Product Description

A multi country guide to increasingly popular South Africa, Lesotho and Swaziland. With a full colour wildlife guide and in depth coverage of the music of South Africa.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #12267 in Books
• Published on: 2006-11-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 680 pages

Synopsis
A multi country guide to increasingly popular South Africa, Lesotho and Swaziland. With a full colour wildlife guide and in depth coverage of the music of South Africa.

Customer Reviews

Surprised at negative feedback - Was invaluable for me.
I am surprised at the negative feedback here. As a consistent user of Lonely Planet guides, I have to say that this ranked as one of the more useful country guides i have come across. Writing guidebooks must be a very tricky business - it is necessary to include such a vast quantity of information, while trying simultaneously to capture the feel and mood of a country in such a way that people know what to expect back home. This particular guide does an excellent job in this respect.

I spent one month travelling from Pretoria to Cape Town, taking a winding route through Swaziland and Lesotho. I had no schedule and went where I wanted when I wanted. And perhaps it is for this kind of travelling that this guide is most suitable - it doesn't necessarily tell you how best to combine two or 3 attractions for a short holiday, which is a travel agent's job, but rather it gives a very involved lowdown on most places of consequence in which you might find yourself.

The information was detailed and correct, with pleasingly accurate (both on facts and on less tangible factors - atmosphere, attitude, etc.) descriptions of places and accommodations, and some fantastic recommendations for restaurants, especially in and around Cape Town.

I can't imagine which towns the other reviewers are referring to when they talk about misplaced or underdone praise. I felt that the passion with which the authors wrote the book was well apportioned.

seriously flawed
I suspect the brief of the SA LP authors was the following: do the least amount possible to fill a couple of 100 pages and make sure that on each page, completely redundant information is included and useful, nay, vital data is kept out. To this end, the authors have succeeded, excelling themselves in every regard. For example, the maps are just terrible, rarely peppered with more than a few pieces of information. The Durban and KZN section is hopeless and indicative of a lazy author who couldn't be bothered to do more than the bare minimum.

I came back from Africa having had a great time, despite LP, having found some enjoyment in doing my own travel research. Pull your socks up LP, this is not your usual high standard that I have come to expect over the last 20 years.

Useful guide but not the best
As Lonely Planet guides go, I must admit this one was a little disappointing. Certainly the usual details of history, maps, accomodation, sites and restaurants are included. But somehow the guide doesn't really pick up on what South Africa's about... The details of game reserves was very disappointing and certainly much of the area that I visited was not covered in as much detail as I'd have liked. For a country with the scenery of the Drakensburg, the beauty of Cape Town and the wonder of the game reserves that's really rather surprising.