An opinion on the Footprint travel guides is requested

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An opinion on the Footprint travel guides is requested

Postby grawp » Tue Apr 12, 2011 1:06 am

Good evening, all.

While there is a break in the action, I decided to get a collective opinion from the congregation here assembled.
I've been using a dog-eared mid-90's copy of the Footprint travel guide for Mexico & Central America.
After 20 years of hard use, it's time to buy a new edition.
Problem is, the newer edition of their South America handbook seem geared more for the folks who, in Gita Mehta's words, are "searching for Karma Kola."
More touristy stuff like beaches, excursions and night life, at the expense of hard info on the nuts & bolts, (i.e. hotels, hostels, transportation, campsites, & restaurants.)
I've not ben able to read a copy of the Mexico/Cent. Am. guide, and am uneasy that it will be the same; long on fluff, short on useful info.
Additionally, I've checked out the Bradt Guides series, and they appear to be useful.

Anyhoo, your opinion and guidance is requested.

Thanks.

grawp
The world will never love us. They respect us - they might even grow to fear us.
But they will never love us, for we have too much audacity!

- Theodore Roosevelt – “The Wind & the Lion” (1975)
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Re: An opinion on the Footprint travel guides is requested

Postby friendlyskies » Tue Apr 12, 2011 1:51 am

The coordinating author on the upcoming Footprints Central America is a most esteemed competitor of mine, and I have nothing but respect for his work and commitment to research - I'll highly recommend it because I know he's busting his ass. He does have a spiritual/lefty streak that might annoy you, and I know he only handles Nicaragua and Panama personally - FP's Costa Rica coverage isn't my favorite, but you don't need a guidebook for CR anymore anyway, everything is online. I think their maps are annoying, too, but at least they're useful. BUT. The fact that it's in the editorial cycle now means that the current edition is out of date; I know his deadline is this month, so it'll be out by November or so.

The Lonely Planet is considered the best guide to the region, but everyone uses it, which means if you go to one of the budget hotels it recommends, it will probably be booked and overpriced. Plus, their Nicaragua info is out of date and their El Salvador info is wrong. CR, Panama, and Guatemala are excellent, however. Don't know about Honduras and Belize. It does have, bar none, the best maps - since I'm definitely a map person, that's the selling point for me.

Fodor's is also very good, but is less comprehensive and geared to more upscale travelers - for instance, their coverage of Granada (Nicaragua) and Suchitoto (El Salvador) is surprisingly good, but only list a handful of top-end hotels and restaurants. But they just don't even mention less popular destinations except for CR and Guate - for instance, the entire Nicaraguan East Coast, with the exception of a couple ports and the Corn Islands, is omitted. Most people won't notice.

Rough Guide is substandard, even their Costa Rica section is incomplete and seems cobbled together from online research. Don't know about Frommers.

EDIT: RE: Fluff vs/ "hard info" like restaurants/hotels - I think more guidebook companies are realizing that people get hotel info online, and are shrinking those sections. If you want hostels, go to any of the hostel sites; for midrange, there's TripAdvisor, for top end, Luxurylatinamerica.com. For buses in Central America, the best place to go other than the desk at your hotel is http://thebusschedule.com/ Since guidebook companies kind of know the writing is on the wall (and by wall, I mean Internet), they're struggling to keep guidebooks relevant in a world where you can read up-to-date reviews of 500 hotels on your phone, and that often means increasing the fluff to nuts ratio.
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Re: An opinion on the Footprint travel guides is requested

Postby grawp » Tue Apr 12, 2011 2:40 am

My Lady Skies:

Thanks very much for your thoughtful and cogent response.
If the author's rep gets an approval from you, then that's good enough for me.
As regards his politics, that's his business, not mine.

Again, my thanks.

grawp
The world will never love us. They respect us - they might even grow to fear us.
But they will never love us, for we have too much audacity!

- Theodore Roosevelt – “The Wind & the Lion” (1975)
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Re: An opinion on the Footprint travel guides is requested

Postby marie-angelique » Wed Apr 13, 2011 4:41 pm

i try to avoid the hotels listed in the lonely planet. but i use the listing to get an idea of where the hotels are in town - so i will go to the listed hotel, then walk around, there will be a similar hotel a block away that isn't overpriced and overrun.

great post friendlyskies. thanks :)
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Re: An opinion on the Footprint travel guides is requested

Postby gazavat » Wed Apr 13, 2011 10:59 pm

I traveled in Swat, Pakistan, using Footprint guide about 10 years ago. I had never seen a better guide on the area and on Pakistan in general. No idea what they are like now, unfortunately, but it used to be an excellent book
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