Australia

by Justine Vaisutis, Paul Smitz, Carolyn Bain

Down Under has never been closer with thorough coverage from the Great Barrier Reef to the Great Ocean Road, and extensive lodging and dining listings that cover a wide range of budgets.

Genres: Travel, Nonfiction, Australia, Reference, Guidebook, Self Help

1120 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1994

Reviews

[Flo · Rating 3 out of 5]

2707 pages. An X-ray examination, not a simple travel guide.

[W · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lonely Planet guides used to be much more useful in the pre internet era.

[Sue Thornquist · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very helpful on our trip

[Stephen Heiner · Rating 5 out of 5]

I used this book in 2012 my first time Down Under and again this year as I returned to a country that is so far away that I didn't know when I would be back. The book, and frankly, any book from Lonely Planet, provides an invaluable complement to the staggering amount of information online. Unlike online information, this is organized systematically, written by professionals, and updated constantly. You'll find that it will give you a good orientation to a state, region, and city, and point you in directions that will help you make the most of your travels. Don't leave home without one, especially if you are going for more than two weeks anywhere.

[Nick Sattele · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nothing beats Rick Steves.

Lots of great recommendations, but nothing you wouldn’t find online. Quite lengthy and not very well organized…a sea of recommendations I will never have enough time to visit.

A great book if you’re moving to Australia!

[C · Rating 4 out of 5]

I bought this book because I was curious what it'd be like to read a guidebook to my own country, as well as because I'd like to travel more within Australia. I'm a long-time user of Lonely Planet guides, but since I discovered that you can buy them chapter-by-chapter (for just $5), I rarely buy the full books.
I don't like how this book includes so many places that I can't imagine many people wanting to go - it'd be better if they gave more detail on the best places and left the others out (Rick Steves -style - his guidebooks are the gold standard, it's such a pity he only writes Europe guides). However, I do like that this book covers a few dangerous places (like outback tracks), I do like reading (a bit) about places I'll never be brave enough to go!
I think the coverage of hotels/restaurants/bars is a bit excessive but I do think that, even though this information is better (and free) online, it's good to have some such information within your primary planning source as a price indicator, and the hotel prices in this book are good indicators (they generally line up with the prices that are actually charged when you find a decent online deal - note that this means that if you don't bother to search for a decent deal you will have to pay much more than the prices listed in this book, particularly if you're unwise enough to travel at peak times).
In this book I found a few destinations I'd like to visit that I hadn't already put on my wishlist. I also found a few attractions I'd like to visit in Melbourne (a city I've been to quite a few times) that I'd never heard of before, but that wasn't the case for any of the other cities I'm fairly familiar with.
The hotel recommendations in cities I'm familiar with often line up with those I'd make, except that they generally exclude chains (chains can be a good deal in Australia, esp. at the budget end where they give a more consistent experience than indies). The restaurant recommendations also often line up with mine, particularity in my home city - I'm not sure if this means that I know about most of the good places, or if it means that the writers didn't bother to look beyond the popular places!
Books like this take time to put together so there's necessarily some out of date information here (one listed place in my home city closed before this book's publication date, and many listed places will surely close before the next edition of this book) but I don't think that will cause readers too many problems if they supplement this book with information from tripadvisor and google maps.

[Mojca · Rating 4 out of 5]

4 - 4 ½ stars

[Mauri · Rating 3 out of 5]

Better for those a little further along in their planning than I am when I usually pick up a guidebook. A more detailed and useful section on Tasmania than the Eyewitness guide.

[Siffy Torkildson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good overview of Australia but lacking in photographs of animals, and culture.

[Sophie Crane · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very comprehensive travel guide. A must for travellers to Australia. Highly recommended.

[Brian · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love this series and I am desperate to use the information in it! The practicality of the information can't be beat.

[Tanya · Rating 3 out of 5]

I only wish Rick Steves did travel books for Australia.

I used Lonely Planet Australia as a guide for my recent trip down under, and overall I was disappointed. While it was helpful in deciding what I wanted to see beforehand, I could have found all that information online (on tripadvisor.com, for example). For me the most important function of travel books is to be my on-site tour guide. This book didn't have enough information on any individual place to be worth carrying along. Of the 14 days of my visit, I only packed it in my purse for 2 of them, and even then I didn't find it of much use. I am accustomed to Rick Steves' wonderful tips -- things like "buy your tickets at this little shop and avoid the line" and "if you go to the very back of the market you'll find this fascinating statue" and so forth. There was none of that here. I also found the few suggested itineraries to be very slow-moving and incomplete. But maybe my type of traveller is not the target audience for Lonely Planet.

The main source of the problem is that this book covers all of Australia in depth. Even though I flew all over the continent, visiting Sydney, Melbourne, the Great Barrier Reef, and the central Outback, I only used a small fraction of the guide's content. Any book trying to cover so many sites is limited on what details it can include, but the compromises made to keep the page number reasonable didn't work for me.

Another big complaint -- the index was terrible and never had an entry for anything I tried to look up! So I'd find myself paging through 30 pages on Melbourne, for example, trying to find the one paragraph that talked about Birrarung Marr. It was very frustrating.

Barely 3 stars, because I'm recognizing it has a lot of content I didn't use that probably added value. I wish I had just bought several smaller books on the cities I was visiting.

[Martha · Rating 5 out of 5]

As usual, with lonely planet guides, we found this to be super-helpful while planning our trip and while traveling around. At the end of our trip we left this our aussie friends we were visiting, as they had been looking at it and were interested in planning some trips of their own.

It does a good job of going into detail for all parts of the country, including Tasmania and Victoria. The main downside to the guide is that the book is heavy and rather bulky to carry around. This is particularly frustrating if you are only going to a few parts of the country, like we were. Lonely Planet is now selling their guides as e-books through their website, with the option to buy the entire guide or just the chapters you need. We plan to go that route on our next overseas trip.

[Leslie · Rating 5 out of 5]

i LOVED this lonely planet. it was a huge help when travelling throughout australia. great descriptions of hostels once you figure out the system. not all hostels are in it, especially the smaller mom and pop places, so do not be afraid to veer off the pages. if you are planning on travelling throughout oz, this is a great book to have, even though it is heavy.

[Sarah · Rating 2 out of 5]

This guide came with my 4-month working holiday visa, otherwise I probably wouldn't have bought it. It's useful enough for general information and I'm sure it would be great for planning a tourist trip around Australia, particularly if you didn't know anyone in or anything about Australia. For someone living in Sydney, however, it's not especially informative.

[Edye Moran]

I got this book because my son was going to Brisbane however there is not a scrap of information on the entire city of Brisbane — which is one of the largest cities in Australia. I am disgusted and found this was a complete waste for me and for my son. He left the book sitting at home in South Carolina as a useless paper weight.

[Nora · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lonely Planet guides are great. I've used them in Australia and Ireland. They give you the basics on a place, but still leave room for you to discovery things on your own. My only complaint is that the street maps can be pretty unreliable, so keep that in mind when navigating somewhere new.

[Jim Bowen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have just finished a month travelling up and down the east coast of Australia. While this book might be a little too general for some people's liking (it covers the whole country), I was always refering to it when I was looking for ideas about what to do next, which is a good sign I think.

[Juliana Lopes · Rating 5 out of 5]

Love all Lonely Planet's books!!!
This one is really special because Australia is a dream about to come true...

[Ruth · Rating 5 out of 5]

I wish that more of the book was applicable! Just not enough time to see all of it in two weeks!

[Nur · Rating 3 out of 5]

tribes exists

[Anshuman · Rating 5 out of 5]

As with all lonely planet books, you got to take what you need out of it. Over 1000 pages of things to do and see in Australia!

[Melissa]

[2011.11.19] Used 2011 16th Edition to plan the Australia portion of our Nov-Dec 2011 trip (approx 9 days in Australia). Sections used: Sydney & New South Wales, Queensland & Great Barrier Reef.

[JUDI · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great help in planning my trip.

[Delhi Irc]

Location: ND6 IRC
Accession No: DL027455

[Eleanor · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bought this in readiness for a month-long trip to Australia with the 5 and 7 year-old - it was an invaluable travel companion.

[Shirley Elizabeth · Rating 5 out of 5]

My first journey to Australia! Beautiful sophisticated Sydney and then on to Tropical North Queensland to experience the magnificent Great Barrier Reef.

[Marine liong]

good well

[Ooyyo · Rating 5 out of 5]

This Lonely Planet's book is great as others.