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Rating: 
Summary: Great Listings But Poor Campground-Finding Tools
Review: This book lists some great campgrounds. I would have given it a five-star rating, but unfortunately the book's locational tools are so poor that it's hard to find the campgrounds you want. Here are some examples:We stayed at a recommended campground, Clear Lake State Park in California. The book's review was 100% on target, and it was a great place to camp. But don't bother looking it up in the book's index because it's not there. Other state parks are in the index, so don't ask me why this one isn't. Of course you can always use the book's map to locate all the campgrounds in a given area, right? Maybe not. The book's map shows two black dots indicating campgrounds in the Clear Lake area at Kelseyville and Nice, towns near the campgrounds. I try to look up Kelseyville, but it's not listed. Eventually I find what I'm looking for under the nearby town of Lakeport (even though the address given in the listing is Kelseyville). But that's just for starters. I was perusing the book after returning from our trip, and I noticed there was a campground listed under Middletown, a town we drove through on our way home. I missed this campground in my pre-trip research because the campground, Beaver Creek RV Park & Campground (p. 137), is omitted from the book's map. I know I'm not mistaken, because I looked it up and found it just south of Clear Lake using Tom Stienstra's book California Camping. If I could find so many screw-ups in such a short period of time, I'm sure the book is loaded with them. On the other hand, the recommended site was excellent, and the information provided about it was accurate. I'm going to buy this book anyway, knowing that its poor campground-finding tools will make a lot more work for me and increase the risk of missing a campground within a given area. Used in conjunction with Stienstra's California Camping, this book should help the reader pick the best campgrounds. For those looking for campgrounds located in the other covered states (Arizona, Nevada, Utah), this is still a worthy book worth your consideration. Or wait until the second edition comes out -- perhaps by then they'll have made the necessary improvements.
Rating:
Summary: Great Listings But Poor Campground-Finding Tools
Review: This book lists some great campgrounds. I would have given it a five-star rating, but unfortunately the book's locational tools are so poor that it's hard to find the campgrounds you want. Here are some examples: We stayed at a recommended campground, Clear Lake State Park in California. The book's review was 100% on target, and it was a great place to camp. But don't bother looking it up in the book's index because it's not there. Other state parks are in the index, so don't ask me why this one isn't. Of course you can always use the book's map to locate all the campgrounds in a given area, right? Maybe not. The book's map shows two black dots indicating campgrounds in the Clear Lake area at Kelseyville and Nice, towns near the campgrounds. I try to look up Kelseyville, but it's not listed. Eventually I find what I'm looking for under the nearby town of Lakeport (even though the address given in the listing is Kelseyville). But that's just for starters. I was perusing the book after returning from our trip, and I noticed there was a campground listed under Middletown, a town we drove through on our way home. I missed this campground in my pre-trip research because the campground, Beaver Creek RV Park & Campground (p. 137), is omitted from the book's map. I know I'm not mistaken, because I looked it up and found it just south of Clear Lake using Tom Stienstra's book California Camping. If I could find so many screw-ups in such a short period of time, I'm sure the book is loaded with them. On the other hand, the recommended site was excellent, and the information provided about it was accurate. I'm going to buy this book anyway, knowing that its poor campground-finding tools will make a lot more work for me and increase the risk of missing a campground within a given area. Used in conjunction with Stienstra's California Camping, this book should help the reader pick the best campgrounds. For those looking for campgrounds located in the other covered states (Arizona, Nevada, Utah), this is still a worthy book worth your consideration. Or wait until the second edition comes out -- perhaps by then they'll have made the necessary improvements.
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