Australia Handbook: The Travel Guide

We used this guide to plan our 3 week trip to Australia because we were so impressed with the South America edition which we had used previously. It was very helpful and accurate regarding various costs. It even gives planning tips depending on how much time you have. It is definitely a good alternative to the Lonely Planet which I sometimes find the info to be outdated.

What an excellent find. I highly recommend it, both for Australia and Western Australia. It's new, different and has information that other guide books just don't have.After utilising the Lonely Planet books through various countries, I became increasingly frustrated with the format, inaccuracies and out of date information. Above all, I was sick of being one of the crowd, following other LP readers from place to place, having the same conversations.A few years ago in South America, and using the LP SA, I had the lucky nature to photocopy a few pages from the Footprint SA handbook. Wow. Bible thin paper and stacked full of quality information. Yes it took a small while to get used to the format, but from then on there was no turning back. So when I [ad]ventured to Australia, and discovered that a brand new [i.e. not a 'revision'] Footprint Australia Handbook had been released, I jumped at the chance. I was not disappointed.In Western Australia, for example, I'm fairly sure the tips are not in any other guide book, and on visiting some of the guesthouses and recommendations one sometimes gets the feeling that these places are rarely visited. And some of the locations give you the distinct impression of what it was like for the first [white] explorers. I enjoyed the refreshing editorial style, layout, enthusiasm, funny comments, quality and quantity of information.I suppose one would never know, but if I had stumped for the LP, I would not have known what I would have missed, but now that I do know, I really should keep it a secret, but that wouldn't be fair would it?The only real downside is having to choose what to complete in the time available, oh well, another holiday then! Thankyou Andrew, Katrina and Darroch.