Lonely Planet Vietnam: Detailed Itineraries | Travel Like a Local | Insider Tips | Covers Hanoi & Halong Bay, Ho Chi Minh City, Hue and Hoi An PLUS Angkor Wat (Travel Guide) Paperback – Folded Map, October 17, 2023

Great!

I have been using Lonely Planet books for 15 years and they have always been my first go-to source. Not only were they extremely helpful and the foundation of my trip planning, they were also my personal ‘souvenir’ for every place I traveled. So much so that I didn’t even bother looking at the reviews when I purchased this book.However, after receiving this book (and the one for Thailand), I was so taken aback by the new god awful layout and frank omission of any practical information that I had to look back at the reviews to see if I was the only one feeling this way. And sadly, I am not alone here.The new format feels like it was written by social media influencers incentivized to peddle various micro transactions for a small cut. Most pages are full of giant highlight photos with no actual content, no lists or recommendations for lodging, restaurants, transportation, and no genuine tips/insight for backpackers or travelers of different socioeconomic backgrounds. I wouldn’t be surprised if the team responsible for its content had never even traveled to the country of topic. I am genuinely saddened by the downfall of this great company, but until that changes, I will not be purchasing these books again.

A typical lonely planet release. I found the maps less detailed and useful than they used to be.

I haven't been buying lonely planet for more than a year but I do have a lot of the last gen books to compare to. This book has a ton of photos and its really nice cause it makes the book more approachable and I personally don't think any of the information actually suffered or was cut on the travel parts. However the toolkit is just barely above being awful. Language section is gutted, health section is merged effectively removing it, safe travel section is dubbed down to a degree where its useless among others. Also the information layout can be downright confusing at some sections.

This book doesn't follow the usual lonely planet format. All the things I like about the "old style" book, including format, recommendations, starred items, off the beaten path suggestions are missing from this book. I would not have bought it if I had known.

I gotta sadly agree with the other reviewers that the new design is just not good. Lonely planet has been my go to travel guide with so much information packed in the covers that it’s always been so useful that I carry it with me everywhere I go. I used to love that they covered stuff like the arts and books and CDs and different things so I could learn more about the culture through the arts. I see almost none of that here. And the travel information is pretty sparse. Instead they replaced it with highlights as if the entire book is some kind of a day trip special must see thing that makes everything really hard to distinguish. I don’t like it at all and if it continues, I will be buying other guides instead. as far as information goes, I think they cover all the basics. Rough guides are better now. They need to rethink this.

I've been using Lonely Planets for almost 40 years, as my go-to travel guides. This one, in a new format, is however a disaster and provided literally no information of any use on our recent trip to Hue and Danang. I was left to trawl numerous sites on the internet to make up for the deficit left by this wholly inadequate guide - exactly what I buy LPs to avoid! The fact that this edition is 100 pages shorter than the previous edition should have been a warning. The section on Hue is 6 pages long as opposed to 12 in the previous edition. Usually densely packed with information, the pages of this edition contains large areas of white space and repeated content. There is no longer any section on national history and culture. The maps have departed from the previous detailed format and are pretty much worthless as the few recommended eateries and hotels and no longer shown. I plan to go back to Vietnam soon so have bought the considerably more comprehensive 2021 edition second hand.

Half the information for the same price. Please go back to the old, 'less pretty' version that has more information.