This book is a wealth of information all contained in one volume. The travel tips, itineraries and even restaurant information are well researched. My only complaint is I’d like to see more detailed maps of some of the more off the beaten path areas – such as Kirra Beach, were I am going. Other than that, this book is a great product and I’d highly recommend it for anyone going to Australia for their first time.

I’d heard from friends that the Lonely Planets guides are spot-on for travel. I bought Australia before I went in Sept. 2008 and we used it at Uluru (formerly Ayres Rock), in Adelaide, and in Sydney. It was EXTREMELY helpful. The listings are informative and we agreed with most evaluations they made. When you go that far for a vacation, you certainly don’t want to waste time finding your way around or waste money by going to bad venues. This book will help prevent both. The only negative is that the book is heavy and was a bit of a chore to haul along!

I’ve traveled to a lot of countries with Lonely Planet guides, and they’re always good, but they seem to particularly shine in countries with wide-open spaces, such as Australia. I’ve got the Mongolia guide, too, and as with Australia, that eye for detail in more remote settings makes a big difference. I’ve been to Australia several times, and have even written a book about Australia, but even with all I know, I can’t keep up to date with new restaurants, changed hours, different owners, or lodging in remote towns, and Lonely Planet is perfect for that — though it has also often guided me to good places in big cities. It’s just a wonderfully detailed resource. I rarely go anywhere remote or exotic without picking up the Lonely Planet book for the destination, and I just got this most recent Australia guide (I have a couple of older ones). I do usually buy more than one guidebook for a destination, at least if I’m going on a longer trip, but if there’s an LP guide, that will be one of the ones I get.

I’d say the only slight drawback for the Australia guide is that the type is a little small, especially in the history section and boxed features — but I don’t think they could use larger type unless they broke it into two books, as this volume is already over 1,000 pages. It’s probably vastly more information than you need if you’re only going for a couple of weeks. But if you’ve got a lot of time, this is almost as good a resource as having a friend in Australia.