Best Places Central California Coast: Santa Cruz to Santa Barbara Reviews
Posted By on September 19, 2011
Best Places Central California Coast: Santa Cruz to Santa Barbara
With near-perfect weather all year, the stunning coastline between Los Angeles and San Francisco features rolling hills, sweeping coastal views, and almost 300 scenic and historic miles with something for every interest, budget, or taste. From Santa Cruz to Santa Barbara — and including the Channel Islands — this new Best Places guide leads travelers and locals to the region’s finest spots. Readers will find details on such main attractions as Hearst’s Castle, the Monterey Aquarium, and Big Sur, as well as insider tips on little-known gems such as where to go foraging in tide pools, or see elephant seals living in the wild. A foldout map is included.
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Lonely Planet Italy (Country Guide)
Discover Italy
Ski off-piste, trek the Dolomites or shoot the rapids on the river Lao
Heed the command ‘tutti a tavola!’ and begin an epic journey around the Italian table
Thumb the latest fumetti or debate Fellini’s finer points after you’ve read our Culture chapter
Compare classical columns with state-of-the-art structures from international architects
In This Guide:
Language, cookery and wine courses – you name it, our authors have checked it out
Book in and bed down at the best-value accommodation
Visit lonelyplanet.com for reviews, updates and traveler suggestions
From Antarctica to Zimbabwe, if you’re going there, chances are Lonely Planet has been there first. With a pithy and matter-of-fact writing style, these guides are guaranteed to calm the nerves of first-time world travelers, while still listing off-the-beaten-path finds sure to thrill even the most jaded globetrotters. Lonely Planet has been perfecting its guidebooks for nearly 30 years and as a result, has the experience and know-how similar to an older sibling’s “been there” advice. The original backpacker’s bible, the LP series has recently widened its reach. While still giving insights for the low-budget traveler, the books now list a wide range of accommodations and itineraries for those with less time than money.
Explore the riches of Italy with Lonely Planet’s essential guide. Featuring a special color feature on Italian art and architecture, this book also contains insider’s advice on the best pasta and gelati; skiing and trekking information, notes on history, culture and current politics; as well as practical food and accommodation suggestions for every budget. Delightful sidebars add insight into the culture, with details on everything from gladiators to mushroom picking. –Kathryn True
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4 Responses to “Best Places Central California Coast: Santa Cruz to Santa Barbara Reviews”
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Selective, not comprehensive,
This guide is for the experienced traveler. Judith Wylie is a good writer and she makes the places and attractions she describes come alive. On a recent trip to the West Coast I bought this book and found its recommendations which I followed to be accurate.
However, the Best Places series’ emphasis on selectivity means an awful lot of choices as far as lodging and dining are concerned are left out. For someone beginning to explore an area a more inclusive guidebook might be a better choice. Also this book has no illustrations or photographs (save for the cover), which lessens both its attractiveness and usefulness.
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|You’re Going To Love Italy!,
I’ve been to Italy several times…..Rome, Venice, Florence, Bologna, Milan, some of the hill towns, etc (most recently last April). Here are my reviews of the best guides to meet your exact needs…..I hope these are helpful and that you have a great visit! I always gauge the quality of my visit by how much I remember a year later……this review is designed to help you get the guide that will be sure YOU remember your trip many years into the future. Travel Safe and enjoy yourself to the max!
Rick Steves’ books are not recommended. They may be an interesting read but their helpfulness is very poor. They don’t do well on updates, transportation details, or anything but the first-time-tourist routine and even that is somewhat superficial on anything but the mega-major sites.
Frommer’s
These are time tested guides that pride themselves on being updated annually. Although I think the guides below provide information that is in more depth or more concise (depending on what the guide is known for), if your main concern is that the guide has very little old or outdated information, then this would be a good guide for you.
Lonely Planet
Lonely Planet has City and Out To Eat Guides. They are all about the experience so they focus on doing, being, getting there, and this means they have the best detailed information, including both inexpensive and really spectacular restaurants and hotels, out-of-the-way places, weird things to see and do, the list is endless.
Blue Guides
Without doubt, the best of the walks guides…. the Blue Guide has been around since 1918 and has extremely well designed walks with lots of unique little side stops to hit on just about any interest you have. If you want to pick up the feel of the city, this is the best book to do that for you. This is one that you end up packing on your 10th trip, by which time it is well worn.
MapGuide
MapGuide is very easy to use and has the best location information for hotels, tourist attractions, museums, churches etc. that they manage to keep fairly up to date. It’s great for teaching you how to use the public transportation system. The text sections are quick overviews, not reviews, but the strong suite here is brevity, not depth. I strongly recommend this for your first few times learning your way around the classic tourist sites and experiences. MapGuide is excellent as long as you are staying pretty much in the center of the city.
Time Out
The Time Out guides are very good. Easy reading, short reviews of restaurants, hotels, and other sites, with good public transport maps that go beyond the city centre. Many people who buy more than one guidebook end up liking this one best!
Let’s Go
Let’s Go is a great guide series that specializes in the niche interest details that turn a trip into a great and memorable experience. Started by and for college students, these guides are famous for the details provided by people who used the book the previous year. They continue to focus on providing a great experience inexpensively. If you want to know about the top restaurants, this is not for you (use Fodor’s or Michelin). Let’s Go does have a bewildering array of different guides though. Here’s which is what:
Budget Guide is the main guide with incredibly detailed information and reviews on everything you can think of.
City Guide is just as intense but restricted to the single city.
PocketGuide is even smaller and features condensed information
MapGuide’s are very good maps with public transportation and some other information (like museum hours, etc.)
Michelin
Famous for their quality reviews, the Red Michelin Guides are for hotels & Restaurants, the Green Michelin Guides are for main tourist destinations. However, the English language Green guide is the one most people use and it has now been supplemented with hotel and restaurant information. These are the serious review guides as the famous Michelin ratings are issued via these books.
Fodor’s
Fodor’s is the best selling guide among Americans. They have a bewildering array of different guides. Here’s which is what:
The Gold Guide is the main book with good reviews of everything and lots of tours, walks, and just about everything else you could think of. It’s not called the Gold guide for nothing though….it assumes you have money and are willing to spend it.
SeeIt! is a concise guide that extracts the most popular items from the Gold Guide
PocketGuide is designed for a quick first visit
UpCLOSE for independent travel that is cheap and well thought out
CityPack is a plastic pocket map with some guide information
Exploring is for cultural interests, lots of photos and designed to supplement the Gold guide
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|Lonely planet forever,
I studied for 3 months in Rome in 1999. The 3rd edition of the Italy guide was the defacto bible for travel from Sicilia to the Dolomites. Of course Venice, Florence, Pisa and Rome are covered, but how about Cortona, Siena, Poggibonisi, Assizi, Orvieto, Enna, Catania, Vulcanis, Bari, Lecce, Positano, Siracusa? How to get there, what to see, what to expect in these hill towns and costal villages? If I got there could I get back to Rome by Monday’s morning classes? No other single travel book is filled with all the information found in the Italy guide.
As an example, one weekend I told my roomates that I wanted to go to San Marino because according to the guide I could get my passport stamped with entry to a country within a country. Also it mentioned “spactacular views”. Nothing prepared us for what we saw, a fortress castle hewn into the 2000+ ft cliffs and a city in the clouds overlooking a vast plain of farms and towns!
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|Still the best,
I traveled in Italy from Feb 3 to April 5, 2001 and I took both this book, LP, and Let’s Go Italy (LG). LG gets the nod for layout. It’s very clear and user friendly. You can find what you are looking for quickly. LP’s double column layout is densely packed with information but is often confusing. In LG, at the beginning of the treatment of a new place, they tell you how to get there and away to and from all of the likely places. They tell you how many trains and buses there are. This feature was very helpful in planning my itinerary. Just ask fellow travellers where they’ve been that was good and LG tells you how to get there. LP on the other hand buries transportation info at the back of each place and it is often skeletal or misleading. The writing style I found to be very uninspired, so much so that I suspect that the author didn’t bother to go to many of the places. That would account for why their street directions are so poor, but I didn’t think much of LG.s either. (I have to admit that I’m not as good as some at figuring out the streets of a new town.) Lp often ignores seasonal changes in timetables too. If your travelling in winter, you’re out of luck. However, I got tired of the LG writing style. Whereas LP gives you the historical facts about a place, LG’s Harvard University student writers would rather be cute than accurate. Also, LP simply covers more places than LG. Another plus for LP is that in the opening secton of the book they give extensive info about how the country works. Post offices, police attitudes, etc. LP tells you in chich places you should keep your credit cards, passport, etc. in your trousers while LG’s introductory section is a little paranoid. For example, “Don’t ever tell anyone you are travelling alone.” Geez you guys, Italy is safer than Boston. While LG gives more youth hostel info, because it is more budget oriented than LP, LG’s impressionable writers gush about every hotel they stayed in. Any room with a window has a spectacular view. One more thing – if you are traveling by car, you need LP. LG gives no street or parking info. In conclusion, LG is better for itinerary planning and is easier to read, while LP’s 800+ pages simply give you more information, although it is harder to sift through. After about 6 weeks, I gave away LG and used LP. My pack was getting heavy.
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