Product Description

Beautifully situated on a magnificent harbor, Sydney is Australia's most exciting and stylish city. This indispensable guide will help visitors on any budget discover Sydney's many attractions from the historic Rocks and the lively neighborhoods to the famous beaches and wonderful national parks on the city's doorstep. Full color. 18 maps.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #779689 in Books
• Published on: 2006-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 242 pages

Customer Reviews

Perfect travel companion
The scope of this book is ideal for a small, lightweight yet comprehensive guide. By sticking to Sydney, it can cover pretty much everything it needs to, without adding 10 pounds to your backpack. It's meticulously researched, well organized and became a daily reference point during our trip. I'm a big fan of the Lonely Planet series, and this ranks as one of the best.

Australia's Largest City
The seventh edition of the Lonely Planet "Sydney - City Guide" was researched and written by Sandra Bao, with help from the author of the previous two editions Sally O'Brien. This edition was published in 2006, which means that the next edition will probably not be published until sometime in 2008 or later.

As with the other City Guides from Lonely Planet that I have used, this one appears to be comprehensive. As one would expect, it would cover the things that most travel guides cover, such as lodging, food & drink, entertainment & attractions, and shopping. The Lonely Planet guides go beyond the standard information and include sections on city life, art, architecture, and history, and sections which help the traveler plan activities with sections on walking tours, and excursions that can be taken outside of the city.

This guide, like the other Lonely Planet guides that I have used, has been very helpful in my planning for my visit. Probably the most useful section to a first time traveler is the `Directory' section, which covers a wide range of topics from transportation, family concerns, climate, customs, information for travelers which are disabled, electricity, embassies, emergencies, and so much more. If you already have a Lonely Planet guide for Australia, then this section will not be of as much use, but it is always good to have the latest copy you can because some of the information changes or is added.

I have had very good success with the Lonely Planet guides, and I have every reason to believe after reading and using this one for my planning that this one will also turn out to be quite useful. There are guides which give you more visual information on Sydney, but in terms of written content I believe this one is near the top of the list.

Confusing and boring at the same time!
The whole idea of a guide book is to "guide" you--to tell you how to do things, where to find things and how to get there. This book does none of these things!

Instead it is a pretentious and disorganized mess that leaves one with the feeling that, while the author obviously knows Sydney well, she is far too smug and self-congratulatory to share much of this information with you!

Yes there are maps--but they omit many street names and don't match up with each other. Good luck if the location you are looking for is on a street not deemed worthy of inclusion or if your path takes you from one neighborhood to another.

The book does provide spotty information on the city's transit systems (light rail, heavy rail, buses, mono-rail and ferries) but not enough to enable one to get around easily. Plan on spending extra time getting oriented and standing in line at information booths.

As far as culture, history, nature and local color--if it doesn't have to do with drag queen reviews, liberal politics or the hippest place to eat or drink, the author doesn't seem to be much interested.

Finally, the index-or should I say indexes as there are (strangely) several different ones! You'll probably just have to memorize page numbers as I did!

I spent four days in Sydney getting more and more frustrated with this book before I dumped it and started using "Sydney: The Official Guide" which is given out free by the local tourist authority. It was much more informative and much more user-friendly!

BTW--Lonely Planets has apparently decided to get rid of those sections of its city guides on getting there, transportation, local money, culture, customs, tips, etc., (which were always the most useful parts of the books) and has replaced these with expanded listings of recommended restaurants, bars and coffee shops. I did take a few of their recommendations in Sydney--and was uniformly disappointed.

One good thing about the book-if you are awake due to jet-lag, a few pages of the ponderous prose may help you nod off!

This was the 14th Lonely Planet Guide that I have purchased over the years--and the last. This is a once-great travel series that has completely lost its way. Too bad!