Lonely Planet Costa Rica (Lonely Planet Costa Rica)

Rating:
Summary: Not up to the LP standard
Review: As a big fan of the LP series, I was really looking forward to this guide to Costa Rica. Unfortunately, it fell short in many areas.

1) The author did not research things very well. He continually uses phrases like "nice-looking hotel", "the restaurant appears well-liked", etc. Essentially meaningless, content-free info on places.

2) The info is somewhat out-of-date. Several places I stayed at had changed their price / format / philosophy, well before publication of the book.

3) The book should have been called "Birding Through Costa Rica". It's great that the author has a hobby, but it's quite obvious that he should have been spending more time researching sites and accomodations while he was hunting down the brown pelican for the eleventeenth time. While the wildife section and descriptions were interesting, the author's obsession with birds really gets annoying, especially when it is at the cost of more beneficial info.

4) In this guide the author uses the first person singular perspective more than any other LP guide. It's really unnerving. Yeah Rob, it's great that you met Dave the bartender in Domenical, but I'd much rather know where the gas station is, BIG GUY.

As usual, this edition of the LP will no doubt become the "default" reference guide to Costa Rica, but in this case it's not because the author did a great research job. It's not bad, but greatly diminished by relying on one slightly bent birder as the main source of travel info. My buddy and I made sure we tried to wheelie our motorcycles over the gullet of any birds on the road as a result. LP still rules, I just hope Rob the Birder doesn't write many more editions.

Rating:
Summary: Lonely Planet Costa Rica review
Review: Having just returned from Costa Rica I would like to stress on a view previously heard here. If you plan on any kind of BUDGET cuts, e.g:
- take buses
- sleep in budget accomodation
- and/or backpack
then this is REALLY NOT the book for you.
I will not elaborate more on what the book does contain (see below) but will stress that it does NOT contain crucuial information on the above categories.
Many buses are missing / wrong. Budget accomodations (up to 20$/person) are very poorly researched. Simply no way to distinguish a dump from good value.
Two bold examples:
* Puntarenas was found to be every bit the seedy scary port town Puerto Limon is. If you read LP you'd think this was Punta del Este, Uruguay (a resort town).
* Read 15 pages of blurb on Tortuguero and when you finish them you realize you still have NO CLUE as to HOW to get there apart from entering the Hilton asking for a 250$ tour.
And I could go on...
Options: Moon or Footprint costa rica handbooks. They simply MUST be better...

Rating:
Summary: A great book
Review: I found this book very helpfull, The lonely planet series has guided me thru Costa Rica several times. I don't know what i would have done without it. It helped us find well priced hotels and, convined me to go to Monteverde and that was one of my favorite parts of the trip.
I highly recomend this book for all travelers

Rating:
Summary: A Good Second Choice
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: A Good Second Choice
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: best for low budget
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: essential
Review: Lonely Planet is always on the money with their guide books, but the Costa Rica edition is even better than average. It has everything you could conceivably need to know, and if it doesn't have it, it tells you how to find out.

The info. was up to date when I went there, but Costa Rica is such a friendly and easy going place, that it doesn't really matter which hotel or restaurant you eat at. Just ask a friendly local and they will be more than willing to help you out. The only drawback is that some of the maps are not detailed enough if you are planning to take some of the backroads, so get a roadmap in addition to this book. However, that is a small price to pay for such an indispensable little guide.

But remember, it is just a guide, not an instruction manual. You will have a better trip if you discover some stuff out for yourself, rather than going to the first "attraction" that LP suggests and finding 100 other tourists walking around with the same guidebook in their hand!

Oh yeah, and not to mention, it is impossible to destroy an LP guide. Later.

Rating:
Summary: best for low budget
Review: 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.