Lonely Planet Central America on a Shoestring (3rd Ed)

by Tom Brosnahan, Nancy Keller, Rob Rachowiecki, etc.

Release Date: October, 1997

Edition: Paperback

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Travels in Nicaragua and Honduras in January 2000

My father and I traveled to Nicaragua and Honduras in January 2000. This guide was helpful as a security blanket for information on the different cities and towns we visited, but we couldn't rely much on the lodging, restaurant, and/or transit information due to it being outdated and that natural disasters had changed some of the roads/cities since the book was written.

The information on daytrips was great - we ended up seeing a couple of towns within an easy journey of Teguchigalpa, Honduras and Managua thanks to the LP guide. Especially like the organization of the LP books, which really helped outline an itinerary that made sense prior to our departure. With the "Getting there & away" section about each destination, it was easy to figure out how to modify that itinerary as needed "on the fly."

Previously, I'd used LP for travels in Bolivia and been very impressed with the detail and level of information for La Paz (the capital). We found the level of detail a little lacking in the Central America guide probably because Nicaragua/Honduras were only two small sections of the book. So I guess I'd recommend this book for an overview, but would suggest finding a guide with more current, updated detailed information and/or an increased focus on the country/cities you're visiting.

Rough Guide is better

I travelled around Central America last summer with this book and the Rough Guide's for Guatemala, I had access to and photocopied parts of the Rough Guide to C.A. (for when I left Guate.) and I read a good part of a few other guides while shacked up in a coffee shop in Antigua, waiting out a rain storm.

I think the Rough Guide is best for Central America because the writing is better, it's more thorough, there are more goofy descriptions of little architectual wonders (like the burned out train shed near zone 4 bus station.) The lonely planets maps are inferior. (Especially for MAnagua and Guatemala City.) It is dangerously outdated, in that it fails to adequately descibe that the Darien gap is in effect a war zone now, and that if you are an American and you are caught there, you almost certainly will be killed. I met several gringos who were all excited from reading about a "jungle rought" described within it's pages -- the route from Puerto Cortes to Puerto Barrios. I've done it; you take a bus, you take a truck, you stop at a shack, you take another truck, another bus, it breaks down, you wait for another bus... you're there. Not that exciting. There is no reason to go to Puerto Cortes, unless you want to hang out with prostitutes and sailors, and watch cargo ships being loaded, and maybe get mugged. And it's the latin capital for SIDA. (But actually, I had a great time...) Anyway, the book makes it sound more fun thatn it is. So get the Rough Guide, and plan on borrowing this one from someone there. (All the tourists seem to have it...)