Lonely Planet Egypt: Detailed Itineraries | Travel Like a Local | Insider Tips | Covers Cairo and Around, Luxor, Alexandria, Red Sea Coast, Sinai, and more (Travel Guide)

Good guide

Never go on holiday without a LP

I have travelled to over 60 countries and in most cases bought the lonely planet as a guide. The standard format has text on getting there and away, where to stay, where to eat and drink, info regarding local and between cities transport, and guided tours. This one has magazine-like photos of the antiquities and little to no info regarding the reason why you may want to buy a guide. I don't know why it is made so poorly for Egypt. We ended up leaving it behind, all others we kept as a reference to the places we have been

Good reference guide for our Nile cruise and visit to Cairo /“& Hurghada

LP guides are always first class. Used this in a whirlwind tour of the key historical sites if Egypt, ranging from Cairo, through Aswan and on to Abu Simbel. The book highlights all the key sites and features for those short of time, and gives good pointers to anyone who wants to explore deeper.

I have owned many LP books since the 1980s, I guess this is my first new one in 10 years, quite shocking to me how the content has changed, it is now very corporate. They try to steer clear of politics and history (although of course they have a nod towards wokeness in the "Storybook" section which seems to have replaced them). Perhaps they think the old section of "Facts about the country" seemed a bit neo-colonialist, having westerners state facts about another country and passing judgements. Its still useful but not very distinctive any more. Also, for a book about Egypt, which has many dangers from terrorism to shark attacks, being killed in your hotel room by bed bug spray (actually happened when I was there last time) or the diveboat you are living on going on fire, there is very little emphasis on this. Also basically nothing about Muslim Brotherhood, President Sisi and contemporary society. I also disliked the rather obvious "advertorial" they now include promoting businesses like Food Tours, etc.

I've travelled jn around 100 countries and used a variety of guiebooks - LP, Bradt, Footprint, Rough Guide, etc. Lonely planet has always been consistently pretty good - clearly laid out, well structured lists of places to visit, places to eat and stay, and always some good ideas for of the beaten track to consider, etc. I get the need to refresh, but it's way missed the mark with this new layout and the writing is full of so many words but so little useful information. I'm currently 2 weeks in to a one month trip in Egypt and this guide book is very frustrating to use. In places there is some useful info, but it is so hard to sift through. And it seems to have lost sight of serving budget travellers - their very very limited recommendation for hotels include the Oberoi and Movenpick etc??!! For now I am switching away from Lonely Planet books. Maybe the new style will serve other people well, but I'm not convinced it serves the traditional audiences (I.e. me) or new audiences it wants to capture.

This isn't really a very useful book for the independent traveller. There isn't much hard information about the practicalities of getting around the country, finding good places to stay, eat, drink and so on. Bizarrely, even when the name of a particular hotel or cafe is mentioned its location usually isn't. The city and town maps are lacking in detail and hard to read due to a lack of contrast (lots of white on grey). Unfortunately, having taken a look at a few other recent Lonely Planet guides, this now seems to be becoming the 'house style', so I probably won't be buying any more.

As usual for a book in this series, very good and high quality information.

Very informative. Felt as if I was wandering in Egypt.

I enjoyed the descriptions and useful information.

It had up to date information from a recent update, which was a positive. I like that most of the regions in Egypt are covered within. Highly positive spin on Egypt. Too little information on the negatives and how to minimise them as a non-arabic non-muslim. Some information on health issues, but superficial. The information isn't detailed and often refers you for example to websites. The maps are more artistic, rather the informative. Better than nothing for planning purposes, but seek advice from other sources on for example vaccinations, food hygiene, Egyptian water parasites, scammers and so forth.

Before buying I was skeptical of others' negativism: but they are right. lonely planet has completely screwed up this new format. I would be able to find more info on Google but if so why should I spend money on a book. This is the first time I am going to other brands for my travel and hope it will be the sign for them to go back to what they were used to