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Let's Go China (Let's Go China) Editorial Review:
Completely revised and updated, Let's Go: China is your comprehensive guide to Asia's most exciting destination. Let's Go's forty-five years of travel savvy deliver must-have practical information. This edition boasts more outdoors activities, expanded must-see historical sights, and brand-new coverage of trekking, ethnic villages, and daytrips. An extensive chapter on alternatives to tourism helps you find ways to extend your stay and make a difference, while a phrasebook in Mandarin, Cantonese, Tibetan, and Uighur will help you get there, get around, and get busy, no matter where you may be. So, whether you'd rather chat it up with monks or trek to alpine lakes and glacier-capped peaks, Let's Go's intrepid researchers can lead the way.
Customer Reviews:
OK guide, but needs some serious improvements!
I used this book two years ago during a trip that took me from Hong Kong to GuangZhou, XiAn, TianShui, JiaYuGuan, DunHuang and Urumqi, and even though it was useful as a geographical and cultural guide, ALL the prices were way way off for all the places I visited in XiAn and Western China. I don't know about Eastern China, but the prices to most of the hotels and sights/parks were actually DOUBLE what they were supposed to be, according to the Let's Go guide. Big big disappointment there.
I ended up expecting prices to be double what the book said, and was able to plan the last part of my trip pretty accurately.
Another big mistake was NOT to include the PinYin accents on all the city and sight names. In the Lonely Planet, you just look up a section about a city and you get the PinYin for it AND the accents, which are important if you want to pronounce the name properly. I had to borrow a Lonely Planet on China in order to find the names of the places I was going to and write down the tones so I could say them properly. Miss your pronunciation, and most Chinese people won't understand right away what you're talking about!
Note that the Lonely Planet other travelers had was way wrong about prices as well for the whole of XinJiang and GanSu.
I love Let's Go in general, but they need to work on this one a bit better! I recommend this guide, BUT be careful when you make your budget! Expect some prices to be much higher than anticipated, and if you speak mandarin, double check how to pronounce the names of the places you're going to. Have a great trip!
TERRIBLE
I just returned from Chile. This book was horrible. Maps were wrong. Prices, hours and addresses were way off. The section on the Torres Del Paine is absolutely worthless. I doubt their guide writer even went there. Buy the Lonely Planet guide instead. I ended up throwing the Lets Go away and borrowing a Lonely Planet guide from a fellow traveler.
Lived in Beijing
This book was indispensable when my husband and I lived in Beijing for 6 months. I bought it together with Lonely Planet's The Best of Beijing, but found later on that I preferred to use this book because it contained a lot of leads to great deals on shopping, restaurants, etc. (Read: Good but cheap, and that's where most locals go) After checking out places from both books, I found Lonely Planet's contained a significant amount of "high end" places. Gave this book four stars only because I found that some prices quoted on particular restaurants are a bit outdated. Other than that, I loved it.
An Excellent Travel Guide
After just returning from a two week adventure in Chile, I found the guide book very helpful navigating through the major destinations in the country. Not only does the book give travel information, but interesting background information such as history, government, and social norms any traveler should know before setting off. The information is accurrate and really easy to use. The only flaw of the book is that it does not include some of the really small towns. However, these towns seemed to have no real major attractions in them. The book helps normal travelers and those people who like to experience a country on their own schedule.
Not Useful for the Atacama Desert, true-but fine otherwise
The only other review declared that they "used this book during our trip to the Atacama Desert. It was not helpful..." Well, I imagine it wouldn't be very useful, seeing that the Atacama Desert is in Chile, not in China!
I generally prefer the Lonely Planet guides over the Let's Go guides, which tend to sound like they are written by know-it-all teenagers with too little life experience to be offering advice to real grown-ups. This guide on China, in contrast, is informative and pragmatic rather than preachy. Just one cautionary note: If you are actually planning on traveling around China on your own and don't speak Chinese, get a couple other guides and review them also-China is one of the few remaining countries where you cannot count on every shopkeeper and hotel manager conveniently being able to speak English.
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