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Rating: 
Summary: very thorough book
Review: As with most countries LP has the most comprehensive travelguide on Australia, but it is time to update this issue concerning prices. After introduction of the new taxsystem in Australia almost none of the prices mentioned are correct, which is quite irritating...
Rating: 
Summary: The Best Guide for the Land Down Under
Review: Coming back from an extensive trip down under, I found this Lonely Planet to be an incredibly good aid in making the trip a success from start to finish.Unlike most other guide books, such as the Eyewitness guide, which specialize in giving the couch potato tourist surplous amounts of background and send the reader to boring destinations aimed at those who don't like to make too much of an effort, this one is aimed at the young in spirit. Which is also the downfall of the book, since by aiming at the young it ignores those who have a larger budget than the average backpacker, thus failing to provide readers with higher level information on tours, dining and accommodation. Oddly enough for a book created by an Australian company, I have found many of the accommodations and dining places recommended in the book to be quite inferior. It did seem to me as though the authors recommended the first places they went to (the fact many of the recommended establishments neighbor each other seems to support this theory). In addition, the book contains many mistakes. Price quotes are usually way below the actual sums you end up paying, but that could be explained by inflation. What cannot be explained are errors along the line of "you will find the famous ABC attraction in the center of QWERTY town", when eventually you find yourself standing next to the ABC in a place miles away. Still, if you are young at heart, you will find no better book to guide you through this magnificent land, where beer does flow and men chunder.
Rating: 
Summary: A complete waste of money
Review: If you've travelled a bit in your time and know how to book tickets or manage your money, there is very little that this book will tell you that's useful. My wife and I spent three months in Australia in late 2000 and barely used this book at all. It was heavy and it tried to cover everything. It failed miserably and ended up being used as a door stop. It just doesn't cover anything in sufficient enough detail to allow you to plan a journey properly. There are reams of intro pages giving advice on travelling that would only be useful to people who'd never travelled outside their own country. For example, what is the point in giving maps with one way airline ticket prices? There's a thing called the internet that's been around for quite a long time. The information that you actually need isn't there.. i.e. stuff like international telephone codes, daylight saving rules etc. Half the info on accommodation is either wrong or out of date. Worse it's geared towards the budget traveller. Many long-term tourists nowadays are taking time off after a few years of full time work. They have money and want to get a broad range of prices covering various classes of accommodation. LP can't supply the goods. In general, Lonely Planet guides are becoming victims of their own success. They're bloated and boring. Unless things change dramatically, this was the last LP guide I will ever buy. I know many people who feel the same way. Very poor indeed.
Rating:
Summary: Still the best....
Review: In the past four years I have made four trips to Australia, each time to different parts of the country. There are many ways to travel to this huge country, but I guess most people, like me, take individual trips and simply rent a car and go. To do that the LP guide is indispensible. It comprehensively gives you all the basic information you need about places to stay and to visit as well as very helpful tips on road quality etc. Also it offers a fair amount of general information on the history, fauna and flora and on e.g. health considerations. As usual in the LP guides the little "grey boxes" with special info are interesting and sometimes quite funny. When spending so much money on a trip in my experience it is always wise to take several guides. Others like the "Insight Guide" are excellent for wetting the appetite with all it's glossary pictures and is a good help to decide where to go. Once you are there, however, these guide offer much less information and you have to rely on the LP guide. No other guide simply offers you the opportunity once you have arrived simply to take a telephone and book the accomodation for the next day or to arrange special tours only a couple of days beforehand. Given the size of the country it is a big book, well over 1000 pages, and it still covers only a part of what there is to see and to do. For the really dedicated I would recommend the territory LP guides, like e.g. the one on the Northern territories. I disagree with other reviewers that it is only for backpackers; I have felt it quite useful driving from motel to motel. In particular, e.g. the info on Kakadu helped a lot planning our trip in this huge National Park and also the info on the Sydney part was very helpful to make our stay enjoyable and to steer us e.g. into the beautiful Blue Mountains. Like any guide you have individual things like hotel prices which may have changed. Even then, it still permits you to select accomodation in your budget range, because if one has changed in a particular town, be assured the rest has as well! Again, when spending so much on a trip, it would be very unwise not to spend the $ 25 on this guide.
Rating:
Summary: I Think You Need More Than One Book
Review: It is not a travel book like this Lonely Planet Series but I love Bill Bryson's book "Down Under". It is his personal story of a very detailed and lengthy trip around Australia. Buy it!! Okay now for this book. You will fly for 24 hours - be prepared. Buy this or a similar book. There are two books that I like. They are similar. One is this book and the other is the Eyewitness Travel book. The latter I think has better photos. This book to be fair is longer and has more information. So take your choice more visual or more text and more places (this book). Australia is a complicated geographical region and I would also recommend more maps and maybe a book "Outback Australia" by Little Hills Press if you venturing out there. In any case spend some money and go prepared. That is my humble opinion. Jack in Toronto
Rating:
Summary: Don't buy this mistake riddled thing
Review: This edition is a very poor effort by the Lonely Planet series. Year after year they get a lot of information completely wrong and no one seems to update it with the correct information. For example this edition lists Surfers Paradise, Coolangatta, Burleigh and practically every other suburb of the Australia's sixth largest city Gold Coast as towns. Obviously they are getting confused with the region north of Brisbane which is known as the Sunshine Coast which is made up of a lot of individual towns. Obviously the editor has never travelled to southern Queensland or this error would be corrected. The misleading thing then about this book is that it implies it is written by backpackers who have visited these places when clearly with such obvious mistakes someone just read a mistake somewhere while researching and reprinted it. This book also does not contain the majority of hostel listings in Australia which is the main reason most people purchase these books. There are many free backpacker publications in nearly every Australian hostel so I would recommend not purchasing this book. It does have some background information (although not entirely accurate) and some colour photographs. There are better books to buy to do research on Australia if planning a trip here then this mistake riddled thing.
Rating:
Summary: Don't buy this mistake riddled thing
Review: This edition is a very poor effort by the Lonely Planet series. Year after year they get a lot of information completely wrong and no one seems to update it with the correct information. For example this edition lists Surfers Paradise, Coolangatta, Burleigh and practically every other suburb of the Australia's sixth largest city Gold Coast as towns. Obviously they are getting confused with the region north of Brisbane which is known as the Sunshine Coast which is made up of a lot of individual towns. Obviously the editor has never travelled to southern Queensland or this error would be corrected. The misleading thing then about this book is that it implies it is written by backpackers who have visited these places when clearly with such obvious mistakes someone just read a mistake somewhere while researching and reprinted it. This book also does not contain the majority of hostel listings in Australia which is the main reason most people purchase these books. There are many free backpacker publications in nearly every Australian hostel so I would recommend not purchasing this book. It does have some background information (although not entirely accurate) and some colour photographs. There are better books to buy to do research on Australia if planning a trip here then this mistake riddled thing.
Rating:
Summary: Complete Guide
Review: This is the crown jewel of the Lonely Planet series. It's no wonder since Lonely Planet is based in Australia. This guide is much more comprehensive than any of the other Lonely Planet guides I have used. To get an idea, the Lonely Planet Australia guide is about the same thickness as the Lonely Planet Western Europe guide. Is there really as much to see in Australia as in Western Europe? I don't think so, but I'm not complaining. I just wish the other guidebooks were as complete as this one. This guide goes into great detail for every region of Australia. There even listings for minor towns with populations of 200 or 300. I don't think anything is left out. As is usual with Lonely Planet guidebooks, this give great listings for reasonably priced hotels and restaurants. Also it gives you great information on how to reach each location. Oh, and it covers all the main sights, and a lot of the minor ones as well. Basically, if you're going to go to Australia, you should pick this up. You won't regret it.
Rating:
Summary: Complete Guide
Review: This is the crown jewel of the Lonely Planet series. It's no wonder since Lonely Planet is based in Australia. This guide is much more comprehensive than any of the other Lonely Planet guides I have used. To get an idea, the Lonely Planet Australia guide is about the same thickness as the Lonely Planet Western Europe guide. Is there really as much to see in Australia as in Western Europe? I don't think so, but I'm not complaining. I just wish the other guidebooks were as complete as this one. This guide goes into great detail for every region of Australia. There even listings for minor towns with populations of 200 or 300. I don't think anything is left out. As is usual with Lonely Planet guidebooks, this give great listings for reasonably priced hotels and restaurants. Also it gives you great information on how to reach each location. Oh, and it covers all the main sights, and a lot of the minor ones as well. Basically, if you're going to go to Australia, you should pick this up. You won't regret it.
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