DK Eyewitness Travel Guide: New Orleans

As long as the reader understands that this book was released in 2004, before Hurricane Katrina, this is still a very useful guide to New Orleans, especially the French Quarter. Some businesses have changed or gone under due to the lack of tourist trade, but the French Quarter had almost no significant damage from the storm. We visited New Orleans in June of 2008, so we took this book with us. There is a revised issue coming in the late Fall of 2008, so if your trip is after that time wait for the new revision. The information is very well presented, and the book is a great carry-around guide.

Very informative and well formatted. I visited New Orleans with my family and this book was invaluable to our enjoyable trip. It does need to be updated to reflect the changes since Katrina.

This is a wonderful guide to this great city, it is well thought out and easy to navigate. Now about New Orleans. I am disgraced at the response to this catastrophy, I just want to cry as this city I love is allowed to drown in putrid swill, it's a national disgrace, you deserve better New Orleans, you are a national treasure, and we will do everything possible to make this up to you, no money should be spared, I don't care if it takes 100 billion dollars the city must rise again, better than it was, we owe you, we will do right by you, you are our soul.

My work has provided me with the opportunity to travel a good bit. I am the type of person who wants to get a working background for my destinations, both in terms of history and geographic layout. Because I work, I don't have a great deal of time to spend reading and studying different, often lengthy, travel guides before or during my trips. Because these guides are concise, beautifully illustrated, relatively compact, and impeccably organized, I cannot recommend highly enough the Dorling Kindersley Eyewitness Travel Guides! The DK Eyewitness Travel Guide is THE guide I buy for every destination. Not only do I get a quick history and background of the destination, but I also will be provided with a visual guide to everything. The visual detail is really what sets the DK Eyewitness Travel Guides apart. The street maps of common destination points are drawn in dimensional detail so you will visually recognize when you "get there." This is particularly helpful when you don't speak the native language. The regional maps are colorful and concise. However, the DK Eyewitness Travel Guide really shows its stuff with the drawings associated with attractions such as museums. Their presentation of museum layouts allow the traveler who is short on time to quickly see the best of the museum within the time the traveler has to spend. Each DK Eyewitness Travel Guide has a good summary section in the back with practical information about where to eat, where to sleep, what to do, and how to get around. While I may supplement the DK Eyewitness Travel Guide with others for a more detailed travel guide, the other guide is only more to read, not more to see. Buy the DK Eyewitness Travel Guide first for any destination.

I bought this book in 2003 about a month prior to visiting the city. I could not had made a better choice. For a mere $20 the information provided is invaluable. Each area of the city (incuding outlying areas) is broken down and items of interest are provided outlining both historical and current data concerning the area or buildings. Hundreds of color photos invite you to imagine yourself at the zoo, in the museums, visiting Bourbon Street and dining at the many eateries in the Quarter. Having been to New Orleans once before on a whirlwind trip to JazzFest, during my second visit to the city I wanted to see and do as much as possible with allotted time. I was not disappointed in what I found in this book, matter of fact, I gave my copy to a friend visiting the city and have since purchased two more for others friends traveling to New Orleans. Maps are provided in the book and its easy to carry along with you while sightseeing.