Morocco (Country Guide)
Morocco (Country Guide)
- ISBN13: 9781741049718
- Condition: NEW
- Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
Discover Morocco
Take in the spectacle of Marrakesh’s Djemaa el-Fna then dive into the drama of the city’s labyrinthine souqs
Scrunch your toes into the Sahara while the sun sets over the Erg Chigaga dunes
Aspire to having the steady hands of a maalem as you weave your own Moroccan carpet
Witness flamingos take flight as a local guide navigates your boat around Merdja Zerga lake
In This Guide:
Four authors, 136 days of in-country research, 98 detailed maps, six camel rides
Color arts and crafts chapter with shopping tips and an index of traveler workshops
A former Moroccan tour guide heads up our team of expert authors in revealing the true Morocco
Content updated daily – visit lonelyplanet.com for up-to-the-minute reviews, updates and traveler insights
Rating: 
(out of 14 reviews)
List Price: $ 24.99
Price: $ 14.57
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Review by Christopher Culver for Morocco (Country Guide)
Rating:
For a recent trip to Morocco, I bought the 2007 edition of Lonely Planet’s MOROCCO guide alongside its major competitor, The Rough Guide to Morocco. While Lonely Planet’s guide covers the major sights and will be just the thing for casual holiday makers, it unfortunately continues the publisher’s trend of abandoning “travel as lifestyle” readers, once Lonely Planet’s target demographic.
If you intend on slowly working your way through the whole of Morocco, seeking contact with the locals at all cost, and traveling cheaply, then Lonely Planet guide is not really worth it. LP seems to assume that the reader is rich: it recommends expensive hotels and suggests that one hire guides. It also doesn’t push people to meet ordinary Moroccans. Hammams (Turkish-style baths) are a great way to enter into local custom, but instead of listing ones patronized by the locals, LP often lists expensive spa-type locations. Morocco is also a paradise for hitchhiking, where again one is brought directly into contact with people not in the tourist trade, but LP doesn’t pitch it.
Comparing the LP to the Rough Guide to Morocco, the Rough Guide comes out on top. Sure, the presence of a few ads in the text, and the fact that the Rough Guide line is published by the faceless corporation Penguin, are annoying. Nonetheless, the Rough Guide caters to all audiences, both the wealthy and shoestring travelers. The Rough Guide also describes Morocco in considerably more detail than the Lonely Planet guide, gives substantial recommendations on music, books, and film from or about Morocco, and even includes a few tales by Moroccan traditional storytellers.
Ahough both publishers have put out 2007 editions, the Rough Guide is more up to date than the Lonely Planet. An increasing number of travelers are heading down through Western Sahara to Mauritania and beyond. This route has gotten easier, with transportation now easy available from Dakhla. But Lonely Planet’s coverage of this entire area seems to have changed little since the 2005 guide, and the authors still claim you have to provide your own transportation.
I found really only two points in favour of purchasing the Lonely Planet guide. One is a large section dedicated to trekking, which the Rough Guide lacks (though here it again assumes that the readers are wealthy). The other is that LP’s maps are slightly more detailed for some cities than those in the Rough Guide. All in all, if you are a wealthy traveler looking for a relaxing but exotic vacation, you can ignore all that I’ve written and buy LP’s guide with confidence. If you are an independent traveler planning on trekking, get both the LP and the Rough Guide. But the backpacking and hitchhiking crowd can just get the Rough Guide and pass the LP by.
Review by deipnosophist for Morocco (Country Guide)
Rating:
Despite all the bad things that people say about LP, they’re still one of the best books out there. They’re not totally full of glossy pictures, and not just a bland reem of text. The maps are very useful, and highly detailed, and the recommendations for restaurants help you weed through all the tourist traps. That said, I’ve often followed their suggestions to restuarants or cafes that don’t exist anymore. If LP could find a way to update their books every year, I’d be a bigger fan than I am right now. In this book, for instance, they tell you that the Morora is the only train station in Tanier, when the new Tanger Ville station was just recently opened. It could be a confusing moment if a cabby were to refuse to take you to a station that you don’t know is nonexistent. But they do cover almost everything that you could think of in terms of transportation and navigating your way around. I like that with each city they put the population, so that you know what kind of a place you’re going to. The overview maps also give you a way of figuring out where you are in relation to other places. It has its faults for sure, but I’ve not been able to find a much better series.
Review by JL for Morocco (Country Guide)
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Yet again, the Lonely Planet puts together a pretty thorough guidebook that helps in exploring this remarkable destination. My experience showed that some of the info was a bit dated and a comparison with a fellow traveller’s 2004 LP revealed that the two editions don’t differ all that much. In their defense, things in Morocco tend not to be all that structured or consistent and would be hard to keep on top of. All in all, the book served me quite well. I will write them with the corrections that I noticed and hopefully the guide will continue to improve.
Review by M. Kim for Morocco (Country Guide)
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I used the Lonely Planet Morocco guidebook this past summer in 2007 for about a three week trip. I spoke no French or Arabic so needless to say I was pretty much dependent on the guidebook to give me a basic overview of the cities I visited. I really didn’t have a definite itinerary so using the information from the guide I was able to make arrangements on the go. I liked how the chapters were organized and the breakdown of logistical information was really helpful. The maps in the guidebook were pretty basic and sometimes more confusing than helpful.
I truly benefited from my use of the guidebook and without it I don’t know what I would have done. However, I did have a few dislikes. First, this book is extremely heavy so I ended up ripping out pages I needed. Second, Lonely Planet devotes a good amount of pages to history and culture, which is interesting yet not always directly useful to the traveler on the road. Also, I found the descriptions of the hotels under the budget heading in Rabat and Ouzoude to be sub-par to their gushing descriptions in LP. And a negative aspect I encountered in Morocco, especially in Fes, was that hoteliers were using their exposure in LP to hawk their hotels. One place I inquired after even raised prices because they were featured in LP. The overbearing and opinioned tone of the guidebook can be off-putting as well. And, I had some of my most memorable experiences when I put aside that LP guidebook.
LP gives a rough sketch of the cities and is a great tool in researching a place ahead of time. And does a great job in serving as a jump-off point for further exploration and adventure.
Review by Calin Plesa for Morocco (Country Guide)
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I’ve used quite a few Lonely Planet guides in the past for France, Italy, New Zealand, and Spain. I used this guide on my backpacking trip to Morocco and I was fairly disappointed.
For a backpacker interested in lower cost options, this guide generally lacks them. In fact many of the Author’s Recommendations on accommodations are over 700 dhm a night, that is about what I would spend in several days for everything food, accommodation, and transport.
Mistakes included poor recommendations, bad price ranges, missing transportation options, and lots of mistakes in the maps. The maps for the Imlil / Oukaimeden areas are poor. Their warning about not using them for navigation should be taken seriously. Trails are roads and roads are trails.
I also had access to a Rough Guide Morocco for this trip and it was not a great improvement. In fact the book’s binding fell apart after a few days. It is also bloated with lots of useless info, and is thus almost twice as think as the lonely planet guide. It does have a much better section on the south and Western Sahara.
If you feel that you need a guide, then buy an old used guide and save yourself some money.