Hawaii

Rating:
Summary: Just plain bad
Review: As colourful and glossy this is, it would be a plain waste of money to buy this Eyewitness guide. DK does publish some excellent books, but this is just not one of them. As DK is traditionally weaker in hotel and food recommendations, it usually more than makes up for it with impressive content mixed with beautiful pictures. This is not the case in Hawaii, however. Coverage of each island is a maximum of 30-40, more realistically 15-25. At 208 pages, this guide seriously falls short of expectations. Try lobbying DK to make a much better Hawaii guide the next time.

Rating:
Summary: Good Starter Travel Guide
Review: I am a fan of the DK travel guides, and particularly like the color photography that allows readers to visualize the area more than most other travel guides. In reality I would like to give this guide 3.5 stars, but will have to settle for four. The photography is generally good, and the information is generally correct in my experience. This book features some excellent pointers that are especially good for those new to Hawaii. The book has a brief background section on the islands as a whole, and has decent island by island coverage of all the major Hawaiian Islands (certainly all the ones a tourist would visit.)

My only real critique of the book is that with a length of just over 200 pages, it is not terribly complete given the diversity of the Hawaiian Islands. The hotel (and restaurant) listings are generally accurate, but are not complete, resulting in the situation where some fairly well known and sizeable properties are overlooked, which can be extremely annoying if you happen to be booked in one of those properties. This is by far the biggest drawback to this book.

My take on the situation is that this is a good book for finding things to explore further in Hawaii, but when it comes down to detailed planning, I recommend that you consult other guidebooks; I particularly like the Lonely Planet series of guides, which has offerings for all the islands that you will be interested in visiting, albeit with less captivating photography.


Rating:
Summary: Love Hawaii
Review: I first discovered these books (a series Eyewitness Travel) by accident. These books are very useful because of all the photos, cut away views, museum pictures, and maps and historical details.

On a cold day back here in the USA (or Canada) or elsewhere, have a glass of wine and sit in a nice chair or in the garden on a warm day and read this book. For a moment you will be back on your favorite beach or restaurant in Hawaii.

The photos and desicriptions and cutaway drawings are excellent. Plus they throw in some history and details on the art and many other things of interest. A solid 200 page effort - lots of stuff to see and absorb. What is attractive about this book is that it gives a review of each of the islands with history, some politics, and a nice index. I like the part on Kauai, that is my favorite island. But the book brings it all to life with just magnificent photos and maps.

Jack in Toronto

Rating:
Summary: Lukewarm
Review: I have just one problem with this book and that's with what good guides normally do: provide more than just a few sentences about a place. For me it was too casual. I bought it in too much of a hurry, an impuse buy.

Rating:
Summary: Nice photos
Review: Not the book for you if you're wanting detailed information about hotels, restaurants, etc.

Rating:
Summary: Love Hawaii
Review: This book is great even though I've never read a single word the cover is very fasinating. I love Hawaii and I would really like to do to France sometime. However this book seems rather superfluous really compared to others. I mean I like kangeroos, but do I like them THAT much. I'm not sure. Oh well. This is a wonderful book because it's sixteen dollars cheaper here than at this other store where it was thirty. It's not very concise like this other book I read about Hawaii. In that book the words were garbled so it was very difficult to read...I think it might have been written in Spanish. Anyway I love Hawaii.