Lonely Planet Yucatan

This was a very usable and serviceable guide in to Yucatan travel. If offers quite a detailed description on the region's history and culture from those who would know it best. If you're looking for guide through part of Mexico's heritage this is a good guide to take with you.

This is a great basic guide that will get you started on your Yucatan adventure. If you've never been to the Yucatan then this is an easy read that will serve as a great introduction. However, if you have already spent an extensive amount of time in the area then you will probably quickly find some of that there is quite a bit of outdated information (for example there's no discounted entry to Chichen Itza). Also you can get a lot of great car rental deals from the local guys (i.e. not Budget and AVIS) - we rented a great car for $35 a day with unlimited mileage! I recommend this guide to the first time visitor.

I always use Lonely Planet and no different this time. We rented a car and drove around Yucatan state. Had a great time. Lonely was excellent and 100% accurate for lodging and food. I also had a Cadogan Guide as well. Cadogan specializes in the culture and found it better for the Mayan sites than Lonely. Cadogan was never accurate for food and so-so for Lodging. The Rough Guide Map was an essential for driving as well. The Lonely map was better for Merida as the Rough guide gave no city level detail at all. So if you plan a self guided drive you really need all three of these.

When I go travelling I always look at different guide books to try to find the best one. I didn't go backpacking in Yucatan but stayed in Cancun and travelled from here to see Isla Mujeres, Playa del Carmen, and pyramids among other places and for this the Lonely Planet book seemed to be the best. I found a very nice and cheap place to eat in Cancun and one of the last day there I found out that this place was in the book also... I just hadn't been using the book for this purpose :D

I found this book slightly better than Frommer's. Particularly in relation to food - more interesting, lesser known finds in Merida.