very useful for someone coming to Central America for tourism. It has a wealth of information and many maps and tips you won't find anywhere else. It is also small enough to fit in a small bag, and this would be the only guide you would really need if you were to travel all over Central America, for a few days in each country. I live in Central America, and I find that this guide has information that even the local tour guides can't provide.
However, as it happens with any printed materials, the guide now needs an update on some information, which can be crucial, such as the exchange rate or the availability of ATM machines. Also, some of the information the book provides has an obvious bias or is shallow, and, therefore, the guide misinforms, particularly as to the country contexts.
On the other hand, it would be better if you bought the Lonely Planet guides for each country. This one book is very useful, but the individual guides have a lot more information.
Four stars out of five.
Worked well for covering so many countries December 14, 2006
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
Last summer, I found this book much more useful for visiting Central America than its Let's Go counterpart which was riddled with more inaccuracies and fewer maps. However, I cannot speak to the Rough Guide, which some seem to prefer. Overall, maps to the major cities are there, and the bus info is very helpfu. Where there aren't maps, navigating becomes much more difficult. For this reason, if visiting many countries, it may be best to pick up country guides along the way. They tend to include more of the details (and more out of the way places) that make getting around much easier.
 Vastly overrated April 27, 2006
36 out of 38 found this review helpful
I recenty returned from a month long trip through Central America, during which I visited all 7 Central American countries, in this order: Belize, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Panama. I brought two guidebooks with me on my trip: this one and the Rough Guide to Central America. I soon found myself using the Rough Guide almost exclusively and this Lonely Planet Guide hardly at all. This was a surprise and a disappointment, because for the last 17 years I have consistently found the Lonely Planet guides to be the ones most consistently most useful for adventurous travelers. But not this one. Here are some of the problems I had with this guide:
--The maps are among the hardest to read and most unintelligible I have ever seen, anywhere. They are all in black and white, with shadings in gray. There is very little variation in font size. It is hard to find anything without poring almost microscopically over the maps.
--The book consistently focuses on the cheapest, most bottom end places, especially when it comes to lodging. Now I suppose I should have been warned by the title, but I honestly didn't expect the book to be so relentlessly downscale. So this is a book only for the truly impoverished. If you want to splurge a little, look in the Rough Guide.
--Like all LP guides, it is not well-organized, so a reader must take his time to get used to finding out where to look for information.
On ths positive side, it is chock full of information for overland travelers and those seeking to venture into the remote areas of the countries visited. But overall, this one is not one of LP's finest publication. Use the Rough Guide instead (see my review there).
 Maps are useless - as are much of the comments February 7, 2006
11 out of 14 found this review helpful
This has rotten country maps - then try to find the "Highlights" to the countries - like Tikal in Guat. is a highlight - but try and find it on these terrible country maps - that have no ABC-123 coordinates - you spend hours scanning miserable maps trying to figure out where the "Highlights" are - and highlighting them yourself - and yes - they're in the same small font as the rest of the map. And if you're gonna rent a cheap car and drive yourself - there's nothing. Acres of bus crap - no road info.
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