New Orleans
Whether you are planning to visit a city, a region or a country, DK’s foolproof ‘Eyewitness’ approach makes learning about a place a pleasure in itself. All the traditional guidebook subject matter is covered-descriptions of sights, opening times, hotels, restaurants, shopping, entertainment, phrase books etc- but, with the help of specially commissioned illustrations and maps, DK makes essential information easy to access and quick to absorb. No other guides explain the history of a place as clearly in words and pictures. DK Eyewitness Travel Guides-the best guides ever created.
Following Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans is back. The city has fought back with a vengeance and in 2007 drew record crowds to many of its festivals. For example, the 2007 French Quarter Festival celebrated its 24th year with a record crowd of over 450,000. The 2007 Mardis Gras drew over 800,000 and hotels reported a 95% occupancy rate. There are now over 140 major hotels open with near pre-Katrina n… More >>
This is a wonderful guide to this great city, it is well thought out and easy to navigate. Now about New Orleans. I am disgraced at the response to this catastrophy, I just want to cry as this city I love is allowed to drown in putrid swill, it’s a national disgrace, you deserve better New Orleans, you are a national treasure, and we will do everything possible to make this up to you, no money should be spared, I don’t care if it takes 100 billion dollars the city must rise again, better than it was, we owe you, we will do right by you, you are our soul.
As long as the reader understands that this book was released in 2004, before Hurricane Katrina, this is still a very useful guide to New Orleans, especially the French Quarter. Some businesses have changed or gone under due to the lack of tourist trade, but the French Quarter had almost no significant damage from the storm. We visited New Orleans in June of 2008, so we took this book with us. There is a revised issue coming in the late Fall of 2008, so if your trip is after that time wait for the new revision. The information is very well presented, and the book is a great carry-around guide.
We recently did a 4 day short stay in New Orleans. Although focused on the French Quarter, we did make it to the Garden District. Usually, I buy several travel books, but, as the trip was short, I went with just this one. Good choice. The pictures really helped decide what we wanted to see and that we had found it when we got there. Recommendations for hotels and eating places were pretty accurate (as individual tastes and day-to-day changes effect this, I always expect some divergence from what a guide says.) However, the strength was in the sights, maps and history provided. We had a pretty good take on the French Quarter and general NO history before we went (from reading the book.) Because time was short, we were able to hit the hot spots that we wanted to see and had time left over to relax, see the few sights that were further down the list and generally enjoy the atmosphere and culture. This book was so accurate and helpful, I got two of their guides to places in Spain.
I love the DK travel guides. They have a lot of information, and what I enjoy most: lot of pictures and maps! So it is easier to decide what to see.
Very informative and well formatted. I visited New Orleans with my family and this book was invaluable to our enjoyable trip. It does need to be updated to reflect the changes since Katrina.