Southeast Asia on a Shoestring (Lonely Planet Shoestring Guides) - China Williams

...on my next trip to southeast asia later this year. Especially if you're travelling through multiple countries, this breif guide saves hiking around eleven guidebooks (if you're the guidebook type, I like to think i'm not, but they can be handy and help you on your trip sometimes).

Overall, It's worth giving this book a look if you're planning on visiting southeast asia, if nothing else, it can give you a basic grasp of each country ... more

This is the first book from the 'Lonely Planet' guide, originally titled in 1973 as 'Across Asia on the Cheap' - after initial success, the book was later developed by writers Tony Wheeler and his wife Maureen into the title it still holds today; 'South-East Asia on a shoestring'.

With the slogan 'big tips on small budgets' on the front cover, the book is geared mainly towards backpackers on a budget (as the title suggests). The countries roughly covered total as eleven, Brunei, Cambodia, East Timor, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar (Burma), Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam, i say roughly with emphasis because all these areas are covered in 988 pages (latest edition, 14th, which I have infront of me - published March 2008).

The beginning of the book features highlights of the entire region, and example itinerarys for travellers, giving rough ideas of how long certain trips will take, and how much to budget for the trip.

The book is useful in the way that highlights the key areas of the countries in south-east asia, but is by no means 'the yellow bible' as some suggest, the main fault of the book that I can see is the budgets given for each country, which are on occasion too low, for example, 650 THB in Thailand per day would get you a budget guesthouse these days, and not much more, maybe eight or ten years ago, but not now, my advice on that front is do some extra research on budgeting before you leave for your trip, look online at prices of guesthouses in the areas you plan to visit, scribble out the budgets in the book and write your own, afterall, we're all different of course.

That (last paragraph) said, the book can be very useful on the road, say you end up in a place where you've not heard much about, you can pull out this book and check some guesthouses, places to eat, sights and activities in the area, you may find something interesting and worthwhile. I will be taking it on my next trip to southeast asia later this year. Especially if you're travelling through multiple countries, this breif guide saves hiking around eleven guidebooks (if you're the guidebook type, I like to think i'm not, but they can be handy and help you on your trip sometimes).

Overall, It's worth giving this book a look if you're planning on visiting southeast asia, if nothing else, it can give you a basic grasp of each country in the region and give you a few ideas of what to expect from the areas covered. 

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