Product Description

The handy pocket-size guide is packed with useful information, tips and recommendations, accompanied by colour photographs, charts and maps for the first-time traveller who wants to experience the major highlights that Mauritius has to offer. This travel book surpasses other guides in that it incorporates essential information in an easy-to-carry and easy-to-read format that is attractive and useful at the same time. It provides a visitor with an invaluable introduction to Mauritius by concisely highlighting the region's 'must see' areas in a practical and user-friendly format, thus encouraging the tourist to make the most of his/her available time. All the essential information you need to get around an unfamiliar region is compacted into useful and practical 'At-a-Glance' sections at the end of each chapter. The fold-out map of Mauritius is ideal for tourists and visitors. In addition to the main map of Mauritius, which highlights scenic routes, it features 11 detailed area maps and 3 town plans.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #374976 in Books
• Published on: 2001-11-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Map

About the Author
Martine Maurel is a mauritius-born French Graduate, who spent some years living in Malawi. She has written a number of travel articles and books which have been very well received, including Visitors Guide to Malawi and Visitors Guide to Zimbabwe. She has since returned to her native Mauritius, from where she still writes.

Customer Reviews

Mauritius Map
This map is useless. It looks impressive, but bears no relation to what the roads actually do on the Island. Often roads that look minor on the map are major in reality (and vice versa). Roads often require a definite left or right turn just to stay on them, whereas on the map it looks as if you just go straight on. Pretty to look at (and large scale) but the small scale throw away car rental maps are more accurate. Airport area is completely misleading and has obviously been completely changed since map was published. Save your money!

A useful map
Further to my earlier comments, I have now had the opportunity to 'road test' this map during a fortnights holiday when we covered some 890 miles. We stayed near Belle Mare on the east coast and travelled over much of the island, visiting not only the normal tourist attractions, but also more obscure locations as I was looking for traces of the islands railway system which closed 40 years ago.
On all our travels the map proved to be accurate and reliable, bearing in mind that roads in Mauritius vary enormously in quality - in some places busy main roads are in terrible condition, whilst little used minor roads can be excellent.
In fact, you do not need to refer to the map frequently during a journey, as signs on the main Mahebourg/Airport/Curepipe/Port Louis/Grand Baie route are excellent and elsewhere they are adequate (usually fingerposts at all significant junctions), so as long as you know the main towns en route you don't really need to use the map much.
Basically this is a reasonable tourist map and if the publishers were to reprint it and replace the prominent and irrelevant local government boundaries with some decent topography, it would be a very good map indeed.
Incidentally, driving in Mauritius is relatively easy. Traffic is generally very light and driving standards are higher than for other Indian Ocean destinations. We used Monet Car Hire and found their service excellent and competitively priced, with no hidden extras.

First Impressions
This appears to be a reasonable map aimed at the tourist market. All major and minor roads are clearly shown, together with the Islands only motorway, except for the final section from Mapou to Grand Baie.
The location of all the major tourist attractions and hotels are clearly shown, together with beaches and diving sites etc. In addition there are 8 larger scale maps of the main tourist areas, together with street maps of Port Louis and Curepipe.
My only initial criticism is that the topography is poorly shown, with no contour lines of any kind and only the height of a few summits given to indicate the nature of the terrain.
I will be 'road testing' the map during a holiday in March and will be able to write a more accurate review on my return.