[.ca] Lonely Planet Costa Rica (ISBN 1740597753)

From Amazon.com:
Many Costa Rica guides provide hotel, restaurant, and arrival information, but Lonely Planet's stands out from the pack. Written by Rob Rachowiecki, an award-winning travel writer and naturalist, this guide delves into Costa Rica's flora, fauna, and nature reserves like no other. Rachowiecki's Costa Rica includes a 36-page color wildlife guide, contacts, and details on outdoor activities from kayaking to scuba diving, and bird watching to surfing. There are 54 maps of cities, towns, regions, and parks, plus a comprehensive e-mail and Web site directory, and scads of eating and accommodations options, from budget to upscale. With its rainforests, wildlife, volcanoes, and beaches, Costa Rica is among the most beautiful destinations, and Rachowiecki's guide prepares you to explore and enjoy.

Necessary to know what to avoid:
Just got back from Costa Rica (2 wks), and had a good time, though it wasn't without serious disappointment. While there we noticed that almost all the guidebooks people were carrying around were Lonely Planet (LP). But everywhere we stayed that LP raved about was very disappointing, and the few places we stayed that were very understated in LP were excellent. My theory is that so many people are using LP that if a place gets a rave recommendation the business just pours in. They jack up their prices, sit back and rest on their reputation, and the facility and service deteriorate. But the money keeps pouring in because of that great LP review. Meanwhile the underrated places have to work their butts off to get business. Even though LP CR is only 2 years old, the prices of the highly rated hotels were off by as much as 50%, whereas the ones with understated descriptions were right on. Generally, I like using LP, but for CR I would say that too many people do. Grab a different guidebook and cross-ref it with LP. If it has a nice sounding place that's not in LP, stay there! We also used Frommer's even though it doesn't have much of a selection of budget places. Frommer's descriptions are so much more colorful and accurate. You get the impression that they only write about places for which they have first-hand knowledge. Plus Frommer's 2004 edition is new and the prices were exactly right. But, it's not sufficient by itself because it just doesn't list enough places. Our rule of thumb for LP CR: If LP writes more than half a column about a hotel or lodge, avoid it! It will be overrated by now, with ridiculously high prices, and an inattentive staff. Next gripe related to the advice in this guidebook: all the concerns and warnings are grossly exagerated. The roads are bad, but they don't swallow cars and break axles. There may be some crime, but there aren't people learching in the shadows to flatten your tires every time you stop. The busy season doesn't fill every hotel -- in fact without reservations, we got our first choice of hotels every night. I wonder how much more fun my trip would have been if I hadn't let this book make me so defensive! Here's a tip for Costa Rican hotels: it doesn't matter how expensive the place is, the showers are lousy, with very little hot water and terrible water pressure. So don't pay $45 for a place just because it has hot showers when the place next door is only $25.

A Good Second Choice:
In preparing for a four-week trip to Costa Rica, I bought both the Moon Handbook and the Lonely Planet Guides to Costa Rica. Both were very good, but I would give the edge to Christoper Baker's Moon Handbook which provided more detailed and personalized descriptions of places to stay, eat, and visit. I have used Lonely Planet guides for years in many parts of the world and have long considered them my travel Bible. They remain excellent, reliable, and encyclopedic sources of travel information. However, I do sense they have lost some of the spark and individualism they once had and are becoming more mainstream and institutional. For travelers who plan an extensive trip to Costa Rica I would recommend buying both Moon and Lonely Planet as each provides information and insights the other misses. But if you only want to purchase one guide, I would recommend the Moon Guide.

best for low budget:
Lonely Planet tends to cater towards the low budget student traveler and this book is no different. However, I am a budget student traveler and found this book extremely helpfull. My friends and I began refering to it as the "biblia" which means bible. It knows exactly what an adventurous young traveler will want to do. Great guide, wayyyy better than the frommers. Put the frommers down.

Generally, Reliable and Accurate:
Used this book on a recent trip to CR in conjunction with the locally bought TICO TIMES 2003 book (which provided very little info or opinion but loads of listings, good maps and good insights for the English traveller). With the two, we were able to fully plan and travel around CR for 3 weeks. Undoubtably, things are going to be outdated in this book (published in fall of 2002), but the overall commentary on parks, towns, getting around, etc. were accurate and helpful. And as usual, LP contains great tidbits of info that make any trip interesting. The section on CR animals and birds is great as well.

A Good Second Choice:
In preparing for a four-week trip to Costa Rica, I bought both the Lonely Planet Guide and Moon Handbook to Costa Rica. Although both were very good, I would give the edge to the Moon Handbook which provided more detailed and personalized descriptions of places to stay, eat, and visit. I have used Lonely Planet books in many parts of the world and have long considered them my travel Bible. However, I have noticed that they seem to have lost some of their spark and have become more mainstream and institutionalized in recent years. For those planning an extensive trip to Costa Rica, I would suggest buying both Moon and Lonely Planet guides as each provides information and insights the other lacks. But I would give Moon the edge if you are planning to purche only one.