Lonely Planet Hawaii: The Big Island (Regional Guide)

 (67 customer reviews)

I prefer <i>Hawaii: The Big Island Revealed</i>, by Doughty and Friedman. The Lonely Planet guides seem to mention just about everything, but they generally fail to make value judgements, i.e., Restaurant X sucks or Beach Y is fantastic.If you have time to explore and to make mistakes, then this book is a good bet. It's pretty exhaustive, and you'd need a year to see *everything* listed. But if you have, say, only a week on the island (like 95% of visitors, I'm guessing) and can't afford to eat a crummy dinner, then I would recommend Doughty and Friedman's guide.Also, in general, I feel that this guide is geared more toward the hostel crowd, relative to Doughty and Friedman. Pizza parlors and other cheap diversions versus the best places, regardless of price.

I just returned from 5 super days on the Big Island. I brought along two books to guide me and this one was by far the best. It is professionally written with lots of spunk, good snorkeling recommendations and hisotorical tips. The only negative comment is that the maps are too small to read. The other book I attempted to use was The Big Island Revealed and primarily chose it because it had 70 reviews. It was very inferior and I donated it to a local thrift store.

On the spur of the moment I took off for Hawaii for ten days of vacation with two guidebooks in hand. Lonely Planet ended up as the guide with the most clout. I drove the entire circuit from KailuaKona to the Volcano National Park to Hilo and it was never dull. It turned me into a petroglyph junkie. There was always something interesting to stop off and see or find. I felt as though I had been away for a month. This one doesn't waste space business bashing and fills its pages with toothy recommendations and selections worth sharing.I wish I had consulted the book before I booked my room as their Kona listings turned out to be in much better locations than the one I ended up staying at.