Lonely Planet Beijing City Guide [With Pull-Out Map]

Comprehensive, concise and well-organized. A great resource and a true bargain. The fact that this series proudly features long-time local residents in their guides says a lot about their commitment and values. I also appreciate that they inspire enthusiasm and exploration in the reader almost from the first page. Also note this is hot off the presses in August 2007. Unless they somehow got everything totally wrong (I'll know when I visit over New Year's) this is 5 stars easily.

I found this travel guide to Beijing to be very useful and nicely put together. Lonely planet always has nice graphics and pictures. The information was short and sweet. There was enough information to be useful, but not so much that it was overkill. As has been pointed out, the chinese characters are included which is very helpful. Also, it is true that with development being what it is in China it is impossible to write a guide that is totally up to date. Clearly, being published going on 2 years ago, this book could use an update. All that being said, this is the best guidebook to Beijing that I have seen out there. That is why I am giving it 4 stars. Happy Travels!

Since gaining WTO membership and winning the bid to host the 2008 Olympics two years ago, China has been doing a great deal of house cleaning in its major cities. Beijing in particular is currently undergoing an incredible amount of construction. Ancient neighborhoods and alleyways are being torn town and replaced by mammoth skyscrapers at an incredible rate. Almost anywhere you go in the city you will encounter cranes towering above scaffolding or as yet undeveloped land. New subway lines and major roads are being added at an incredible rate.That being the case, it is impossible to write a 5 star guidebook for the city. The lonely Planet's guidebook does a pretty good job of keeping on top of things, but is unfortunately out of date from the day it hits the presses.

In general, I consider Lonely Planet (LP) as one of the best publishers which excels in thick, detailed guide books that describes in "text" the best attributes of a city or country. LP is not a book with pretty tourist stock photos. If you want pretty pictures, I recommend the Insight Guides which have at least 1 per page. After looking at a half dozen Beijing (BJ) city guides, this book excels again in describing Zhongguancun, where others fail.Zhongguancun, (Zgc) is like a Chinese Silicon Valley, or computer business development area near Beijing and Qinghua Universities (p149-50) in the older 3rd edition. Zgc is an important hi-tech area for tycoons, business, and consumers alike to find computers and software localized for China. It is located in the Haidian District, NW Beijing, near Haidian Rd and Zgc Rd following the 4th Ring Rd, far outside the Metro ring. Zgc is just south of the Old Summer Palace area. This area is probably best accessible by bicycle, taxi, light rail, and bus. It is about 4 miles (6km) NW of the northwestern-most metro ring station at Xizhimen. Zgc is listed in the index.In the Insight Guide (p198), I saw a Zizhimen light rail stop about 1 mile away from Zgc.LP/BJ 3rd ed (0-86442-547-3), also has a two maps to get a good view of Zgc and the downtown districts, Map 3 for overall Beijing and 10 for the Haidian district. Map 10 also shows the Zgc bus stop with nearby hotels, restaurants, internet cafe, brewery, and universities. This edition has 11 maps. However in LP/BJ 4th ed (1-86450-144-8), Zgc is still listed (p53). Zgc is lost in the maps with only 7 maps, ersatz replaced with 20 pages of pretty stock tourist pictures. I believe LP's editors have stepped in the wrong direction here. Lets hope that they get it right before the 08 Olympics. I read this in the local library.I noticed that LP/BJ 5th ed (1740592816), with a new author is scheduled to be released this month, 10/02.

I think the other raters have been vastly overcritical in their assessments of this book. True, the tone of the book is somewhat cynical, but I found it nonetheless to be invaluable in a solo two-week trip to China in June. Robert Storey is very knowledgeable on China, Beijing in particular, and I found most of what was written to be quite accurate. I had two problems with the book. First, the book (at least the version I received) was outdated. It's hard to blame the publisher though, given the rate of change in the city. Second, the maps in the book are pretty bad. Make sure you get a better map to supplement what's in the middle of the book. In fact, ignore the maps altogether.