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Editorial Reviews:

Product Description
Densely forested mountains, colourful Buddhist temples and sleek modern cities - discover all this and much more with this bestselling guidebook. Korea's welcoming people, unique culture and incomparable cuisine make it one of the great destinations of Northeast Asia. Whatever your pleasure, we cover it all: North, South, eats, the works!

* BE INSPIRED by our new highlights and itineraries sections * GET AROUND with the help of over 100 detailed maps, including a full-colour map of Seoul

* DINE OUT in the best restaurants with our Korean menu decoder * UNDERSTAND - from religion to politics and war, our history and culture chapters will put you in the picture * GO NORTH! Check out our North Korea chapter - even stranger and more sinister than the plot of the Ian Fleming novel you bought at the airport

Customer Reviews: Read 12 more reviews...

2 out of 5 stars

Strangely Annoyed September 22, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful

I have lots of guidebooks - and lots of Lonely Planets, for that matter. But despite the fact that they say they are for "independent travellers", I keep finding ridiculous reviews on restaurants and hotels, to the point where I've stopped using them.

The History, Snapshot, and similar sections are great, but if you have a brain of your own - use it. Forget their restaurant and hotel recommendations, as I'm not even sure they visit the places. Sometimes they have history or comments on places that is worthwhile to read, though. All tourbooks may have these drawbacks, to be fair.

Finally, I think I'm going to stop buying Lonely Planet's, though. First, they always act like driving is so scary everywhere, when it's actually quite easy to anyone with a brain. They also forget to give worthwhile tips on getting a car, etc. I imagine that this is their way of "saving the Earth". To a person who does care about the Earth, but doesn't believe that being a dirty hippie is going to save anything, this - and all their other BS trying to coerce their opinions onto you as fact - gets really freakin' old. Yes, yes, I know, LP is founded by some hippie freak from AUS or something - whooptie doo. That doesn't mean I have to pay some jerk who's going to push his politics on me, whether I agree with them or not.

4 out of 5 stars

Review June 22, 2008
Typical of the Lonely Planet series, this book is full of interesting and necessary information. From sightseeing, to restaurants and accomodation, I found it to be a good help. It also gives a great insight into the history and culture of Korea, with a food chapter and a language chapter included. It's not the bible but I would definitely recommend this book to anyone going to Korea. You should also supplement it with stuff from the net or your local Korean tourist office etc.

4 out of 5 stars

(Not really a) Lonely Planet April 29, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful

Lonely Planet produces some of the best guidebooks available, so it should come as no surprise that their book on Korea is complete, concise, and interesting.

Pros: This guide book has it all, from Korean phrases and vocabulary, to fun getaways, trails off the beaten path and of course, lots of information on hotels and restaurants.

Cons: Can't think of many, although Seoul needs its own book. (Which Lonely Planet makes, actually!) Also, my copy was slightly out-dated, (2004). Unfortunately, many fast-growing areas have completely changed since the book's first printing.

5 out of 5 stars

Lonely Planet Korea March 17, 2008
This book was a very comprehensive and honest guide to the country. It also included a section on North Korea and the possibility of travelling there. I found the information useful in order to decide where to go and the cost of living in Korea.

1 out of 5 stars

Avoid at all costs January 7, 2008
10 out of 10 found this review helpful

I've used Lonely Planets for years. I like some more than others, and there's a few issues I have with the series, but they've always been a useful general guide to my travels.

However this book is a new low and I can't recommend people away from it enough. Literally every single time I tried to follow the advice the book gave, the information ended up being incorrect or outdated or amazingly vague.

A quick example is the Sa Rang Chae guest house in Gyeongju - it didn't give an address, and the phone number didn't work, but the description and location on the map indicated a general area to look. When I got to this general area, the guesthouse was nowhere to be found. I later learned that the guesthouse had moved locations four years ago, and had been e-mailing and mailing LP for several editions, trying to get them to update their information. Similarly, the restaurants and cafes they recommended for that city were nowhere to be found - it was worse than useless.

Their maps are terrible, particularly in Seoul. They generally don't list street names on the map. They also tend to skip a large number of smaller streets - but without names, it's hard to guess if the street was skipped or not. So trying to use an LP map involves an awful lot of guesswork. Korean people were often very kind helping confused tourists such as myself, but they also couldn't understand the maps, because even if the street had names on it, there was no Hangul, only Roman characters.

Addresses were very rarely given. So finding their recommendations boiled down to trying to use a small map with no street names. If using this book, make sure to confirm every single destination with a google search.

The KNTO releases very excellent free travel books, they can either be ordered, viewed on the web (unfortunately it requires Active-X), or picked up at the information booth in the Seoul/Incheon airport - google tour2korea and go to "e-books." That and wikitravel (which is sparse and often vague, but at least generally accurate) is definitely a better option than Lonely Planet. Don't waste any money on this.