Chile Guide (Open Road Travel Guides)

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Summary: Provides an insider's guide to Chile
Review: Although many of the other reviewers were critical of the information in this book, I found it the only Chile guidebook that had recommendations for places that only Chileans know about. I also found the tone of the book entertaining, and it was clear that the authors actually lived here instead of visited a few times. Before moving here, my Chilean husband and I used it for a two week trip for 10 "gringos" and found not one recommendation to be off target. In fact, we've recommended some of the places to other Chileans! Its target audience is not the Lonely Planet crowd, but those of us who are no longer staying in hostals and have the means to rent a car instead of taking the bus.
We live in Chile and after one of our visitors "borrowed" the book, we are now ordering a new copy to be able to plan future getaways and itineraries for friends. I couldn't recommend it more!

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Summary: You don't need this book to be a traveler
Review: Being a travel snob, this book's premise appealled to me--travel like a local, not some poor tourist shmuck. Unfortunately, the book did not live up to the promise.

I traveled to Chile with three books--the Rough Guide, the Lonely Planet Guide, and this one. I found the first to be the most useful of the lot--it's information was up-to-date and accurate, and it gave detailed information on the entire country, not just those bits that can be reached by bus and appeal to the back-packer. The Lonely Planet was thorough, but poorly organized; the accommodation listings were extensive, but no recommendations or detailed descriptions were given.

This guide book was not useful, except perhaps as a door stop. It is very heavy, but does not contain much information. Rather, it is printed on heavy stock, and in big letters--this may be nice in a coffee table book, but not in something you have to lug around while traveling. I will give it credit for having good information on hotels in the few towns it covered, but it did not justify the purchase price and the weight. I left it behind in Chile.

I wouldn't buy it(or any other book in this series) again, nor would I recommend it.

Rating:
Summary: Not Quite "the" Guide
Review: Having just returned from Chile with this book as my primary reference guide, I found myself continually borrowing other guidebooks. Simply put, it contains too little information. I also found some of the authors' opinons a bit stronger than what I care to have when travelling an unfamiliar country. The two standards, Footprints and Lonely Planet, remain for me the best guides to South American travel. I regretted carrying this one along enough to have donated it to a hostal in Punta Arenas.

Admittedly, the guide takes a fun approach, and has interesting and readable content. However, because it lacks the depth of more veteran sources, I recommend this guide only as a supplemental reference.

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Summary: Culture AND Comfort
Review: I bought a number of books for my trip to Chile and found this one to be the most helpful by far. I only had a few weeks and I needed some good input on how to spend my travel time. I appreciated this guide because it gave opinions and recommendations.

I think the authors and I have the same expectations for travel -- we seek out interesting places but also good food and comfortable (not necessarily fancy) lodgings. I'm definitely an indepedent traveler who likes to seek out new experiences. This guide led me perfectly along the way.

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Summary: Best Practical Travel Book for Chile
Review: I just got back from Chile and I must say, I don't know what to think about this book. For example: it was the only guide book that I took with me into the Torres del Paine. And that was the right choice. On the other hand, it doesn't offer enough information about basic things, like cheap places to stay. For example, in Punta Arenas, the things in my price range aren't even mentioned in this book. They only start above it.

but it does have some helpful insight about planning and seeing things in Chile. If you get this, it should certainly be along with other things like LP and Footprints. Then it can be a really good auxillary resource.

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Summary: Great guide for planning and traveling
Review: I purchased this guide in '99 and used it for trips to Torre del Paine ('99) and the Atacama ('00) while we were based in Buenos Aires. I found that the descriptions were generally right on point although prices had gone up. The proposed itineraries are all do-able in the time recommended and the suggestions for hotels were great. I'm now using it to plan our December trip covering Santiago to Puerto Montt. It's a wonderful addition to my standard bible, The South American Handbook.

Rating:
Summary: Provides an insider's guide to Chile
Review: It is the nature of travel guides to be a bit sketchy, else you would be carrying something the size of a phone directory. But this book is neither the handy and compact size of the Lonely Planet guide to Chile, nor as comprehensive. And it is full of errors in many sections. In the Hanta virus discussion the translation of the principle disease vector is improperly translated as being a "rat" when in fact it is a quite small "mouse." There are many other examples of just plain incorrect translations, some of which may get you into trouble, while others just illustrate lackluster proofreading. These numerous errors suggest that while the authors may have visited Chile, they did not become competent in its language and customs. Much of the information is just plain wrong, and appears to be gleaned from sources other than first-hand knowledge and experience. For example, during the past ten years I have often crossed the frontier between Chile Chico (Chile) and Los Antiguos (Argentina), first as a tourist and later as a Chilean resident, and NEVER have I needed what the authors claim is an essential "salvoconducto." This bit of misinformation was apparently picked up from very old guidebooks of the past, which should suggest to contemporary readers the origins of many of the errors in this unfortunate attempt at a modern guide to Chile. As the Chileans themselves might say "Lindo, pero harto errores"(nice but plenty of mistakes). Conclusion: not recommended.

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Summary: Best of the lot
Review: Of all the guidebooks I read to prepare for a two week trip to the southern part of Chile - this one had me the most enthused about going. The descriptions in the book compel you to go to out of the way places I would have missed otherwise. It is not as detailed as the Rough Guide - but sometimes the zen for travel can be lost in the details. These authors have an obvious enthusiasm and love of this country. This feeling did not come across in many of the other guide books.

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Summary: Good guidebook, but...
Review: There is evidently not yet an ideal guidebook on Chile. This one is a bit too heavy and large for easy packing, but it is easier to read and in some cases has more substance than something like the relatively more compact Lonely Planet guide for Chile. The LP guide for Chile suffers from political posturing which we (Chileans) find obnoxious. This Open Road Chile Guide lacks sufficiently detailed region maps but for that you should use the Turistel map atlas anyway. It also tends to assume a tourist less inclined to stay in the cheapest places, compared to Lonely Planet. But it is misses some basic travel-writing fundamentals by saying things like "....hostals off the left side of the highway" when "left" will depend whether you are traveling from one direction or the other. The book's opinion that Chinese restaurants are "new" to the country and therefore have more expensive food is actually laughable, and remind us that the authors are not long-time residents. In some other areas the historical details about certain events seem inaccurate, but in others the even-handedness is refreshing, compared to the politically tainted (and pompously critical) Lonely Planet book. Schedules in the south of Chile are notoriously variable, so anything written should be suspect. But in general, this is a quite useful book, and its occasional inaccuracies are perhaps no worse than those of comparable guidebooks on Chile. Obviously, get the latest edition if you plan to take this book with you to Chile.

Rating:
Summary: Thorough!
Review: This is a wonderful guidebook-- well-written and interesting. The guide is thorough in its coverage of both metropolitan areas and rural destinations. The sidebars contain trinkets of information and/or mythology that are fun and interesting. It is not simply an collection of easily obtainable information, rather a well-researched guide with thoughtful opinions about the hotels and restaurants it mentions. Its only shortcoming is that the recommendations come in various categories: expensive, moderate, and inexpensive, therefore always making suggestions outside of your budget. The book itself is a bit heavy and bulky. Overall, a well done guide.