A quick look through the Contents on the back of this new guidebook makes you want to travel to Wales right away. It reminds you how much wonderful variety is packed into this small country, which sometimes gets overlooked by foreign visitors who want to race off instead to Scotland or Ireland after the inevitable London vacation.
Wales has so much to offer, and this is the fourth edition of a guidebook first published in April 2005. Since then it has been updated regularly, and this new 2011 edition of Lonely Planet’s Guide to Wales offers everything from mountain walks to medieval castles, from ancient monuments to the top modern gastropubs. It covers such fun topics as:
- Cheesy Caerphilly
- Abergavenny’s Gastropubs
- Hay-on-Wye’s Bookshops
- Dylan Thomas’s Legacy
- The Gower Peninsula
- The Pembrokeshire Coast Path
- The Snowdonia National Park
As if those weren’t enough, the guide also covers such wide-ranging subjects as Llandudno’s Victorian Pier and Wales’s many holiday resorts, alongside the rich historic heritage on display in impressive castles like those at Conwy and Caernarfon.
Cool Cardiff
This 384-page book starts in Wales’s capital, Cardiff, which is as good a place as any in Europe for a lively city break. Some of its main attractions include Cardiff Castle, Cardiff’s Millennium Stadium, and the Wales Millennium Centre. All three are well-covered, along with the city’s other sights including the impressive National Museum Cardiff, Bute Park, and the brand new Cardiff Story, only scheduled to open in Spring 2011. Even so, the guide gives contact details, planned opening hours, and provides a flavour of what to expect.
Talking of flavours, the Cardiff restaurant listings are a little limited, with only 13 places covered - not enough to do justice to Cardiff’s vibrant and wide-ranging eating scene, although the ones that are listed are good choices. Likewise with hotels, only a handful are listed, with one-paragraph write-ups (22 words in the case of the Parc Hotel), so there’s definitely room for improvement and expansion here.
Snowdonia
People travel to Wales for the outdoors more than to see cities like Cardiff, as the country has so much to offer to hikers, bikers, climbers, surfers, sailors, and everyone else who loves the great outdoors. Snowdonia is a particular attraction, of course, and there’s a very thorough section on the Snowdonia National Park. In fact there are more accommodation recommendations for here than there are for Cardiff. There’s a two-page map of the Park, street maps for both Dolgellau and Betws-y-Coed, and a fourth map showing a suggested driving tour through Snowdonia, starting and ending in Caernarfon.
Travel to Wales: Maps
There are a number of maps for driving tours and walks in the book, alongside other city, town, and regional maps. The colours look a bit odd, as they’re mainly pink with red or black text on them, but there are certainly plenty of them. Cardiff, for example, has an overview map of the city, maps of Central Cardiff and the Cardiff Bay area, and another map showing a walking tour. Pretty good marks for maps, then.
Travel to Wales and Getting Around
If there’s one thing visitors need more than anything it’s good transport information. It doesn’t matter if you’re flying in and renting a car, or planning to travel using public transport, any guidebook worth its salt has to tell you what you need to know. This Lonely Planet guide scores highly here. As well as all the transport information throughout the book (which buses to take, where the train station is, what the car parking situation is), there’s a separate section at the back for Transport. This covers airports, trains, car hire and the rules of the road, ferries, cycling, buses and bus passes, taxis, and a map of the train network.
Lonely Planet Wales Authors
The main author of the guide is Peter Dragicevich, who has worked on 19 other Lonely Planet titles, including Walking in Britain, which allowed him to walk the wonderful Pembrokeshire Coast Path. Several sections including Anglesey and North Wales were written by David Atkinson, an experienced travel writer who is originally from Wales and now lives just over the North Wales border in England.
Buying the Lonely Planet Guide to Wales
The new edition of the Lonely Planet Guide to Wales costs $21.99 in the USA and £13.99 in the UK. There’s more information on the Lonely Planet website, and the book is available in book stores and through online booksellers.
Mike Gerrard - Mike is an award-winning travel writer who has worked for National Geographic, the London Times, and many other clients. ...
