Rough Guide to New Zealand 4

Rating:
Summary: Heaps of info, but quite unreadable.
Review: I bought this book out of a recommendation from a friend for my long trip to New Zealand. I lived there for six months and harly used the book at all. The pictures are great, and where it lists the highlights is good too. I simply found the book unaproachable and it's format difficult. One road trip with another traveller who had a lonely planet New Zealand guide had me leafing through the LP one more in one weekend than I had this Rough Guide in six months. I'm not saying the info is innacurate, but the book just took up room in my bag. New Zealand is pretty user-friendly as it is, you don't need a Guide book that isn't.

Rating:
Summary: Great Book
Review: I traveled to New Zealand in late 2004 and carried 4 guide books. I found Rough Guide New Zealand the best for its in-depth coverage of places that were barely mentioned in the Lonely Planet book. During our 1500-mile road trip I was constantly referring to RG & LP as my wife drove, so in effect I compared the two books' descriptions for the southern half of South Island. There was absolutely no question which guidebook did a better job....Rough Guide. Towards the end I barely used Lonely Planet because RG was more informative 90% of the time, and more interesting in its style of writing. It has 300 more pages than Lonely Planet, too.

The maps are better than those in previous Rough Guides, and even the photos are quite nice now. This edition has a great listing of highlights for each region (very handy). I highly recommend Rough Guide New Zealand.