Lonely Planet Thailand: Plan the Trip of a Lifetime | Detailed Itineraries & Maps | Insider Tips | Covers Bangkok, Phuket & the Andaman Coast, Chiang Mai Province and more (Travel Guide)

like all other Lonely Plantet guides i've used this is incredibly thorough, with lots of detail, maps, layouts of particular sites, tips etc. Well worth the money.

Used this like a bible throughout my travels in Chiang Mai, Bangkok, and Koh Tao. Great info, tips, recommendations. Can get heavy so I ended up ripping out sections for long days walking around the city. The neighborhood section maps and bar crawl recommendations were great.

I have used lonely planet for many many years. They pack a lot of information, even though the books are boring in black-and-white and the maps are hard to find stuff with tiny little numbers that you have to cross reference to a I nowprefer the more graphic books like DK eyewitness. Sometimes I buy both and I take with me the more compact guide.

Normal good lonely planet book.

Lonely Planet always comes through. Great guidebook. If you're traveling to a developing country with spotty Wi-Fi, a book you can hold in your hand and refer to is a must.

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 Vietnam), 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.

Lonely Planet has been my go-to travel companion for 30 years, so when I decided to make my first visit to Thailand this year, I was excited about the release of this new edition. When it arrived, I was dismayed to discover that it omits items I have always found most useful (e.g., lists of places to stay and eat sorted by location and budget) and makes the practical nuggets that it does still have hard to find. Places to stay in Chiang Mai? Flip pages at random until you spot a sidebar mentioning three hotels with no contact or address information, and no corresponding map. Best ways to get there from Bangkok or other cities? Who knows? Within the section for each region of the country, information is presented in such a chaotic fashion that it feels like a tour guide trying to sell me on seven different packages at once, never answering a direct question, and never getting out of my way.

We planned so much of our trip with inspiration and ideas from the book. We also bought the Vietnam book which was equally as helpful. The book is divided by region, making it super easy to plan based on where you are going.

This book has changed the complete information we use to get in older version of lonely planet book, no hotels stay suggest nightlife place activities are shown. Book has failed totally.

Very good insight

Lonely Planet has been (or shall I say USED TO BE) my beloved guidebook series for almost three decades. I trusted it pretty much implicitly and used it both during the planning stage and while at my destination. This has changed now. The latest edition is almost 200 pages thinner than the last, and this happened at the cost of the accommodation, restaurant and transportation sections, which have now been reduced to random blurbs at the bottom of some pages. This, effectively, has made pre-journey planning rather challenging (yes, I have heard of the Internet, but to get into details you need some general idea, and this is not presented in the book). The new edition is chaotic and random in its structure, starting with the list of contents (BEYOND Krabi? BEYOND Chiang Mai? How are you supposed to find smaller places if they are never listed there). Then there is some random advice (do not let mosquitoes into your bungalow, seriously?!) and some failed attempts at humor (see one of the attached photos, in which the author cannot guarantee passionate nights if you stay in House of Passion hotel). Please... The information is gravely incomplete and random (you may have noticed a pattern here). I didn't attempt to compare the current and previous edition page by page, I used to believe Lonely Planet have editors who look at the contents critically; however, had I travelled with the new edition, I would never find the mangrove walk in Krabi. It isn't mentioned there and I found it a highlight of my stay. The order of the information presented is confusing at best, for example you get a poor map of Ko Lanta town walk (page 534) in the middle of Ko Phi Phi section. The worst, however, is the quality of maps. Unless my copy was printed on empty cartridges, the readability of the maps is dramatically diminished due to the choice of light grayish font on (mostly) beige-ish background. With the exception of a few details which the authors deemed important, these, for a change, will burn your retinas. The maps are either overloaded with absolutely redundant details, or heavily lacking any. One of my photos compares the map of Ko Samui from the previous and current edition (on the left and right, respectively). All in all, the new edition seems like a bad Tik Tok, attempting at entertainment (poorly) rather than information (even worse so). Not a diss at Tik Tok, mind you, just an observation. Avoid at all cost, buy the previous edition (which is a good old Lonely Planet guidebooks), and while it may lack in being up-to-date (not really), it certainly delivers big time. I do hope Lonely Planet will realize this is a failed experiment and bring back the goods. Fingers crossed! An edit: not looking for a rating conspiracy here, but how come only 3 out of 35 reviews so far (including mine) have come from the customers who actually purchased the product? All the others, Vine customers apparently, have been offered a free copy of the guidebook...

The best guide book Detailed sections on Bangkok and rural areas as well as the islands. Suggestions of accomodation and dining as well as what to see

Muy contenta con la guía, me acompañó dos meses en Tailandia y la usé mucho para guiarme por allí. Lonely planet no defrauda.