Lonely Planet Puerto Rico (Puerto Rico, 2002)

Rating:
Summary: fun to read before the trip; extremely helpful during it
Review: Randy Peffer's book inspired our family to tour the entire island, not limiting ourselves to a resort where we would be isolated from life on "la isla." With Peffer's advice, we selected paradores, inns, and small hotels on the coast, deep in the mountains, and in Ponce and Old San Juan. In every case, Peffer described the travel, accomodations, culture, recreation and dining options so well that we felt we had a personal introduction to each locale. With a sense of humor and great respect, Peffer prepared us for everything we encountered. His book encouraged us to appreciate and enjoy the differences of another culture. We would definetely have missed out on some great towns, night spots for music, snorkeling, restaurants, and local color without the guide. I would recommend Peffer's as the one must-have book to read when planning the trip as well as consulting daily when touring. By the end of our vacation we were referring to "Randy sez" as if he were in the car with us helping us get the most out of our trip.

Rating:
Summary: Disappointing!
Review: We bought this book on the basis of the recommendations we found here. But we didn't find it to be very up-to-date, Much of the information has changed, and the author makes strange comments about Vieques ("only a fool or a developer would want the military to leave"). All in all, we found this guide to be a disappointment. It does not have the quality of information we expect from Lonely Planet. We used several other guides and found a new guide, Explore Puerto Rico by Harry S. Pariser, to be much more accurate and with a great environmental slant.