Lonely Planet Best of Beijing

I just got back from a long weekend in Beijing and was so thankful that I had this little guide. Sure, it is concise and condensed as other reviewers critique, but if you are only going for a weekend trip, it is the perfect size book. It was the most helpful in helping us decide what we actually wanted to fit in on such a short trip without feeling like we were unable to relax. Since the book is divided into districts, when we headed to one area of the huge city, we were able to stay in that area for a while, being able to find food, shopping, etc, without wasting time moving from place to place in traffic or on the subway. What this book has that other travel guides about Beijing DON'T have is the English name and the Mandarin name side by side. This way, you can show a taxi driver the name of where you want to go, making the language barrier a little bit easier to deal with. Of course, you still have to be realistic. We tried showing a driver one of the restaurant suggestions in the book and he didn't know what it was, but that is just a part of being in a huge city. Overall, once again, great job Lonely Planet.

Why beware? Well, Beijing is undergoing massive reconstruction in advance of the 2008 Olympics. I went to one location this guide mentioned, hoping to find the "Cool World CD Store" and instead found an open construction lot. Snap. Fortunately, the big places - The Forbidden City, Tiananmen Square, etc. - are still there, so you shouldn't miss those. The maps are superior and were the things I'd refer to most frequently there. They're strategically located on the endflaps, not buried in the pages of the book. If I ever go to Beijing again, I'll have this little travel bible by my side, you can be assured of that!

I used this many times when I visited Beijing. I lived in China for two years and visited Beijing five or six times and used this book most of those times. The maps are good, though with the rapid growth of the city they are limited. It is especially good if you don't have a lot of time and want to check out the highlights. I own several Best of and Condensed lonely planets and I love them.

This is a pretty good travel guide. It might have been a little too condensed. I liked the slim form factor of the book. I personally would have preferred if it was a little bit larger and went into greater detail on some of the topics. As opposed to the more complete Lonely Planet Beijing book, this book was published earlier this year. I would like to think that some of the information is more up to date as a result. It's simply too difficult to compare due to the fact that the book doesn't cover as many topics. On the upside, like most Lonely Planet books, the graphics and pictures are awesome. I would have preferred a little more detail on the site map, but in general Lonely Planet does a nice job with their visuals. On a whole, I would recommend this book to somebody who will soon be travelling to Beijing.