Rating: 
Summary: Success has gone to their heads!
Review: After checking out an older edition of LP's Spain guide ('98 or '97) I decided to order the '99 edition here. When it arrived I noticed immediately that the book was only about 2/3 the size of previous editions. After perusing the contents I could see why. The book contained less content and many more references to other LP guidebooks (eg Trekking in Spain, city guides, etc.) Lonely Planet has obviously pared down their info in each guide in an effort to sell more books! While not a terribly surprising tactic in today's marketplace I nevertheless felt a little cheated. At $21.95 I don't think I'll buy again!
Rating: 
Summary: Lonely Planet guides are indespensible in any country!!
Review: I buy an LP guide before every foriegn venture. I was in Spain last week and used my guide for hotel reservations and maps and restaurants and airline phone numbers in Spain. Then my "survival guide" dropped out of my bag on the streets of Madrid. I felt lost without it and there were many more times in that week that I missed it for reference. I highly recommend these guides. They are worth their weight in your back pack!
Rating: 
Summary: Overweight, stale, out of date
Review: I have used the Lonely Planet guides in Asia, the Middle East, and in Europe. Lately, they seem to have lost their way. Originally, the LP guides were for people who had travelled at least a little bit before and needed some pointers to an area. The guides usually had some sort of walking tours in the cities they indicated. Their guides have become filled with useless colour photos of generic scenes, The quirky, fresh information has largely disappeared -- In the summer of 2004, I used the LP guides for both Portugal and Spain. I travelled for about three months. I had been in both places before and had used a LP guide. The most recent guides are stale and minimally updated. They are also occassionally misleading; especially concerning food. Sadly, the LP guide to Spain is not worth the weight that goes along with carrying it.
A telling thing is that I saw several tourists with back packs hanging on both their back and front clutching their LP guides while staggering and sight-seeing through Spanish cities in the afternoon. This is telling for two reasons: (one) In the afternoon, in Spain, there is little to do other than siesta, eat, or drink; it is not the time to sight-see (two) Carrying two packs is carrying one pack too many; the prior generation of LP users were experienced travellers (not tourists) and would find two packs foolish. Anyhow, somehow, LP has lost focus and now better serves the Lets Go crowd instead of more experienced travellers.
My advice: If this is your first trip to Europe, consider buying Lets Go. If you already know how to get your bags off of the airplane, search for an alternative by looking at country specific guides; do not buy a LP guide just because you had happily used one before.
Rating: 
Summary: Great Reference for Traveling through Spain!
Review: I spent the past summer 2002 studying Spain and I constantly referred to this book for traveling and background information. I really liked the writing style that is clear, and even a bit funny at times. The only thing that keeps this book from truly earning 5 stars is the fact that a lot of the times and prices are really off. I felt that though it was a new edition, they did nothing to update it. I wish they would have gone back and checked to see the prices of the hostels had changed-you will too. Add about 600-800 pesetas to the quoted hostel prices.
Rating:
Summary: Dividing Information... A new chapter in LP books!
Review: I travel a lot, and have found Lonely Planet guides to be a big help... I still do... granted, some of the info is inaccurate (particularly with prices), but every guidebook provides a caveat at its beginning to warn readers of unstable prices... generally the inaccuracies never amount to more a pitance. I found the LP Spain book to be more useful than the Let's Go! Spain guidebook as the LP book had more background information, more listings for places to stay and more maps with better detail... unfortunately, as one of the other reviewers mentioned, this book and many of their other guide books are starting to refer you to other LP mini guides... they used to throw everything you needed between those covers, but these days you almost have to carry a small library around with you to get what a early 90s LP book would give you. Still better than Let's Go!, but for how long?...
Rating: 
Summary: Extremely bad info
Review: I was extremely dissapointed in this guide. The only thing that's worth reading in it are the historic section and the maps. The rest is far too badly descriptional, without any kind of recommendation. The accomodation index describes the hotels in less than two lines, if so. The cities are described in cold tones, without any good reason if you should even go to them. As for an example, take Andorra, that is included in this guide, and despite it's quite close do Barcelona - about 2 and a half hours by bus - It really destroyed my mood to going there. When we travel, mainly those who work and to do that put a lot of effort and investing, want concise and critical description of the places they want to go, so we cant take good advantage of our lack of time. This is not valued in this book. After reading it, you feel you could do better sitting in your room, watching TV, and even then you would be more excited. That's a crime for a travel planner! Lonely Planet: never more.
Rating:
Summary: inaccurate, unreliable and really irritating
Review: I've used Lonely Planet guides on trips to Asia, Africa, and other European destinations. They've always been at least as good as the competition. This one, though, proved terrible. Descriptions were mainly paraphrased tourist office material, with little info to guide the reader in making choices. Accomoditions listings were confusing and utterly unreliable in both the condition of the places described, and the costs. Prices, thoughout the guidebook, varied radically from those specified, not in a reliable pattern of inflation, but erratically, as though some had once been corrected, some not, and the whole process was uneven. Worst, the guidebook offered no indications as to what major sites would be closed for restoration, or for entire off seasons. For those of us who deliberately try to stay out of the main trek, this was frustrating. Indications of transport possibilities were also less helpful that would be ideal-- the trains proved far more reliable than the guidebook suggested, as well as being no more expensive than the busses for the trips I took. Basically, this guidebook failed to provide the essential info for intelligent travel.
Rating:
Summary: Cultural information useful, hotel and rest info lacking
Review: In the past I have used lonely planet guides several times after a trip to Peru in which the guide was absolutely indespensible. Spain, however, is another story. While LP was useful for walking tours and highlighting major attractions, with good museum and monument descriptions, the hotel and restaraunt recommendations were virtually useless. By this I mean that most recommended restaurants were sketchy looking except for the "expensive" ones and the hotel guide quoted wrong prices and gives no insight into the hotels. Maybe I hadn't realized that I have outgrown Lonely Planet hotels, but then again maybe un-air-conditioned hotels in 100 degree heat (without fans even) are not worth putting in a travel book. The third world seems to be their purview.
Rating:
Summary: This will go everywhere
Review: My friends had several choice travel books on Spain, but the Lonely Planet guide was the most descript. We constantly used its restaurant guide (instead of those commercial-plugged ones)and found GREAT places totally known by the locals only(and other Lonely Planet readers). This book is cool and it really tells like it is without talking down to the reader.
Rating:
Summary: Not Up to Standards
Review: My wife and I have come to swear by Lonely Planet books for off-the-beaten-track advice on trips to Taiwan, Costa Rica, Thailand, and Peru. When we decided to visit Spain, we immediately bought the latest edition (3rd) of Lonely Planet Spain. Unfortunately, it quickly became apparent that what we needed instead were the City Guides for Madrid and Barcelona. The book covered all of Spain fairly, but was very skimpy on info about both of these cities. We found the detail we needed by exchanging this book for both the City Guides and an extra $5. If you are travelling Spain for an extended period, and will get all over the country, then this tome is for you (and will probably be worth it). If instead you are trying to hit the highlights of Spain, or want to base your vacation out of either Madrid or Barcelona, then skip it and find a better book. And incidentally, I think it's a pretty lame gambit from LP to start yanking all the detail from the national-level books and slipping it into the city guides. You always end up buying more books, since you can't get the info you want in any one place! Not fair to your customers, guys!
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