kdwill99

I need to get my guide books in preparation for my backpacking trip to SE Asia. Any reccomendations for books that are most relevant, up to date, and accurate? I am focussing mostly on Lonely Planet and Rough Guides. Any recomendations for the following countries:

Vietnam
Cambodia
Thailand
Maylasia
SE Asia (in general)

Also, this is my first time to go backpacking, and my trip will be about 6 weeks. Do you reccomend that I have a book for each country or just one general book for all of SE Asia so that I have less to lug around? Thank you!

rhkkmk

seems to me that you cannot be carrying too many books in a back pack so that might limit you.....i often tear guidebooks apart carefully and take only what i need....then when i return home i mend them.....no i do not return them for cash, like gpanda would do....

seems like rough guide would be your best bet.....but before you go i would look at fodors and frommers for the best listing and discussions of the main tour sites and customs....i would not take them with me however...

Kathie

I like the Lonely Planet guides. They do have a SE Asia book, but I find it too general to be of much use. I'm one of those people who believes you need a separate guidebook for each country, as I like to have lots of detail.

By the way, you've listed 4 countries for 6 weeks. You might want to prioritize your destinations. Backpacking is necessarily slow travel, as I assume you will be going overland from place to place rather than flying. Three counties in your 6 weeks is more realistic. VN, Cambodia and Thailand would be a good combination.

Smeagol

Take a look at Luxe guides (they are city guides) but are small and very easily transportable. I buy a larger guide book read and read it at home make some notes and then take my luxe guides in my handbag. (they don't do Malaysian cities though.)

Kathie

Luxe guides are tiny, but are only listings of places like restaurants and spas that the author likes. They aren't of much (any) use as a guidebook, and the prices for recommended services/places would put them well out of the range of a backpacker's budget.

I purchased a Luxe guide to Bangkok several years ago, looking for interesting places I hadn't tried. I guess you either love the author's recs - or not. I was in the "or not" category. There was nothing special about the places she recommended, IMO. But it sounds like you liked some of her recommendations, Smeagol.

Smeagol

I do, they usually have places that I and Muffin enjoy visiting. As i mentioned they are not great for "guide books" per se but handy to have in your handbag when you are on the ground but of course as Kathie said they are not for everyone (a bit like marmite!!)

silverwool

Have a look at http://www.travelfish.org/ They have downloadable info on most of the countries you are interested in. (Not Malaysia at this stage) They have both freebes and ones you pay a nominal amount for. I found them quite useful.

The problem with all guidebooks is that they go out of date very quickly and there is an increasing likelihood that the author has cut corners in some of the more out of the way places. I'm not saying that travelfish is any better but its worth a look.

However, I would not stress as SE Asia is great backpacker territory and you will pick up lots of recommendations from like minded people on the road.

4bams

I like the lonely planet for your kind of trip. a general book will be fine. I would not tear out pages for your trip either- the beauty of backpacking is the sponteneity- you may not have planned to go to indonesia at all,say, and then you meet someone going to bali and the next thing you know... so it is nice to have some info with you for the whole area. also, specific hotels and restaurants are not that important- it is more what part of town do I want to stay in that matters, and what town do I want to go to anyway. "southeast asia on a shoe string" is a good place to start (lonely planet)

Cicerone

I think a lot depends on what you want a guide book for. Some guidebooks are great on history and culture, like DK/Eyewitness, Insight and Lonely Planet. DK has really well-done and useful cut-away drawings of major tourist sites that can assist during a visit. Lonely Planet has always been a very good source for budget travelers, esp for hotels, restaurants and inexpensive public transport. Some are great on suggested itineraries, like Fodors and Frommers. Some are very localized guides for shopping and restaurants which are quite valuable, like the Nancy Chandler guides for Bangkok and Chiang Mai, and the Luxe Guides. I used a Rough Guide for South Africa recently and found it to be quite useful and in some ways better than the Lonely Planet, but I don’t have a lot of experience with using those guides at this point. I would get some or most of them, but you can do that as follows:

1. For background reading on history and culture, you can borrow from friends or go to your library and get the DK, Insight or other guides and photocopy them. Older editions are fine as that basic information really does not change. If they have current editions of Fodors, I would copy that, as I think Fodors walking tour reccos get a little dated after a year or two, esp in places like Hong Kong or Bangkok where things are getting torn down every year. Make double-sided copies if you can, as this will really cut down on the number of pages. You can check them out and photocopy them at work.

2. The Web often has lots of good background info on history and culture as well which you can print out on double-sided paper as well. You can find websites for museums, etc. For example, the website for the Thailand Tourism Authority is http://www.tourismthailand.org/. Lonely Planet has a useful chat room as well for up-to-the minute reccomendations from travellelrs.

3. Something like the Nancy Chandler map for shopping and restaurants in Bangkok would IMO be quite useful to you, she also has a map for Chiang Mai. There is very little on history and sightseeing, although she does offer some interesting alternatives like the bike tour of Bangkok. Her section on the weekend market is invaluable, IMO.

4. I live in Hong Kong and think that the Luxe Guide for Hong Kong is absolutely spot on for their reccos on restaurants and most of their shopping and sightseeing reccos as well, and I tend to like their recocs for in other cities which I know fairly well, like Bangkok. However, I would agree that it is not for budget travelers, so even its relatively inexpensive price may not be worth it to you. (I would note that these guides are written by local people in each place, primarily by expats from what I understand (I know some of the contributors to the Hong Kong edition) and are not written by one author, and represent their collective recommendations. )

For guidebooks you want to bring with you, I would also photocopy them onto 2-sided paper. If your eyes are good, you can even do 2 pages per side and really cut down on the amount of paper you need to bring, and discard things like cover pages, etc. You can then write notes in margins, or just discard the guides as you leave each country.

As for the LP SE Book versus the one for each country, I would take some time to compare the two and see the information which is contained in each and how similar it is or isn't. If your plan is just major ciites in each place, then the general book may be fine. If your plan is more remote places in one or more, then you may need the specific guide to that country.

Remember that you usually can find the LP books in the countries you are going to, so if you decide that you do need a specalized book, you can buy one later. (All of the above countries have English bookstores.) You may even be able to find a used one, altough you don't want one that is too old. (You could look on-line for used guidebooks too, as a way to save money, but again not too old, last year or two.)

ebfitch16

I'm also in the planning stage of my backpacking trip (Vietnam, Laos, Thailand) and I bought the Lonely Planet: Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos & the Greater Mekong. It has been very helpful so far in terms of narrowing down places of interest and how to get from one place to the next. I also like the history and the culture aspect of Lonely Planet books.

I'm just going to bring this one book, and then what I do is cheat and go sit in Borders with a stack of post-it notes and look at all the other books and then stick my post-its in the one I bought in the relevant section. That way I have the details I want from the single country/city books, in my one general guidebook. My own mad-system, it worked in the past and I'm hoping it will work again.

Good luck!

WillJame

Check out the down-loadable Lonely Planet Guides. They have discounts for purchases of several guides. You can print off each one, and then take along the pages you need. I did this successfully a few months ago for three countries where I knew before departure which cities/regions I would in. The total cost for all I needed was about $15.

kdwill99

Thank you for all the responses! Yes, I found Travelfish to be very helpful. Such a great website.

I also sat down in a book store and compared all the books for Vietnam. Rough Guides i cut out immediately because it is too old (I think from '06?). It came down to Lonely Planet or Frommers. However, I found that Frommers seems to be more geared to travelers not on a budget (ie, not backpackers). hands down, Lonely Planet was my favorite. Not only was it clearly geared towards backpackers, but it also is payed out so well and makes it easy to find what I need to make my way through the country.

Now I am trying to decide for Thailand the best book. I want to go with Lonely Planet since I like the lay out so much, but I have read some pretty bad reviews. Are the Luxe guides city specific? Although I will be with a group for the northern part of Thailand, I think I will do southern Thailand (in the beach area) on my own so I need a guide that I can trust is accurate with how to navigate around this region, which seems to me to be very "local" (ie, ferries, buses, taxis). Any suggestions for Thailand in particular?

Kathie

I'd suggest the Lonely Planet guide for your purposes. It has the best practical info on local transport.

The Luxe guide is not in any way a guidebook. It is a small, fold-up card that lists favorite restaurants, spas, stores, shopping, etc for one city per guide. It is oriented toward the higher-budget traveler.