Insight Guides South Korea

My husband and I travel and live all over Asia and we love the Insight Guides and the DK guides. When we first started traveling we would buy the lonely planet and the insight or DK guide. But we found that we never used the lonely planet. We found it was far too detailed and had out of the way places that we weren't interested in. The Insight guides sift through all of the sights and show the best ones. We have never been disappointed with the information in the guides. While we were living in the countries and traveling veraciously we still didn't have time to visit all of the places in the Insight guide. The Insight guides have all the highlights are enjoyable to read and provide enough details for us to make all the hotel and flight reservations. The Insight Guides have well-researched and accessible history and culture sections. When we move we always buy a guide for our family to read so they have a better understanding of where we live and always enjoy the colorful pictures and well-written articles.

I've bought bought many Insight Guides through the years, and this one runs true to form--lavishly illustrated, chock full of information on the history, culture and people of Korea. As others mention, these guides are not good for hotel and restaurant information, but they're not intended to be--in fact, you may not even want to carry it along on the trip. But for research they're indispensible. A note: I have not gone to Korea but used this book in an English class for adult Korean students. They gave it a big thumbs up, said it "has everything." They would know!

Beautiful pictures, good cultural info at the beginning, a little thin on the actual information on places, which I assume what a traveller/ tourist needs most, right after a willingness to see new things and meet new people.

If you are planning your first holiday in Korea and look for a compact, well organized and illustrated travel guide, take this one into consideration. It is being kept up to date and contains all the major and minor attractions that Koreans would tell you you should not miss. Addresses, maps, some background information on food, arts, religion etc., everything is ordered into seperate chapters and really "at your fingertips"; the main part of the book naturally covers locations of interest.If you are interested in a better understanding of Korea's highest treasure, it's people, this is not the guide's purpose and it can only serve as an introduction. In this case you should for example go for D.N. Clark's "culture and customs" or D.M. Hoffman's "Lanterns on the river".