Books : South America on a Shoestring (Lonely Planet Shoestring Guides)

Rating: - Inaccurate, Out of date, but still useful!
Whilst travelling through Venezuela, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Chile, Argentina, Paragruay and Brazil, I quickly realised that this book was not going to be much help 'in the field'. It is in urgent need of up dating; many of the hostels and hotels mentioned have either closed, renamed or vanished off the face of the earth. I used this guide to plan my trip, but upon arrival it did little more than fill up space in my rucksack. The maps are quite useful...to a point. Most of the restaurants, hostels etc are not in the right place on the map (which i found out to my cost when lugging my rucksack around Ascunsion). However, the layout is accurate and helps to orientate yourself around cities.
The information regarding major tourist attractions is useful also.
My main suggestion to anyone thinking of buying this book is: Buy it, but dont trust it... if you will arrive late at night in an obscure place, try to establish if the hostel you want exists before you set out!

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Rating: - poorly edited, out of date information
I started travelling with the south america on a shoe string book around south america, and quickly found it to be out of date! Stick to FootPrints guide to SA, loads more info! and its published yearly unlike lonely planet guides!

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Rating: - Fantastic
I thought this book was brilliant. When travelling in south america - everything you need is included. Some finer details are not included - but thats what local travel agencies and fellow travellers' advice is for.
Bus route information is particularly useful, with recommendations for companies etc - which is vital for south america! Also - restaurants recommended are great, hotels are great etc

Also - to note: Although other books MAY have better aspects - the lonely planet easy way to find the info you want is vital. You need to be able to find the info you want - otherwise you wont use the book.

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Rating: - Good enough
This is a pretty good book. Not all consolidated LP books are of equal quality, but I was pleased with the accuracy and volume of detail for each country. The crucial thing like border crossing points, times, and rough costs were good. Not much else really matters.

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Rating: - Lonely Planet S.America on a Shoestring
I used this book for five months of backpacking in S.America and found it absolutely invaluable. Of course it doesn't contain as much specific info on the countries as the individual guides do, but when space and weight in your pack are important you don't want to be carrying around over a dozen books. It offers a great overview of the highlights of the country but I mostly used it to find cheap accomodation and routes/times/costs of the local buses. I can't comment on any of the itineries the author recomends, but I wouldn't use them anyway - decide what you want to see and go it alone!
On a side note, this is a fascinating and varied continent, on which I will always want to return to and would highly recomend to travelers.