Discover India (Travel Guide) (Lonely Planet Discover)

Let's think about this for a moment. One out of every five people in the world comes from India. There are 13 major languages written in 4 major scripts. The geography includes the world's tallest mountains, deserts, tropical rain forest, rivers, lakes and beaches. Every major religion in the world is represented. Politics stretch from communist West Bengal to staunchly conservative Gujarat. There are at least 4 major, distinct types of cuisine. Bombay, Delhi and Calcutta are all among the largest cities on earth, but India is still 80 percent rural. To call this country "epic" is almost silly. To really grasp the reality, it's helpful to think of India as a confederation of affiliated independent countries.Now, the book. One volume that attempts to cover this vastness is, by definition, summary. There's simply no other way to do it. That means that only the highlights are covered in certain areas. But the thing that makes this a really good book is that the writers have sought the special places, the secrets, that can make a trip to India both authentic and rewarding. Without question, India can be an exercise in frustration. It can assault the senses and sensibilities with harsh reality. A book like this serves as a great primer for your impending experience.This book is not so much designed for trekking as it is for urban exploration. It's the kind of guide that helps you plan a trip rather than to guide you once you're knee deep in the muck. It includes nice, concise summaries of each location, followed by rich directories of listings. All this is framed by recommended itineraries, and social and historical contexts to give your travel an anchor in the larger world. This is all standard Lonely Planet material.So there's really nothing new as far as layout or organization of the book, but the listings are right up to date, the recommendations are spot on, and the descriptions of some places have been changed to reflect reality. I noticed, in particular, that the tone of the writing gives more attention to the state of Gujarat, for example, when that state had been essentially dismissed as an afterthought in previous editions.This is your comprehensive, up-to-date guide to India.

India is probably too big & complex for a single book, but even accepting that excuse you should know a lot of the information I tried to rely on was out of date (went to Mumbai, Goa, Delhi, Agra, Jaipur & Chennai from Feb-Mar 2017) and frankly a lot of the really useful, practical, cultural information I would have hoped for was not there. In fairness, this was my first Lonely Planet travel guide, I usually purchase Rick Steve's books, so I may have just held my standards too high.

I bought my first Lonely Planet book in 2003 for a 3 week trip to Europe. My friends and I made our way through the U.K., France and Nice totally winging it with our LP guide. It was an incredible and invaluable resource! Fast forward to the internet days and you'd think these books would be somewhat obsolete... BUT, after scouring the net endlessly for an upcoming trip to India, there just isn't a better resource for "all things (insert country)". The India book in particular is 1,000 pages and every single page is informative, useful, and just packed with updated and crucial information. An absolute MUST for any traveler looking to truly explore a destination!!

Very helpful on a recent business trip to Bangalore... in the evenings I was able to better research wherever my team had visited that day, significantly increasing my appreciation.

I'm going to India to a wedding next year. I looked online to learn about the areas we will visit, but found it lacking. I bought Lonely Planet India and now have a solid idea of the area. We've been able to pick hotels and activities because of the Lonely Planet.

haven't gone to india yet. but beware this thing is large. like a small phonebook. so if space is an issue, as it is with me, keep this in mind. i have used lonely planet guides for other trips and found them fine. will need to follow up on this after i return from trip.

Okay, India is a very big country. I expected this book to have more information, really just dealt with the major tourist attractions.

Book was just like new. This was a bargain price.Love the book

Essential for any traveller visiting India. We travelled to India for two months in January to March 2016 and visited Goa, Hampi, Kerela, Rajasthan, Delhi, Agra, Amritsar (Golden temple) and Shimla.I found the suggested itineraries useful to provide and overall outline of our trip.The most useful information was on transport, detailing how to get from place to place, which sometimes (when we did manage to get internet) was not even online. A friend had the rough guide which had no transport detail in it, very frustrating to travel with. He even copied loads of notes from our lonely planet for the next part of his journey! Sometimes the detail was a tad out but it gave us more than a basis to get more information when we were there. I'll try to submit any corrections directly to lonely planet.All of the suggested accommodations were good and to the description. Usually we take lonely planet restaurant recommendations with a grain of salt and they were a little hit and miss but overall better than expected and better than some guides of other countries.Yes the book is big, but all guide books on India are, and they have to be for the size of the country. Sometimes I wouldn't have minded more detail! It would be great if both a digital version and paper version were provided upon purchase because sometimes we took photos of the pages to use when out and about due to the book size (later deleted of course!).

Though I adore DK guides, Lonely Planet guides cut straight to the chase and are crammed with useful information. Thus, they are perfect for actually planning a trip once you've sussed out where you want to go. I purchased this particular edition as it contains mapped itineraries at the beginning and details what sort of trips you can make according to the time span you have, the longest one being a six month round trip of India, enabling you to get the most out of your tourist visa. The book is mainly taken up by an exhaustive compilation of activities which can be undertaken and goes through these region by region. At the back there is a large section entitled "Understanding India" which lets you know more about the culture, history etc. and also contains a "menu decoder" which is very useful for those countless foodie words which simply cannot be translated into English! In addition, there is a language section consisting of a good few pages of Hindi and Tamil phrases. In short, this is the perfect resource for planning your trip to India.

Bought this as a gift for my son who is hoping to visit India later this year. It looks a very informative book as it is very thick, but I'm not sure he'd want to actually take it with him - as it weighs a 'ton!'

I used to travel India with the backpackers bible, the Lonely Planet book. It used to be extremely comprehensive and could take you on many an exciting journey into the less travelled corners of this amazing Country. My wife and I plan on returning this Winter and so bought the "book" again. Sadly this is just a holiday guide and is no real use to me in this format. A very pale shadow of it's previous self I'm afraid. Now I will have to go with my old 1990's book and wing it :(

I had a VERY old Lonely Planet guide to India and for a recent long trip I wanted an update. I made a mistake with this - by buying the "Discover India" guide rather than the full 1200 page edition. Although this was good, I had to check my old guide for details on some sites as this was a bit too abbreviated. It told you key sites but not some smaller ones.