Lonely Planet Africa

Very good mix of general information about the continent and the individual countries (with surprise, I learned some things I didn't know about Africa) and practical travel advice, specific to individual countries, all in no-nonsense, simple, easily understandable language, and all this from the perspective of a young, budget-conscious (not the Fodor-type) traveler.

I traveled S.A. for almost a year, using LP guidebook to S.A. And, I got used to the way that the authors would give recommendations for hostals, etc. and their maps that correllated to the restaurants, hostals, etc. And the Africa book did not let me down; it is arranged the same way as the S.A. book is. And I love the fact that some of their books are available as a download. The L.P. books are big, (and they need to be for these big countries), but after lugging the S.A. book around, I was happy to see another choice.

This helped me plan my trip and also to plan to travel to many of the places it warned me about. Lonely Planet is always great.

I did not travel with this book, in fact, I have not gone to Africa yet (except for Morocco and Egypt). However, I think this guide is very good for planning the trip, routes, which countries to visit and which ones to leave out. Since it includes every country on the continent (even the 3 areas of Somalia) it provides a general idea of what to expect in each country and what might be of interest for you. It also let's you compare country by country, although given the size of the book every chapter contains somewhat limited information about them. The bottom line is this: In my opinion, it is a very good book, and I guess it is useful depending on how much information you might want during your trip. If you want to have everything in control, I suggest you to buy this book to plan ahead and then buy a regional one (or a country guide) with more information, to go with. Otherwise, if you are a little bit of and adventurer, grab this one and discover the continent.

As someone who just returned from a solo tour(via local buses, trains and hitch-hiking) through Botswana, Zambia and Namibia with this book in my pack I feel I can review it more fairly than those who have simply looked it over while dreaming about a future trip. While no single book can give an indepth look at every country, this one gives you all the information you need to travel through Africa on a budget. Best of all it is small enough to fit in your pack and well built enough to make it through the trip in one piece. I will be going back next year and this book will be coming along. As you can guess, with only about twenty five pages per country, some info is glossed over or left out all together. Due to space constraints Lonely Planet left out some of the "where to go and what to see" advice but they made sure to include all the information relevant to transportation and lodging. If you need more indepth information you should buy one of the individual guides that cover each country you plan to visit along with Africa on a Shoestring. My one gripe with this book is that it seems a bit too focused on the backpacker/camper type lodging. I personally prefere to travel like the locals and stay in guest-houses and cheap hotels and at times this book skips right over this information. The worst way to save three dollars a night is to pitch a tent on the ground instead of booking into a local guest house. When you stay at one of the urban campsites the only "culture" you are going to experience is provided by the young, loud, drunken tourists. Not my idea of fun. If you are looking for a book that will make traveling in Africa trouble free you are going to be disspointed, that book does not exist and never will. In Africa almost nothing is easy and that includes travel. But that is part of the adventure. If you want to see Africa without all the hassle then you need to talk to one of the travel agents who offer all inclusive tours for small groups in large overland trucks. You will get some nice photos but you won't really be traveling "in" Africa, you will be traveling "over" it, and you don't need any book for that.