The Rough Guide to South Africa: Lesotho & Swaziland

As a disclaimer, I should note that I really enjoy reading travel books, and I went through almost every book on South Africa before my trip. This book was the one I decided to purchase, as it was the most recent, and had the most information. These aren't books for those who enjoy looking at pictures of all the different areas, but has the most details for each area of the country. We spent roughly 2 weeks in the country and I used basically just this book in planning my trip. Did not use the book for hotel recommendations or restaurants as we had friends who had lived in the country and gave us plenty of those before we left. One nice feature was multiple pages of animal ID information, which was good for touring in Kruger.

I have an older edition (the 3rd) of this guide to South Africa. I live in Cape Town and still refer to the book frequently when planning trips in the country or entertaining visitors. If you want info on the usual tourist spots, the guide is fine. However, one of the best things about traveling in South Africa is how easy and exciting it is to get off the tourist routes. I have several other guide books, but this is the best for exploring. I am going to buy a new edition in order to get up to date info for a planned trip to Lesotho.

we have found the book to be sufficiently detailed to assist in our planning of our october, 2009 trip to south africa. we plan to bring it with us for every day guidance as well...