guide book

Footprint

Footprint Peru (not the same with the South America or the Peru-Bolivia editions, info tends to be reduced)

We have Footprint Peru and it's ok. Before we went we bought Footprint on Equador-Peru-Bolivia, and it was terrible, very brief.
Before that we were in Argentina and had a Rough Guide (it was recommended by a friend who is a tour guide) - it was so amazingly excellent!! So we looked in all bookshops in Cusco for a Rough Guide on Peru, but couldn't fine one, (for some reason it's not as popular as LP or Footprint) so we settled for a Footprint instread. I still often go to the Rough Guide web site for info (www.roughguides.com)

I used Rough Guide and would also recommend it. It is written in a quite literate way, which makes it easier to read than others that have only dry facts. Although it is ..ee.. 2003 or 2004, I wouldn`t say that the prices for stuff mentioned in the book were out of date.

I recently spent a couple of hours comparing the latest versions of the LP, Footprint and Rough Guides to Peru. Overall Footprint is still the best. It has the most extensive coverage, including, for example, out of the way places in the central highlands, places you'd never know existed if you just relied on LP. Footprint also has better accomodation recommendations than LP.

I agree with trogulus that the Rough Guide has the better literary style, but if I want to enjoy a master stylist I'd probably be reading James rather than a guide book. As a guide it is actually the worst of the three, with quite spotty coverage.

The one place in which LP is clearly better than Footprint is on maps. The city maps tend to be larger, and for me at least, easier to read.

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<hr>Overall Footprint is still the best. It has the most extensive coverage<hr></blockquote>

MOON-Peru has the most extensive Amazon coverage!

Moon is full of typos, the word Huaca is written incorrectly 50 times, every Spanish or indigenous term is gramatically misinterpreted. They incorrectly locate all the bus stations in Trujillo, & you have little chance of getting out of Trujillo, let alone to the Amazon.
Lonely Planet Trujillo map is also too small, & most bus terminals are outside of it.
I was frustrated with the 6th edition of LP Peru 2007. I bought it from Amazon, but LP´s website still says the author was Rob Rachowiecki, who wrote the first 5 editions. I was surprised to receive the 6th edition of LP Peru written by 3 unknowns, with no evidence of Latin American studies, living in Peru, or having been in Trujillo, where I lived.
One reviewer wrote LP Peru 'appears only every 3-5 years, the 2007 Lonely Planet has less info than Footprint & Rough Guide, no websites, out of date email addresses & has omitted almost all tour guides, but included its website on every page of its Peru & South America books. Most other guide books include external websites & still list individual tour guides, while Lonely Planet includes out of date email addresses & hopes you will buy services from hotels & travel agents on their website. There is none of the history of colonial Trujillo, how it links to the colonial houses, neighbours like Huanchaco or the highlands.
The instructions to El Brujo will leave you short by a 5km dry, dusty, remote walk, without the help of any map.
Huaca de la Luna is also omitted from the 2007 map on p.323, & El Brujo is misleadingly located on the map on P.323 & omitted from p.335 map. It does not say that you have to walk kilometers from the road along a hot deserted path to Chan Chan'.
As their website is on every page, the alternative is to browse here on Thorn tree, where you have to identify & interpret to distinguish naive first time travellers, commercial posters & honest opinions.

More opinions:

June 2007

April 2007

05 Nov 2005

22 Aug 2005

26 Aug 2004

7 Apr 2004

27 Jan 2004

July 2007

Bolivia 2007 new book too.