Lonely Planet Egypt (Lonely Planet. Egypt, 7th Ed)

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Summary: Book Description
Review: Egypt's attractions have tempted travellers for centuries. From the bustling streets of Cairo to the secluded charm of the desert oases and the tranquility of the Nile, this book leads the way. Features: 102 detailed maps, plus a full-colour country map; packed with information on desert safaris, felucca trips and camel trekking in Sinai; chapter on where to dive and snorkel in the Red Sea; the lowdown on where to stay and eat for all budgets; and a guide to Pharonic gods & goddesses and ancient Egyptian architecture.

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Summary: lonely planet and rough guide improve
Review: I am planing another trip to Egypt, and am considering taking this lonely planet along, as well as the new and much improved rough guide 2001. my last trip, the rough guide was the most serviceable, and the new edition is much better. don't bother with lets go. I loved egypt, and am off again this fall. Both the rough guide and lonely planet are thin on recomendations for day guides in cario, but they are there, hidden in the chapters. justine who loves to travel

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Summary: Bad bad bad bad bad, etc
Review: I have just come back from a long visit to Egypt -- I spent two months there traveling around, by bus and train and by 4WD -- and I can tell you that this book is for the kind of people who do not know how to get their baggage off the carousel. Real baby stuff, and badly informed.

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Summary: best LP guide i've used
Review: I have used several LP guides and this was the best one yet. I found the info to almost always be spot-on, and the writers of this edition present it to you with far more wit and humor than you would expect in a guide. I looked at a couple of the other reviews and noticed they were quite critical. This doesn't square with my experience at all. I spent 6 weeks in Egypt in spring 2003 and this guide was incredibly useful. Aside from the inevitable little mistake here and there, the only major inconsistency I found was that bus trips usually took about 20-30% longer than the guide estimated. that is, a 4 hour trip would usually take closer to 5. Other than that I had no complaints in 6 weeks of using this guide every single day.

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Summary: best LP guide i've used
Review: I have used several LP guides and this was the best one yet. I found the info to almost always be spot-on, and the writers of this edition present it to you with far more wit and humor than you would expect in a guide. I looked at a couple of the other reviews and noticed they were quite critical. This doesn't square with my experience at all. I spent 6 weeks in Egypt in spring 2003 and this guide was incredibly useful. Aside from the inevitable little mistake here and there, the only major inconsistency I found was that bus trips usually took about 20-30% longer than the guide estimated. that is, a 4 hour trip would usually take closer to 5. Other than that I had no complaints in 6 weeks of using this guide every single day.

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Summary: Didn't Meet My Expectations
Review: I just completed a three week trip to Egypt. Some of the areas I visited included Cairo, Sharm el-Sheik, Mt. Sinai, Western Desert, Alexandria, Luxor and Aswan. While the book does have solid information regarding places to stay, restaurants to eat at, Internet cafes, etc., it does not provide its readers with a good, thorough backgrounder on each of the areas I visited. This can especially be said for the temples visited in Luxor and Aswan. The book really didn't give you a feel of the history behind what you were looking at. In addition, it was not complete in that certain monuments were described while others didn't even make it into the book, it seems. What makes things particularly worse is that information you would expect to be physically near to each other is all over the book. One thing that had me a bit angry was a lack of information about the bus system and a lack of detail on the scarcely available maps. If I were to make one recommendation, it would be to have a nice, detailed map of each area of Egypt one would visit.

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Summary: I just back and thought I should tell you ...
Review: I just got back from Egypt and I thought I should tell you that the Lonely Planet guide is hopeless. A lot of its practical information is out of date; its coverage outside Cairo is feeble; its coverage inside Cairo lacks much knowledge of history and architecture, so that it really lets you down when visiting the old mosques and churches; and in all it seems to be written for people who prize jokiness over informed comment.

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Summary: You won't have to depend on the kindness of strangers.
Review: I never travel anywhere without a Lonely Planet Guide. My trip to Egypt was no exception. I like them so much, I often buy the latest edition for places I have already been, just in case I get a chance to go again. This edition is especially nice, in that it only covers Egypt. The edition I used for my trip also covered the Sudan. So to save weight I had to rip out the Sudan pages before I even started the trip. The Lonely Planet guides provide information on everything, and are truely survival guides. I didn't backpack, but even if you stay in a great hotel and take a guided tour, there is no better way to get the feel of the sites and the country than reading you LP guide before you get there. The color pictures, maps and sketches of sites are excellent and well chosen, and the details of who and where to contact in an emergency may very well ensure your survival. But the best stuff is where to go for a particular food or drink and how to find that special place that the "tourists" don't visit. Don't leave home without it.

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Summary: Extremely useful
Review: I spent about a month reading this book and the Rough Guide series while planning my trip to Egypt... Well, they were both OK, the RG by Dan Richardson is more practical while LP goes into more detail on places of interest. Incidentally, this is the first book I read with systematic description of Egyptian gods and their relationships. Through the fortnight trip (Hurghada - Aswan - Luxor - Cairo - Suez - Hurghada) the LP was what I read in the evening before going to museums or tombs and RG was what I carried around in my pocket through the day. I would recommend a serious traveller to buy both.

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Summary: Fantastic
Review: If you are planning a trip to Egypt, you MUST have this book. It gives great inside information about customs, hotels, and lastly the monuments you went there for!