Vietnam (Country Travel Guide)
“Blessed with a ravishing coastline, emerald-green mountains, breathtaking national parks, dynamic cities, outstanding cultural interest and one of the world’s best cuisines, Vietnam has it all.” – Iain Stewart, Lonely Planet Writer
Our Promise
You can trust our travel information because Lonely Planet authors visit the places we write about, each and every edition. We never accept freebies for positive coverage so you can rely on us to tell it like it is.
Inside Thi
List Price: $ 24.99
Price:
' src='https://www.tripdates.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/http:ecx.images-amazon.comimagesI51sBQfKgCJL._SL160_.jpg'>)
Foxx
Very good guide!,
I believe the fellow from the other post missed the fact that Lonely Planet’s Travel Guides are not written by a sole author, but rather by a team of several people.
This information easily undoes the math according to which it is not possible to go (or gather information) on all the places indicated in the Guide.
That being said, the Vietnam, together with the Myanmar, Cambodia and Korea Guides, was my first experience in travelling with Lonely Planet and, in the end, I was quite satisfed with it.
LP’s guides contain a lot of interesting historical information and have very nice hotel and restaurant hints.
Bear in mind, however, that the publisher is much more interested in lower income countries and less expensive options.
Therefore, while the Myanmar, Cambodia and Vietnam guides were amazing, the Korea one was very disappointing. Furthermore, LP guides lack information on most luxurious tourism options.
If that is your intention, you should go to Frommer’s (that, for instance, has a much better Korea guide.
Was this review helpful to you?
|MussSyke
Just Can’t Figure Out What LP Is Up To,
OVERALL: This is a fairly solid travel guide. All the random information, boxed texts, travel tips, and perusable information you’d expect out of a travel guide is here. It has been entertaining to both read and leaf through, and I appreciate the fact they talk about food fairly often. But when it comes down to it, it’s only fairly standard. As I am unsure if a better current travel book on Vietnam exists, I would be okay having this as my guide for a trip.
FORMAT: At some point, LP had switched their format to this abhorrent blue and white design, which made for dull reading and bad maps. Then they went full color, to having pictures all throughout the book and a couple of new sections that took advantage of that full color. And then some newer LPs were back to the blue and white. This version is somewhere in between: the front and rear is full color, as is a small section on Angkor Wat (yes, Angkor Wat – more on that later), while the rest of the book is blue and white. These guys are obviously struggling with their price/quality ratio, but I wish they’d pick a format and stick with it.
The worst part about the blue and white format is when land masses show up on maps as blue, although I could find no examples of that travesty in this book, thankfully. The other thing that is disappointing is that it does not allow for pictures scattered throughout the book as the full color format did; instead going back to clumps of pictures where they don’t match up with any particular text. They are not glossy like they were years ago. I’d be happier with black and white with some more pictures where they would help, alla Moon guides. I don’t need fancy pictures, but I’d like more reason to browse the center of the book and more reasons to daydream.
MAP: As usual, it’s good to have in a pinch, but I’d expect to be able to pick a better one up for free someplace. I don’t know why they bother.
ANGKOR WAT: There is a section in this book on Angkor Wat, and Angkor Wat also appears in the top 20, which I find wrong on so many levels. First, Cambodia is a fantastic destination on its own and already has its own book; I expect add-ons for a place like Andorra or San Marino, which are just tourist traps too small to require their own books. Second, the temples of Angkor make an easier side trip from Thailand, and thus should be tossed into the Thailand book if they’re going to be abused as such. Further, the Angkor Wat section is the one section in the normal text that is in color, showing they must have taken it right out of the Cambodia book. And – I’m getting a bit subjective now – although Angkor Wat is a must see for many people, I’d rather spend a day exploring some of the lesser known temples around than dealing with all the idiot tourists running amok in the too-perfect Angkor Wat (the kind of great adventurers that fly directly into Siem Reap only to spend $200+ a night on hotels just to stay as far removed from the local population as possible…) The whole thing is absurd.
Was this review helpful to you?
|Wayne
Generally good all around guide,
Vietnam is a fast changing place. Since the time that they first opened up the country to visitors from the US, cities like Saigon have undergone so much construction that a guide book from just a few years ago is sure to be outdated. This one covers things from the old to the new. It’s the result of about six months of research from people who visited the area, and covers a lot of ground.
The primary emphasis of any guide book should be to familiarize readers with the country, its regions, what parts to visit and what to expect there. This book does a good job of that, giving lots of details about everything from historical landmarks to beach resorts, and full color photos.
The book also gives you background about the country, its history, politics, and how things developed into what they are now. Understanding the background and culture is important for the enjoyment of any trip.
This book covers the major regions, cities, towns, and just about all the places that a tourist would be likely to go. It won’t cover every little town, and in some cases, resort areas are covered well but the surrounding towns are hardly mentioned. If a place warrants a few paragraphs, it would not hurt to mention when it also has a world class resort rather than making sure to list 25 hotels in the city next to it.
On the other hand, there are far more places mentioned than a person could reasonably expect to cover in a several trips, and most hotels mentioned also have their websites or email address listed, making it easy to visit those, and visit travel websites for more specifics.
There’s a lot of information on different ethnic groups, how different areas compare to each other, and even a crash course on the Vietnamese language and even a few phrases in some regional languages. It’s tougher to cover a language like Vietnamese, and this book tends to emphasize northern pronunciations (it doesn’t tell you that.) It also uses some phrases that should be worded differently depending on whether you are talking to a man or woman, somebody older or younger, etc. but it doesn’t tell you that part either.
Nevertheless, you should have no problem getting around Vietnam when using this book as a starting point. You’ll want to use it to research your trip, and use it as a hands on guide once you get to Vietnam. I’ve been to Vietnam four times in the last 15 years or so, and would have found this book very helpful. It doesn’t cover every place I’ve been, but points out a lot of places I missed.
Was this review helpful to you?
|