A special thanks to Nancy Hoffman who has a travel agency in Antigua and looked through these pages to give updates.
Other people who helped with this page are Karine Goeman (8/97), Yves De Ceuleners (11/97), Trui Van Gucht (8/98), Geert Desmet (12/97), Gerdi Vanfleteren (11/98)
Guatemala has everything a traveller could dream of (except beaches maybe):
There's the authentic Indian culture with lively and colourful markets like in Solola, Chichicastenango and San Francisco El Alto (Solola is my favourite though). Make sure you have plenty of film there, you'll need it. There's the Mayan culture in the North. Tikal definitely is one of the best Maya sites in the world. A side trip just over the border to Copan is possible. Colonial architecture can be seen in Antigua, a cosy city, though full of tourists. The nature is incredibly diverse: there's the rainforest jungle of Peten, cloud forest of the Verapaz region, Carribean and Pacific coast and the volcanoes around Antigua, Atitlan and also Quetzaltenango.
Travel guides
We had 3 guidebooks with us, so I can pretty well compare the 3 biggies: LP, Rough Guide and Footprint. Lonely Planet Guatemala Since 2/2001, the LP series now has a separate book on Guatemala. I suppose they had to follow the competition of the Rough guide (see below)
Order the Lonely Planet Guatemala now for only 13.59 US$!
Or maybe you prefer their Central America Book
Order the Lonely Planet Central America on a shoestring for 15.96 US$!
Footprint Handbook Central America-Mexico
This book had a lot of practical info and was definitely the best on accommodation and restaurant info. Their info seemed also more up to date as they have a new edition at the end of each year. I recommend it especially if you need middle class accommodation.
Order the Footprint Central American Handbook for 19.57 US$!
Rough Guide to Guatemala
Edition november 1998 This was my personal favourite. The info was very detailed, it was f.i. the only one which had a good description of the region around Sayaxche, but the LP will be updated on that by now I guess. Simply compare the number of pages with the LP, and you'll see you'll get much more info.
Order the Rough Guide Guatemala now for only 13.56 US$!
Let's Go guides
Different options and yearly updated.
Order the Let's Go Central America now for only 15.99 US$!
The Rough Guide series now have a competitor of LP's Ruta Maya (June 1999), called "Maya World". They have here info on Guatemala, Belize, and Yucatan, but also El Salvador and Honduras. I read parts of this book and it's excellent value for money, better than LP in my point of view.
Order the Rough Guide Maya World now for only 15.96 US$!
Other books
If you can't make up your mind, click on the Amazon.com logo and search for more books
Wegwijzer
For those of you speaking dutch, it is definitely worth considering becoming member of "Wegwijzer". This is a non-commercial organisation based in Bruges, Belgium. They have an incredible amount of info coming from guidebooks, leaflets but also reports from members. Since 2001 you can now get a lot of these reports online!! Membership is only 25 Euro a year, and this includes a good magazine they publish every 2 months. Have a look at http://www.wegwijzer.be/default.htm. I myself am a member since almost 20 years now.
If you want to navigate systematically through this site, go to General info 1 and simply follow the hyperlinks at the end of each page.
