Lonely Planet Vietnam: Detailed Itineraries | Travel Like a Local | Insider Tips | Covers Hanoi & Halong Bay, Ho Chi Minh City, Hue and Hoi An PLUS Angkor Wat (Travel Guide)

The format of this book is much improved over some of the recent years format. It feels like more of the older style only planets, where the regions of the country are separated, and you can quickly navigate to one town or city in the book and understand what to do there. I much prefer this format and glad that they went to the older format that was used previously. This was a very good travel book for Vietnam.

Great great great

I have been using Lonely Planet books for 15 years and they have always been my first go-to source. Not only were they extremely helpful and the foundation of my trip planning, they were also my personal ‘souvenir’ for every place I traveled. So much so that I didn’t even bother looking at the reviews when I purchased this book. However, after receiving this book (and the one for Thailand), I was so taken aback by the new god awful layout and frank omission of any practical information that I had to look back at the reviews to see if I was the only one feeling this way. And sadly, I am not alone here. The new format feels like it was written by social media influencers incentivized to peddle various micro transactions for a small cut. Most pages are full of giant highlight photos with no actual content, no lists or recommendations for lodging, restaurants, transportation, and no genuine tips/insight for backpackers or travelers of different socioeconomic backgrounds. I wouldn’t be surprised if the team responsible for its content had never even traveled to the country of topic. I am genuinely saddened by the downfall of this great company, but until that changes, I will not be purchasing these books again.

A typical lonely planet release. I found the maps less detailed and useful than they used to be.

Great!

I gotta sadly agree with the other reviewers that the new design is just not good. Lonely planet has been my go to travel guide with so much information packed in the covers that it’s always been so useful that I carry it with me everywhere I go. I used to love that they covered stuff like the arts and books and CDs and different things so I could learn more about the culture through the arts. I see almost none of that here. And the travel information is pretty sparse. Instead they replaced it with highlights as if the entire book is some kind of a day trip special must see thing that makes everything really hard to distinguish. I don’t like it at all and if it continues, I will be buying other guides instead. as far as information goes, I think they cover all the basics. Rough guides are better now. They need to rethink this.

I usually love LP and use them for everything. I find this particular one very frustrating. I know of places from word of mouth from expats and when I search in the index I am unable to find them (Yok Dok national Park, Dak Lak province, Cao Bang). These are not uncommonly visited tourist locations and they’re not even in the index. It’s very frustrating and I’m finding I’m using the internet way more than the LP for planning trips.

I've been using Lonely Planets for almost 40 years, as my go-to travel guides. This one, in a new format, is however a disaster and provided literally no information of any use on our recent trip to Hue and Danang. I was left to trawl numerous sites on the internet to make up for the deficit left by this wholly inadequate guide - exactly what I buy LPs to avoid! The fact that this edition is 100 pages shorter than the previous edition should have been a warning. The section on Hue is 6 pages long as opposed to 12 in the previous edition. Usually densely packed with information, the pages of this edition contains large areas of white space and repeated content. There is no longer any section on national history and culture. The maps have departed from the previous detailed format and are pretty much worthless as the few recommended eateries and hotels and no longer shown. I plan to go back to Vietnam soon so have bought the considerably more comprehensive 2021 edition second hand.

Ein hervorragender Begleiter für deine Vietnam Reise. Tolle Tipps und Infos. Alles sehr ansprechend und informativ aufbereitet. Lohnt sich. :)

The book is laid out well with places to visit. Written in a readable way. Downside is there is ver little transport information, especially from city to city.

Great read for planning Vietnam visit. Highly recommended.

I have been using Lonely Planet for decades, I think I have their first ones on South America on a shestring, but was a bit worried about the negative comments from people about this guide. Should not have worried, the format is completely different, but I think it is really good, clear and informative. In fact, the old version that had prices of hotels and restaurants was getting old, as they invariably were wrong, prices changed, out of business, especially for the small merchants, etc. I guess we all have a different way of travelling, and for me the guides have evolved very nicely to how we travel now - even though they were perfect when we started traveling decades ago. I really do not hesitate in recommending these, they have a good balance of history, personal experience, diagrams and pictures, possible itineraries. In an age of internet, it you want really specifics, you can dive online yourself.

Ti spiega molto bene,precisa e molto chiara: ottima per la visita in Vietnam