Insight Guide New Zealand (INSIGHT GUIDES)

Rating:
Summary: Colorful, informative travel tips but lack of maps/direction
Review: This is a colorful book with lots of pictures about New Zealand. Its first couple of chapters include the history and culture of New Zealand are especially interesting. They were very useful for visitors to the Kiwi country. However, its lack of large street maps, area maps and detail route maps are disappointing as well as annoying. Although the front cover has an overview map of both the north & south island, I think it will improve the ease of reading and research if various level of district maps and street maps are provided, especially when a traveller was deciding which hotel/motel to book reservations and how far he/she needs to drive from one scenic spot to the next. Without this, it is disasterous for travel planning. Other things to include will be web sites for driving directions such as www.wises.co.nz etc. For a backpack traveller like me, I will even be willing to pay more if road maps/ street map of Auckland are included with the book (which some of the publishers are already doing).