Title: Chile: The Bradt Travel Guide (2005)
Intro: At a whopping 680 pages, Bradt’s Chile guide packs in the information to one of the most complete guides to the world’s longest country.
-There are all sorts of short (a few paragraph) stories from the writer on history, wildlife, wine, street names, and others.
-Loads of background information and narrative like descriptions of locations and sights that are great alternative to traditional guides which tend to just list details one after the other.
-Lots of maps which are actually easy to read and locate a sight.
-Has a page on Chilean slang. The first I have seen.
-There are quite a few illustrations of wildlife, just lovely, that if you could you would blow up and tack on your wall.
-Has a very lengthy reading list that includes every area you could possibly want to read about.
Negatives:
-For as many pages as there are, there could be more photos. The ones there, although great, get lost in the massive bulk of the book.
-Books adds quite a bit extra weight to your pack. It’s that big.
Author: Tim Burford, a Bradt regular, does a good job of getting really minute details on the pages. I can’t see anyone ever getting lost anywhere in Chile with this book in their hand.
Other: Publisher Hilary Bradt states in the beginning that she was asked to contribute to a World’s best of article and chose Torres del Paine as her #1 destination. Now thirty years later she says that still wouldn’t change.
For Purchase: www.bradt-travelguides.com/details.asp?prodid=120
