Rating: 
Summary: Great for out of the way places, but poor crossreferencing
Review: A few years ago we discovered Lonely Planet travel guides. They have been a staple of every trip ever since. The Kyoto book was no exception. The major highlights of this book include:
- Great walking tours
- Fun listings of out of the way places
- Interesting history and background
- Good tips and recommendations for everything from getting around on the subway (complete with a handy map), to reliable restaurant recommendations.
- Restaurant & place names written in Japanese in the book. Even if you don't read Japanese, this was very handy for doing symbol comparison to make sure you were in the right place. Lonely Planet guides are really excellent for helping you see the sights that not everyone else is seeing, and to help you get more out of the culture you are visiting. The authors have a good sense of humor and seem to aim towards a slightly more liberal and adventurous audience. On their own, I found both the guide and the maps very helpful (although I do agree with the other reviewers that the varied orientation and scaling of the maps could occasionally be disorienting). However, when attempting to cross reference these I often got frustrated. Many of the references to maps in the guide were just wrong (wrong map listed), and many things just weren't on the maps. Similarly, many things on the maps were difficult or impossible to locate in the guide. Example: "We need to find a restaurant near were we are right now. Oh look, here's one a block away. I wonder what type of food they have?....<begin leafing through the guide to find the restaurant listed>... Hmmm...I can't find it...." I know Lonely Planet knows how to do this effectively (see the Condensed guide to Tokyo as an example), it was just frustrating that they did not apply that knowledge to this book.
Rating:
Summary: Great for out of the way places, but poor crossreferencing
Review: A few years ago we discovered Lonely Planet travel guides. They have been a staple of every trip ever since. The Kyoto book was no exception. The major highlights of this book include:
- Great walking tours
- Fun listings of out of the way places
- Interesting history and background
- Good tips and recommendations for everything from getting around on the subway (complete with a handy map), to reliable restaurant recommendations.
- Restaurant & place names written in Japanese in the book. Even if you don't read Japanese, this was very handy for doing symbol comparison to make sure you were in the right place. Lonely Planet guides are really excellent for helping you see the sights that not everyone else is seeing, and to help you get more out of the culture you are visiting. The authors have a good sense of humor and seem to aim towards a slightly more liberal and adventurous audience. On their own, I found both the guide and the maps very helpful (although I do agree with the other reviewers that the varied orientation and scaling of the maps could occasionally be disorienting). However, when attempting to cross reference these I often got frustrated. Many of the references to maps in the guide were just wrong (wrong map listed), and many things just weren't on the maps. Similarly, many things on the maps were difficult or impossible to locate in the guide. Example: "We need to find a restaurant near were we are right now. Oh look, here's one a block away. I wonder what type of food they have?....... Hmmm...I can't find it...." I know Lonely Planet knows how to do this effectively (see the Condensed guide to Tokyo as an example), it was just frustrating that they did not apply that knowledge to this book.
Rating: 
Summary: Reasonably priced and practical
Review: As the title indicated, this book is reasonably priced and practical. It does a very good job in introducing the history of Kyoto and the local custom. This is not only useful for traveling but also for gaining a better understanding of an interesting and graceful culture. The book also covers widely all of the points of interest, which includes a good selection of hotels and restaurants. One weakness of the book is the organization. The book separates places of interest and maps into two different section and this makes it difficult to cross reference. You have to make your own plans in connecting all the interesting places into one walk. It would be better if the book can organize a few walking tours that allow us to visit all the highlights.
Rating:
Summary: Reasonably priced and practical
Review: As the title indicated, this book is reasonably priced and practical. It does a very good job in introducing the history of Kyoto and the local custom. This is not only useful for traveling but also for gaining a better understanding of an interesting and graceful culture. The book also covers widely all of the points of interest, which includes a good selection of hotels and restaurants. One weakness of the book is the organization. The book separates places of interest and maps into two different section and this makes it difficult to cross reference. You have to make your own plans in connecting all the interesting places into one walk. It would be better if the book can organize a few walking tours that allow us to visit all the highlights.
Rating:
Summary: Other guides?
Review: I borrowed this guide from a friend and have leafed through it. I haven't decided if I want to buy it yet when I go to Kyoto later this year.
What do you guys recommend as the best travel guide for Kyoto? While skimming this one, I've noticed a few of the things mentioned here like the unorganized maps and such. But are there betters one there to buy?
Rating: 
Summary: frustrating guide
Review: I'm writing this from Kyoto, where I had hoped to use this book to help me get around and find places to eat and shop. Its so poorly organized that the maps are unusable. If I go to a district, I want to be able to find shops, restaurants, andplaces to visit easily. I can't do that with this book. They are indexed on the map, but do not appear together in the text. Also, I think there must be places listed on the maps (with no explanation) that are no where else in the book. Many of the restaurants listed are also unfindable, perhaps because they have gone out of business. This is not my first time in Kyoto, and I know the layout of the city fairly well. If I had to rely completely on this book, I would be very unhappy. This book has not been helpful in leading me to specific places at all. The general information about Kyoto is ok, but I wanted helpful suggestions for getting around. Thus, well indexed maps are indispensible and this book's maps are cumbersome to say the least. Also the book's index is totally inadequate and the exchange rates listed are a joke they are so out of date. Other information is wrong too.
Sorry for the harsh comments, but this is a bad book.
Rating: 
Summary: Frustrating to use
Review: Kyoto is a city famous mostly for its ancient temples. The Lonely Planet Kyoto guidebook does a good job listing them, but it is almost impossible to determine which are good to visit using the minimal one-paragraph descriptions. Small illustrations and longer descriptions would make this guidebook more worthwhile.Curiously, the book neglects to mention Horyuji temple in its excursion section to Nara. Horyuji contains the world's oldest wooden buildings.
Rating:
Summary: Frustrating to use
Review: Kyoto is a city famous mostly for its ancient temples. The Lonely Planet Kyoto guidebook does a good job listing them, but it is almost impossible to determine which are good to visit using the minimal one-paragraph descriptions. Small illustrations and longer descriptions would make this guidebook more worthwhile. Curiously, the book neglects to mention Horyuji temple in its excursion section to Nara. Horyuji contains the world's oldest wooden buildings.
Rating:
Summary: good information but poorly organised!
Review: Lonely Planet fills a niche by being a good source of information you are not likely to find in other guides, like the funky and the inexpensive, but really I wish they would make their guides more user friendly. For one the maps are extremely frustrating to use. The information on them is numbered, and the keys are either on the page before or the page after the map, so you constantly find yourself looking at the wrong key. The info would fit on the maps themselves, but they chose to use keys without taking full advantage of them by not including the page number of each item's description. Also each map points in a different direction and is a different scale from the others, very confusing. I also found the index to be lacking some very obvious entries, I don't remember specific examples but I do remember being puzzled by the index on several occasions. By the end of my trip I had corrected many of these problems by penciling them in, I suggest you do this on the airplane so you will spend less time on the street scratching your head. This guide also has the nasty habit of inserting chapters in the middle of chapters. Sometimes you don't realise there is more information on subject you are reading, you are expected to look past the following chapter. I found the information in the Kyoto book to be somewhat more up to date than the Lonely Planet guides I have used for other cities. I have learned not to rely too heavily on their specific recommendations, but they usually put me into the right neighborhood for what I am looking for. Over the years I have been a repeat customer of these guides, although grudgingly. I find them to be a good source of getting the feel of a place before I go somewhere. Lonely Planet is going to lose my business real soon if they don't redesign their guides and become more diligent about updating their material.
Rating: 
Summary: Kyoto at its Best
Review: Lonely Planet: Kyoto is one of the best investments you can make before your trip to Japan. Like all of the other Lonely Planet books, it is well-organized and interesting to read, with plenty of practical information (where to stay and what to see) plus a thorough section on language, history, and culture. Kyoto, Japan's imperial capital, has over 3,000 shrines and temples--it's essential to have a guidebook that explains, in detail, the form and function of the major ones and offers suggestions for seeing the smaller ones. I found the "Things to See and Do" sections especially helpful... in addition to the religious centers, Lonely Planet helped me find my way to Lake Biwa (Japan's largest lake) and to museums, shops, restaurants, and even a baseball game. If you are not planning a specific itinerary, it's easy to "flip and point" in order to find something that looks good on a given day. I was in Kyoto for a year and was not able to see half of the things that Lonely Planet covered, but for those that I did see, it really enhanced my experience. Lonely Planet is a good all-around book that won't let you down. It considers all budgets and offers suggestions for even the poorest student. If you aren't a native speaker of Japanese, it may help to have a copy of Lonely Planet's Japanese Phrasebook, just in case the guide doesn't go into enough detail.
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