Rating: 
Summary: Best Guide Book Choice
Review: A wonderful guide! With this book as your companion, you don't need to worry about the unknowns of travelling in Nicaragua. The author takes you off the beaten path when appropriate - and tells you when it would be a waste of time. A wonderful, truthful depiction of every place we visited.
Rating:
Summary: If you are going to Nicaragua, take this book!
Review: A wonderful guide! With this book as your companion, you don't need to worry about the unknowns of travelling in Nicaragua. The author takes you off the beaten path when appropriate - and tells you when it would be a waste of time. A wonderful, truthful depiction of every place we visited.
Rating:
Summary: Best Travel Book on Nivaragua
Review: I am a Foreign Service Employee stationed at the American Embassy in Managua. This book has proved to be invaluable resource for travel; both official and unofficial. I admit that I may be predudested because I met Richard on a tour in a very remote part of Nicaragua, that was desolate and without normal tourist type facilities, he assisted as a guide and exteremely impressed me with his knowledge and the respect he had with and for the locals and how they responded to him. I later found out about his book and purchased it. He has truly and honestly done outstanding research in his writing; he has lived there close to 7 years and developed close connects with the people and facilities with whom he deals and writes about. I can truly vouche for his recommendations; which I have found to be true and honest appraisals. I highly reommended this book if you decide to try Nicaragua!!D Ijames
Rating: 
Summary: Excellent Introduction
Review: I bought both this book and the Moon Handbook of Nicaragua. I found the Footprint guide more simple and more to the point--easy to read in an evening to "get your bearings", and the maps are great. The Moon Handbook is more complete.
I would recommend buying both these guidebooks--they are complimentary.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent Introduction
Review: I bought both this book and the Moon Handbook of Nicaragua. I found the Footprint guide more simple and more to the point--easy to read in an evening to "get your bearings", and the maps are great. The Moon Handbook is more complete.
I would recommend buying both these guidebooks--they are complimentary.
Rating:
Summary: Nicaragua with Leonardi
Review: I thought this book was very easy to follow ,a must while traveling Nicaragua. It is also very entertaining and fun to read even if you are not going to get to experience the beautiful country!! I would highly recommend it to anyone.
Rating:
Summary: Best Guide Book Choice
Review: I traveled to Nicaragua with a friend and we each brought different guide books. I brought the Footprint guide and I was very, very happy that I did. The historical and cultural information was much more complete in this book. It had city maps and included places and information that other books did not. Perhaps the most telling recommendation that I could give doesn't come from me. I took Spanish classes at a school (Casa Xalteva) in Granada, Nicaragua. The school had a number of guide books available for students to flip through, but the one they recommended was the Footprint guide!
Rating:
Summary: This is a very impressive guide which I strongly recommend.
Review: I used this guide during my three weeks in Nicaragua and enjoyed Leonardi's informative writing style. This handbook is more exhaustive, and more up to date, than "Footprint's Central America & Mexico Handbook". This handbook's recommendations for accommodations/restaurants are right on the money and valuable. This guide is up-to-date and I found his recommendations to always be valid. In fact, his is one of the few guides that will tell you, candidly, no punches pulled, what he thinks: very good seafood, bad paella", "attentive service, mediocre food". Richard Leonardi's writing is succinct and unencumbered by the superfluous. He gives you a solid mental picture, within a paragraph or two, of what to expect and how you can enjoy it. I really enjoyed his "Further Reading & Cinema" and the history, economic, culture and environment sections are sufficient, but I would encourage you to also take with you the excellent book, "In Focus Nicaragua" (see my review). Frustrating, and found in all Footprint guides, is the cost guide they use for accommodations. Instead of just stating what the price per room is, in dollars, they complicate it and give you a code table that you will often have to flip back and consult to remember what the cost represents. For example, a hotel that is LL=$150+, A=$46-$65. There is a better way than codes. Leonardi mentions safety in his introduction to Nicaragua, but I found no mention of the rising problems with crime and gangs in Managua (Capital of Nicaragua). For the past few years... the area around `La Catedral Vieja' has become dangerous, an area for violent crime. In fact, when I asked to go to this area in the daytime, the taxi drivers told me be careful, using the words: "peligroso, peligroso". While I at the Old Cathedral's I talked with the resident shoe-shine man, and he also told me that this area was now very dangerous at night. He said he leaves every day at 5pm because, "me gusto mi vida." That said, this is a very impressive guide which I strongly recommend. For those going to various Central American countries I would recommend "Footprint's Central America & Mexico Handbook". Strongly Recommended 4.5 stars
Rating:
Summary: This is a very impressive guide which I strongly recommend.
Review: I used this guide during my three weeks in Nicaragua and enjoyed Leonardi's informative writing style. This handbook is more exhaustive, and more up to date, than "Footprint's Central America & Mexico Handbook". This handbook's recommendations for accommodations/restaurants are right on the money and valuable. This guide is up-to-date and I found his recommendations to always be valid. In fact, his is one of the few guides that will tell you, candidly, no punches pulled, what he thinks: very good seafood, bad paella", "attentive service, mediocre food". Richard Leonardi's writing is succinct and unencumbered by the superfluous. He gives you a solid mental picture, within a paragraph or two, of what to expect and how you can enjoy it. I really enjoyed his "Further Reading & Cinema" and the history, economic, culture and environment sections are sufficient, but I would encourage you to also take with you the excellent book, "In Focus Nicaragua" (see my review). Frustrating, and found in all Footprint guides, is the cost guide they use for accommodations. Instead of just stating what the price per room is, in dollars, they complicate it and give you a code table that you will often have to flip back and consult to remember what the cost represents. For example, a hotel that is LL=$150+, A=$46-$65. There is a better way than codes. Leonardi mentions safety in his introduction to Nicaragua, but I found no mention of the rising problems with crime and gangs in Managua (Capital of Nicaragua). For the past few years... the area around 'La Catedral Vieja' has become dangerous, an area for violent crime. In fact, when I asked to go to this area in the daytime, the taxi drivers told me be careful, using the words: "peligroso, peligroso". While I at the Old Cathedral's I talked with the resident shoe-shine man, and he also told me that this area was now very dangerous at night. He said he leaves every day at 5pm because, "me gusto mi vida." That said, this is a very impressive guide which I strongly recommend. For those going to various Central American countries I would recommend "Footprint's Central America & Mexico Handbook". Strongly Recommended 4.5 stars
Rating:
Summary: The Real Nicaragua
Review: Most guide books are a mixture of fact, hype, legends and plagiarism. This
can disappoint the traveler, who relies on his guidebook to tell the truth,
cut through the red tape of traveling abroad and enlighten him on the new
place he is experiencing. Fortunately the Nicaragua Handbook is the
exception and not the rule. Richard Leonardi lives in Nicaragua full time,
he has done his homework and it shows. His book is full of interesting
off-the-beaten-path places to visit and his descriptions are honest
evaluations of what you will find when you get there. His sense of humor
carries the book and its dense text. The book has a detailed history,
geography and culture section that makes this guidebook a must for all
interested in what has made Nicaragua famous and what has been so
overlooked, like its great tradition of poetry, folkloric music and dance.
The biggest pleasure of the book are its short stories, which highlight
everything from 20th century politics and ancient legends to revolutionary
literature and indigenous history. Anyone interested in visiting Nicaragua
soon or learning more about its land, people and culture will find this
book a prize.
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