[.uk] Lonely Planet West Africa (ISBN 1740592492)

From a returned Peace Corps Volunteer:
This book is practically the bible for W. Africa travel. I lived and worked in W. Africa for 3 years (2 years as a Peace Corps volunteer) and I never went anywhere without consulting LP. The information is as accurate as anything out there. It offers you suggested itineraries and "off the beaten path" suggestions as well as the traditionally touristy destinations. Many parts are less objective than other parts and the writers tend to harp on corruption. But W. Africa is a pretty corrupt place in general. If you don't like the editorial sections, skip 'em, the info you need is still there.

Decent info, but presented awkwardly.:
This is an adequate guide, but was disappointing in a few areas. Firstly, it is not geared to someone making a comprehensive West Africa trip but rather reads like a collection of individual country guides. It's OK if you are going to just fly in a hang out in a single country, but planning cross border itineraries is a chore. There could be better integration for the area. Secondly, using the maps and references to them is a bit taxing. Place names that would likely be obsure to the reader are presented in the text without specifying country or area; the only way to figure out where or how is to scan maps randomly for some idea of specifically where they are talking about. Place names are often referred to with different spellings, or more colloquially, in the text than on the maps, making finding them once again a tiring guessing game. There is a lack of consistency. Beyond that, the maps are small and lacking in detail. In other words, you can sort it all out, but this guide makes you work harder than you should have to. You get the feeling that it needed to be proofed once more. I agree with the accusations of ethnocentrism mentioned previously, but I've grown used to it in LP guides, and in a way appreciate seeing the author's predjudices up front. Use this guide and you'll have a fine trip, I think, but you'll spend too many hours wrestling logistic details from the text when you could be perusing the fun stuff. I use LP, Rough Guide, and Moon guides alternately when I travel. Actually, I usually buy all three, study them all before departure, and take the one I think is most useful. I have not found any one brand to be consistently better or worse, it varies by area and author. In this case I think the Rough Guide is much better. It very neatly addresses all my reservations above, and with a better layout.

lonely planet, always helpful:
I love Lonely Planet books. I use them extensively when traveling or planning to travel. They help bring a lot of fun to travel.

Quite helpful:
I used this guide in Ghana and Togo. It was quite helpful, but often felt incomplete. It gives great information about lodging and food, but when it comes to transit issues it is somewhat ambiguous, and often leaves big gaps for you to figure out on the fly. For travel in Ghana, the Bradt guide is far superior.

Could use more info on some countries:
In general the guide is fine, however for some of the smaller countries (like Sierra Leone), there is too little information.