Lonely Planet British Columbia (Lonely Planet Travel Guides) (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.

very poor indeed:
I recently took this book on a trip to British Columbia. No idea why I bought it (except that I thought Lonely Planet put out decent guides), but this book was of far less value than the freebee tourist bureau handouts that one finds along the way. I'm absolutely certain that the authors did not visit any of the locations, as they provide no insights at all into the destinations, and their recommendations seemed outdated and sketchy at best. Bottom line is, I left it at a hotel because I didn't think it was worth the weight or effort to carry it around.

Rushed & Poor:
You know that this is a rushed slacking off LP job when the index on page 4-5 with the map of places to visit still shows names of places with placeholders. For example, it would say "see Victoria (pp XXX)", etc. Suprisingly, newer editions do not have this print error. Avoid this book. Its just not researched enough. Cheers.