South Korea Handbook

this is the best korea travel book currently in the market.much better than the lonely planet one.this guy seems to knows everything about south korea,maybe more than native koreans.the background info sections..(history,culture..)is just amazing. a truly recommendable book.if you're planning to visit korea, or just interested inanything about korea, get this book.you won't be disappointed.

The Moon Travel South Korean Handbook is one of the finest travelbooks and despite its age remains the best guide to seeing anything of interest to see on the peninsula. I am Korean and I use this guide when I tour temples or others attractions here.Posters on this forum complain there are not enough refence to hotels and restaurants but dont realize that in Korea restaurants and many hotels come and go so fast that this information would be useless before the book hit the presses.This is also true of bus numbers etc.The information with regard to Cultural Attractions has super attention to detail and this is true when Nilsen describes out of the way more hidden treasures Korea has to offer.Get this book !!!

I have visited South Korea several times and have always been disappointed by the paltry selection of guidebooks. That all changed when I found this little jewel. Nilsen's "South Korea Handbook" captured my heart because it describes the things that really matter about a country--its cultural treasures, architectural wonders, scenic sights, and natural history. It skips the usual fluff about hotels and restaurants that bogs down other guidebooks. Nilsen covers only the things that are permanent about Korea, and I thank him for it.The Handbook was so useful that I found myself carrying it in lieu of a map. As a student of architectural history, I was pleased to be able to locate so many out-of-the-way treasures using Nilsen's detailed and useful maps. If you absolutely need hotel and restaurant information, buy a guidebook like Fodor's, but take along a copy of this as well. You'll sure to be well pleased.

Last year, I lived in Korea for 10 months. I took two guidebooks with me, Lonely Planet and Moon Handbooks. Moon handbooks was by far the superior book. It has everything in it. The first two hundred pages give an introduction to the history, culture, and important travel tips. This was very useful if you're going to the country to learn about the culture as well as see the sights. This book gives a lot of history and even myths and stories about the sites around Korea. Lonely Planet didn't give much information on the cities and sites(Kyoungju, one of the cultural sites of the world, had only a couple of pages on it, whereas the Moon guide had 50); many of the places I went weren't even in Lonely Planet. It tended to focus on hotels and places to eat. I didn't stay in a lot of hotels while I was there, but the ones I did stay at were in the Moon Handbook and were everything they said they'd be. If you're going to Korea and want to learn about the places you're going to, take the Moon Handbook. I never used my Lonely Planet handbook, and left it there when I came home. I still have my Moon Handbook and hope to use it if I get the chance to return.

I took the first edition of this book with me when I went to Korea a few years back. I referred to it often over the course of the year or so that I lived there. I found it to be remarkably thorough, usually quite reliable (one of the yeogwans recommended by the book, a place in Pusan, was not what I'd been led to believe by the wonderful writeup in the book...) and totally useful. I recommend this book enthusiastically, and after paging through the second edition in a competitor's bookstore, found it has been improved upon. A must-have if you're headed to Korea for any length of time.