The National Geographic Traveler: Australia

The nat'l geo series is a fantastic trip preparation guide. The photos, stories, insights into culture - this helped us choose which regions of OZ that we wanted to visit. For this I give 4 out of 5. The last star I reserve because some of the smaller places are not listed that are real gems! It is understandable though that no guide will have every dot on the map, this is why you travel and explore!! Note: for this sort of preparation and planning activity we have found no better guidebook series!However, what we've found is that these guides are not good for hotels, restaurants, etc - there are a few (expensive!!) listed. Nor are they good for navigating/driving (we drove Melbourne to Cairns). I recommend using this guide to prepare and a Lonely Planet to find places to stay/for for more budget conscious traveler needs. Get a good road map.

The nat'l geo series is a fantastic trip preparation guide. The photos, stories, insights into culture - this helped us choose which regions of OZ that we wanted to visit. For this I give 4 out of 5. The last star I reserve because some of the smaller places are not listed that are real gems! It is understandable though that no guide will have every dot on the map, this is why you travel and explore!! Note: for this sort of preparation and planning activity we have found no better guidebook series!However, what we've found is that these guides are not good for hotels, restaurants, etc - there are a few (expensive!!) listed. Nor are the driving (we drove Melbourne to Cairns) listed. I recommend using this guide to prepare and a Lonely Planet to find places to stay/for for more budget conscious traveler needs. Get a good road map.

I have always been a big fan of the Eye Witness travel guides because of the abundance of pictures and the wealth of information they contain. After purchasing Australia: National Geographic Traveler, I may have found another favorite. Not only does this travel guide contain beautiful, brilliantly colored photos of Australia's countryside, people and attractions on nearly every page, it is also filled with page after page of interesting and helpful information about each of the country's regions, and provides regional maps for each of the areas it describes, as well as walking and driving tour maps. Along with historical information, the book is brimming with practical advice for travelers; from such obvious warnings as wearing a high SPF sunblock due to the country's strong sunlight, to less obvious tidbits; for instance, that the monitor-type lizards that inhabit the area, when startled, will climb the tallest object around, which may happens to be you, so stay alert! This guide offers insightful comments about, and a glimpse of, all the popular attractions, and includes contact information, etc., and the various means of transportation to get to those destinations. It also provides suggestions and information about interesting sights not on the beaten track. The only shortcoming of this guide is that it contains a limited listing of hotels and restaurants, and that list is located at the very back of the book. But because this is a travel guide for the entire country of Australia, I can forgive this shortcoming. However, it would be more convenient to place the hotel and restaurant information for specific cities in the section of the book that talks about the region to which that city belongs. I found this book entertaining, fun to look at, and easy to read (although the print is rather small). Overall, I would recommend this book to anyone wanting a complete guide to Australia.