[.ca] Lonely Planet British Columbia (ISBN 174104023X)

poor effort:
The basics in this book are okay, but it looks like Lonely Planet hasn't used the original author and instead this edition has been updated by people with dubious qualifications and no link at all to Canada. This shouldn't translate to a poor guidebook, but in this case it does. The research was obviously done very quickly and some in some regions not at all. When I compared some sections to the previous edition, it looks like the prices had simply been raised a few dollars. In one case, a restaurant had been closed since 2001 (just as the first edition came out), yet the listing was identical, except for the prices. Even if the writers didn't visit, I'd at least expect them to call and check to see if it was still operating - I suppose changing the price makes it SEEM like the job is done. As this was in Whistler, a major tourist area, I would have expected them to have at least visited the town. They didn't - this restaurant alone was a giveaway, as was the lack of correct info center location (changed three years ago). It was the same throughout, the writers have simply failed to up date the book. I guess they don't need to do a thorough job as naive travelers continue to buy Lonely Planet books regardless of the content.