Lonely Planet Thailand: Detailed Itineraries | Travel Like a Local | Insider Tips | Covers Bangkok & Around, Phuket & the Andaman Coast, Chiang Mai Province, Ko Samui and more

This book has changed the complete information we use to get in older version of lonely planet book, no hotels stay suggest nightlife place activities are shown. Book has failed totally.

like all other Lonely Plantet guides i've used this is incredibly thorough, with lots of detail, maps, layouts of particular sites, tips etc. Well worth the money.

It's great

Lonely Planet has been (or shall I say USED TO BE) my beloved guidebook series for almost three decades. I trusted it pretty much implicitly and used it both during the planning stage and while at my destination. This has changed now. The latest edition is almost 200 pages thinner than the last, and this happened at the cost of the accommodation, restaurant and transportation sections, which have now been reduced to random blurbs at the bottom of some pages. This, effectively, has made pre-journey planning rather challenging (yes, I have heard of the Internet, but to get into details you need some general idea, and this is not presented in the book). The new edition is chaotic and random in its structure, starting with the list of contents (BEYOND Krabi? BEYOND Chiang Mai? How are you supposed to find smaller places if they are never listed there). Then there is some random advice (do not let mosquitoes into your bungalow, seriously?!) and some failed attempts at humor (see one of the attached photos, in which the author cannot guarantee passionate nights if you stay in House of Passion hotel). Please... The information is gravely incomplete and random (you may have noticed a pattern here). I didn't attempt to compare the current and previous edition page by page, I used to believe Lonely Planet have editors who look at the contents critically; however, had I travelled with the new edition, I would never find the mangrove walk in Krabi. It isn't mentioned there and I found it a highlight of my stay. The order of the information presented is confusing at best, for example you get a poor map of Ko Lanta town walk (page 534) in the middle of Ko Phi Phi section. The worst, however, is the quality of maps. Unless my copy was printed on empty cartridges, the readability of the maps is dramatically diminished due to the choice of light grayish font on (mostly) beige-ish background. With the exception of a few details which the authors deemed important, these, for a change, will burn your retinas. The maps are either overloaded with absolutely redundant details, or heavily lacking any. One of my photos compares the map of Ko Samui from the previous and current edition (on the left and right, respectively). All in all, the new edition seems like a bad Tik Tok, attempting at entertainment (poorly) rather than information (even worse so). Not a diss at Tik Tok, mind you, just an observation. Avoid at all cost, buy the previous edition (which is a good old Lonely Planet guidebooks), and while it may lack in being up-to-date (not really), it certainly delivers big time. I do hope Lonely Planet will realize this is a failed experiment and bring back the goods. Fingers crossed! An edit: not looking for a rating conspiracy here, but how come only 3 out of 35 reviews so far (including mine) have come from the customers who actually purchased the product? All the others, Vine customers apparently, have been offered a free copy of the guidebook...

This book is going to be very handy for my upcoming trip, lots of information