Like all the other Rough Guide volumes, this book gives a very good, well-rounded guide to the city. Starting off with a "must-do" list, it can very quickly give you an idea of what you really have to experience. If you have a little longer in the city, a more in-depth reading of the book will give you a nice idea of what curiosities and little-known places lie in store. I was worried that once certain "out-of-the-way" places got in the book, they'd become much more mainstream and by the time I got there, the place itself would have completely changed from what was reviewed by the Rough Guide researchers. Fortunately, this was not the case. Either no-one takes their Rough Guides to Beijing, or simply the lack of any English people out there means that this simply doesn't happen.
The one thing that notably does change quite fast, though, is the existence of some restaurants and shops! With Beijing being prepared for the Olympics, the whole city is under construction and buildings are frequently being done up or simply knocked down. When I went with some English friends to try and find some of the recommended restaurants, we wandered round for ages as we found piles of rubble where we wanted our restaurants to be - including one dilapidated building with a Pizza Hut sign (non-lit up and broken) visible through the dirt on one side!
Having said this, however, on general reviews and places like shopping centres, the book is very accurate and gives good advice about what to follow. There are very accurate mini-maps of each area so that you have no excuse for getting lost (just bear in mind that you can't stop and ask for directions by pointing at the map, as there aren't any Chinese characters on it) and indexes of shops, restaurants, bars, hotels, nightlife, sports centres, curio stores, and many more categories. All the main attractions (Tian'an men Square, the Forbidden City, etc.) have their own sub-sections with more detail on each.
One of the most interesting parts of the book is the boxes they have every few pages, with interesting facts about certain places - so that this isn't just a useful book, but a very interesting one to read as well. The one thing I'll definitely suggest you do is make notes in the book as you go! I'm definitely a keep-my-books-neat sort of person, but you can't return home with your Rough Guide nice and new - it has to be well-thumbed and scribbled in! Mine now has three months' worth of addendums to what's written and it now feels like I've written my own book on the wonderful city!
This book is one of the most useful you'll find on this city and I would well advise buying a copy of it before you travel. It's aimed at backpackers, but I was staying in the same place in the city (albeit on a similar sort of budget) and I found it very useful indeed.
How helpful would this review be to a person making a buying decision? Rating guidelines
very helpful by (83%):
helpful by (17%):
