If you had a chance to update the lonely planet...

[doumeizhen]

what would you recommend?

My recommendation:

Replace Zhou Zhuang (or at least discourage people from going there) with another local water city, like Nanxun, which has less tourists and much more to look at.

All right, let me hear 'em!

[Lu]

I think it's very arrogant and paternalistic to discourage people from going somewhere. I haven't noticed it in the Chinese LP, but the Taiwanese sure does it. I don't like that. Just tell me what there is and how to get there, and I will decide for myself whether I think it's worth it. I'd change large parts of the Taiwan LP, but it would be a wasted effort as a new one is due about now.

[geek_frappa]

I think it's very arrogant and paternalistic to discourage people from going somewhere. I haven't noticed it in the Chinese LP, but the Taiwanese sure does it. I don't like that. Just tell me what there is and how to get there, and I will decide for myself whether I think it's worth it.

an excellent point!! why change LP when we can create our own country guides?

[wix]

Although it is not so much an issue for Taiwan, a major constraint on any guidebook for China is that you only have 1,000 pages at most and you can only include so much information. There are plenty more places in China that could be included, but you would need three volumes to do it.

[yonglan]

an excellent point!! why change LP when we can create our own country guides?

I had suggested on a different thread that we could make a free, public domain guidebook. No one bit. Anyone?

[geek_frappa]

hmmm...

http://www.chinese-forums.com/viewtopic.php?t=3368&highlight=guidebook

which place should we talk about first first?

[markalexander100]

FWIW, there is a wiki travel guide for China at http://wikitravel.org/en/article/China . Destinations are thin on the ground, though.

[yonglan]

As for Wiki, on the bright side, they sure have room to develop

Ok, can you tell us about Wikipedia? I mean, what do we have to do to contribute? What do you think of their not being organized by province? I haven't done any editing on Wiki, so I don't know how much they allow us to do. If you're familiar with them, do you want to give us a brief overview?

I was thinking it would be a long term project whereby people living in a particular area would put their two cents in and over time with more people it could become quite extensive. Can we upload hand-drawn city maps and such?

What are you folks thinking about this?

[doumeizhen]

Well, there are already tons of free travel guides online that allow you to edit into them, but seriously, for people who are coming to China without knowing anything about it, I can see why they would like to have one guide book that covers it all, and that gives you some guidance. And yes, I admit they are in adequate a great deal of the time, and that is why you should send them suggestions. It caters to a certain public, and the people who buy it are looking for that kind of book.

On the commentary thing, I agree, but on the other hand, some people are limited on time, and its better they get re-routed than being dissapointed.

Would any of you be more comfortable with a star rating system, like:

Scenary ****

Historical Value **

Convenience ***

Overall Rating ***

or is it the fact that it is being critcized at all?

[xiaoping]

I would have them include the info on The Beijing Guide. This site has the most amazing 360-degree panoramas of China I have ever seen. And the practical information in there is superb. Lonely Planet can learn some things from these guys. And its in Chinese as well as English.

[xiaoping]

I would have them include the info on The Beijing Guide - www.thebeijingguide.com

This site has the most amazing 360-degree panoramas of China I have ever seen. And the practical information in there is superb. Lonely Planet can learn some things from these guys. And its in Chinese as well as English.

[roddy]

And all this from someone who registered with an email address @thebeijingguide.com

Genius.

[Lu]

A star system would be ok. And I don't mind criticism, I just mind things like the book mentioning a university canteen, naming the times that lunch and dinner is served, but instead of mentioning the time you can get breakfast saying 'don't bother about the breakfast, it's no good'. WTF?

Ok that's a small thing. More annoying is some things that are written about the surroundings of Kenting. About the Szechunghsi hotsprings:

(...) These days, the springs attract busloads of weekend sightseers from Taipei. They come to get their picture taken in front of any famous hotel (to prove they've been there), take a quick dip in the hotel hot springs, gorge themselves on 'mountain seafood' and then throw it up on the bus leading home.

(...) If you don't want to see tourists in their native habitat, come during the week, when the place is quiet. (...) though there's nothing to see in Szechunhsi itself.

Half of the text about the Szechunghsi hotsprings is about the tourists who go there!

Also, three 'funny' remarks in the Kenting section on the nuclear power plant there. One is ok and possibly funny, but three??

And some more sour remarks. Apparently the writer didn't have a good time in Kenting. Sorry for him, but I think it's not very professional to show that in his book.

[wushijiao]

I don't know if you're familiar with European travel, but Rick Steves writes interesting, opinionated tour books, although the guy is a bit old and a tad dorky. Anyway, he believes that if there is a place that is overseen and overrated it is the job of an experienced guide book editor to say so. Sometimes I wish somebody would have said, "skip this city; save the $100 you spent there and go to this better place near by."

I think the Planet, on average, does a pretty good job. China is a huge country that could really have province guides if it were there were a market for them. So, combining and editing it all into one single book is quite the task.

Perhaps traveling in China is now developed enough to the point where they can sell "off the beaten path" books to laowais. However, it seems that if you are not in the Hong Kong-Three Gorges-Shanghai-Suzhou-Xi'an-Beijing loop, you're already off the beaten path.

I agree that it makes no sense to trash certain restaurants in cities in which there are millions of culinary choices.

[Lu]

...if there is a place that is overseen and overrated it is the job of an experienced guide book editor to say so.

True, but not ad nauseam please. I think a guidebook should say what there is to see, why that is interesting, or why not, when you can go there, and how to get there. The Taiwan LP fails on this in several respects.

Note: I'm not talking about the China LP. I love it when I sit in a train for two days, arrive in a faraway town, and then the LP says if I take bus three I get to some fresco's that are nice, and I know I can blindly hop onto bus 3 when it drives by because if the LP says it'll take me to those fresco's, it will take me there. (bad grammar, I know)

[lpascoe]

Have to agree wholeheartedly with what was said about the Taiwan LP, although I haven't seen the new one. Especially with the stuff on Kenting.

I love scuba diving. OK the diving is not fantastic in Kenting, but if you've got to get your fix, it is good. I learnt to dive in Kenting, with a Taiwanese instructor. At least half of my 200-plus dives have been in Kenting. I really resent remarks like this...

"...but the Taiwanese-style 'diving' usually means wearing a life jacket and being tethered to a boat."

Actually, that would be Taiwanese snorkelling, not diving, tethered to a floatation device, not a boat. Why? Because lots of them can't swim. Divers would be the ones wearing weights. Whatever!

No prices for tanks, guide fees, nothing. If he was going to show such complete ignorance about diving and such singlemindedness in taking the piss out of the locals, I wish he'd just kept his mouth shut on the topic and his smartarse comments to himself!

Also, almost all of the restaurants (ie, all, other than one Thai place and a couple of night markets) listed for the city I live in are Western. Honestly, who travels all the way to Taiwan to eat TGIF?! May as well give poor tourists the locations of Mcdonalds and KFC and be done with it.

Granted, no guide book can be all things for all people. I usually like Lonely Planet. They have the information I'm looking for, in a format I can use quickly and easily. But the LP Taiwan really rubs me up the wrong way.

[Quest]

If you are from Taiwan, does the acronym LP sound 'strange' here?

[lpascoe]

Drat. Can't believe I forgot about that.

Have recently had to ban my 3rd grade students from using 'LP' in whole English classes. They complained because technically speaking it's English. but the 5 minute giggling fit that accompanied any whispering of LP caused too much of a disturbance. It was worse than when the word 'cow' was on their vocabulary list.

This made them pretty sad, so to make up for it I taught them 'cotton candy' which sounds pretty funny to Taiwanese kids (ie, butt candy) and how to say 'pencil' so that it sounds like 'toilet' in Taiwanese. They were suitably amused and have momentarily forgotten about LP.

They'd think it was really funny if they ever found out I'd been questioned for using it!