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Destination Peru -
"Guidebooks for Peru: Choosing Your Travel Bible”

Every year another Peru guidebook hits the shelves. Just last year I met a couple who were writing for Moon Book publications. Moon has many guides but this is the first one on Peru so they had to research and travel throughout the country for the best part of the year. Right of the bat, they were faced with some difficult choices: should they be using public transportation or drive in their own private vehicle to get around Peru? Of course most of the readers would be using public transportation but the freedom of having their own vehicle was very tempting and indeed they opted for the latter. When I saw them again at the end of their trip they were thankful of the choice they had made and could not imagine being able to cover what they did if they had depended only on public transport.

Their work was not by any means finished when they returned home. They spent some months going through their notes and double checking facts and of course editing and reediting. All this, and on an extremely tight budget! Believe me, none of the travel guidebook writers do this for the money…and what they write is bound to be somewhat subjective. It is useful to find out a bit more about an author before deciding which guidebook you are going to buy / recommend. Some will be far more into bird watching, others into climbing while others simply dislike going to the jungle….you have to do a little research to decide which writer you have more in common with. A little tip is to check the sections with the author's top ten destinations, or top twenty sites not to miss….

The top English language guidebooks for Peru are the Lonely Planet, Footprint Handbook, Rough Guide and Let's Go. These four target the backpacker and long term traveler and tend to have more off the beaten track information. Insight, Fommers and Fodor's have a different target audience, which includes folk with a few weeks vacation looking for a bit more quality in services. All of them will give you high and low end options but Footprint, for example, will have the most detailed listing of hotels and restaurants while Fodor's or Insight will select a few within each category. Insight will have excellent photos and Lonely Planet has the best maps. It is always a good idea to check the index and layout, when you travel you often need information quickly and you won't want to go through the entire book to find it.

Most importantly, check the publication date! Use only the most recent, as you know things change very quickly in Peru....and if you are looking for detail on artwork, monuments and museums you should purchase an additional specialty book. It is a good idea to go to the Publishing house website, they often have forums and updated sheets between publications. Of course, there are plenty of places still not written about so if you find a gem, and don't want to keep it a secret, you can e-mail the writers as they always welcome new information. -- Leda Duif, South American Explorers

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