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| Colombia (Country Guide) | 
 enlarge | Authors: Michael Kohn, Robert Landon
Publisher: Lonely Planet
Category: Book
List Price: $22.99
Buy New: $11.62
You Save: $11.37 (49%)
Buy New/Used from $11.62
Avg. Customer Rating:  (19 reviews)
Sales Rank: 55251
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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| Customer Reviews:
 A "guidebook" that's an admitted FRAUD by one of its contributors! April 13, 2008
6 out of 6 found this review helpful
If you're wondering why this guidebook gets such low marks from its users, there's a reason. One of its main contributors has confessed that he's never been to Colombia; nevertheless, the Lonely Planet still stands behind the guidebook as being "accurate." Here's a news clipping about it:
Lonely Planet rocked by author fraud
Popular guide book giant Lonely Planet has suffered a severe blow to its credibility, with one of its authors admitting to plagiarising and making up huge slabs of his books.
Thomas Kohnstamm, who worked on more than a dozen guide books for the publisher, has even admitted that he didn't visit one of the countries he wrote about, saying he worked on the book about Columbia from his US home.
"They didn't pay me enough to go (to) Columbia," News Ltd newspapers reported him as saying.
"I wrote the book in San Francisco. I got the information from a chick I was dating - an intern in the Colombian Consulate.
"They don't pay enough for what they expect the authors to do."
He also claimed to have accepted free travel, breaking the publisher's policy aimed at maintaining the independence of its authors.
Mr Kohnstamm's confession is a severe blow to Lonely Planet, considered a bible to travellers all over the world.
More than six million of its country guides are sold each year.
Lonely Planet has conducted a review of all Mr Kohnstamm's guide books, but says it has failed to find any inaccuracies in them.
 a guide... March 20, 2008
2 out of 4 found this review helpful
just a guide. and colombia is not an easy country to write about.
its changing and changing fast. so if you are thinking of going . go NOW. before its too late. jetblue and spirit are flying and hard rock just opened, and once starbucks comes its over.
even in tairona, despite its beauty, i could see the laws of capitalism taking root in the 14.000 breakfast. but there are still some great spots. and what i found interesting about the LP book was what they left out. i think it was almost in an attempt to help preserve colombia from the back packers. especially one place they totally left out and never mentioned. it would be a like writing about the US and forgetting the grand canyon. I'll give you a hint. CDLV
Horrible November 13, 2007
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
I should have listened to the other reviewers. Go to wikipedia online and you will find out a lot more than reading this book! If it is your first time traveling to Colombia and you want a security blanket, maybe buy the older edition for 2 or 3 dollars.
Well, normaly I try to be positive.... but in this case... May 13, 2007
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
I was pretty dissatisfied with the book. I am the type of person who usually ignores bad reviews and buys things that I want... and I am usually glad that I did. However in this case, I did not pay attention to the bad reviews because this is basically the only Colombia guidebook available... and I have not even used it once. I am here in Cali for 2 months, and the small amount of info that was in the book I had already easily obtained from 2 minutes on Google. In my opinion the maps are incomplete, the recommendations are narrow, and the overall meat of the book is cut VERY LEAN. Try the free "poor but happy" Colombia guide on the internet.
Worst LP Guidebook I Have Ever Used January 29, 2007
35 out of 38 found this review helpful
I just returned from a 2 week trip to Colombia. We stayed one week in the mountain town of Pasto, where my Ecuadorian wife has friends, and one week in Cartagena. The section on Pasto was OK. But the section on Cartagena was terrible. The hotels mentioned were mostly limited to cheap backpacker places in Getsemani, the worst part of town. I have stayed in many $5 places myself. But my wife, like most Latinas, knows that super cheap hotels often double as brothels or "love motels" in Latin America and refuses to stay at them. They also don't mention any hotels in Bocagrande, where most Colombians on vacation stay. I understand that Lonely Planet caters mostly to foreign tourists on a tight budget. But LP also offers the only current guidebook to Colombia and needs to cover a much broader price range in order to be of use to all types of travellers.The restaurant info was also very limited and of little use.
Furthermore, the 2006 edition offers practically nothing new in its "update" to the 2003 edition. A waste of money!
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