LonelyPlanet.com

Review by Adrian Mann, owner of Adrian Mann Design, providing independent reviews and analysis of travel web sites in the UK.

The winner in the Travel category of the 2002 Webby Awards was LonelyPlanet.com. You’ll have noticed that they also provide destination information for a lot of travel sites, so it’s high time we had a look to see why they’re rated so highly.

Overall
The home page has the look of an online magazine. It has links to regular content areas, such as the World Guide, LP Shop, The Thorn Tree (a message board) and Theme Guides, and also has travel-related articles. It’s not graphics-heavy, so it loads fairly quickly, and a text-only version is provided if you need it, although this looks a little stark, it is very fast.

Content
Lonely Planet are renowned for their travel guides, and it’s for these that you’ll probably visit the site. Selecting a destination is easy, and can be done a number of ways. There are drop down menus, a clickable map, or a destination search. The pages are packed full of information, covering all the areas you might expect such as events, money, history, culture and environment. Map quality is pretty good, and there are links to related information on the Lonely Planet site, and links to external sites too. It all seems to be up-to-date – for instance, the pages on Pakistan reflect the current dispute with India over Kashmir, and offers advice for travellers on areas to avoid. Overall, it’s easy to see why they are the information provider of choice for many sites.

The in-depth articles change frequently, and offer a blend of advice and travelogue – at the time of review, the site had features on Sri Lanka and cycling in the USA. ‘Scoop’ is a news service, and carries headlines from around the world which may be of interest to travellers. There’s also the option of selecting geographical areas for the latest news, and there’s a weekly email newsletter to subscribe to.

‘The Thorn Tree’ is a bulletin board which is divided in to areas of the world, and is further subdivided by topic. It’s very well served and seems to be very active – it has over 99,000 registered users. There’s a massive amount of information here – I was fascinated by the discussion on Cuban cigars and the warnings that they’re all fakes! You’ll need to register to post messages and engage in the discussions, but even if you don’t it makes for an interesting read.
‘Feature Guides’ is great if you know what you like – art, beaches, food, history, deserts, sport – but can’t decide where to go. Just select what interests you, pick a destination, and read up on what’s available and take it from there.

There’s a comprehensive ‘Health’ section, which has information on how to make your trip as uneventful as possible. A bit of planning and research before you go will help to avoid a lot of unpleasantness, and there’s a lot of common-sense tips and advice here.

The site has plenty of products available through the LP shop. There’s an enormous range of travel-related stuff – guides, maps, atlases, travel books – all are available to purchase online. All the TV programmes are available on video, as well as the music from them.

Summary
Lonely Planet is an enormous site, and crammed full of interesting and intelligent writing. It’s easy to spend an age looking through the site, and if you’re an armchair traveller it has it all. This short review can’t possibly encompass everything on the site, and I’m sure I haven’t mentioned items that you’ll find invaluable.

It’s changed a lot since I first found it many years ago, and I’m glad to see it hasn’t lost any of the freshness and style that made Lonely Planet popular in the first place. The advice, comments and articles all have an air of authenticity – it appears that it’s all based on first-hand experience. As a site, it’s quick, easy to navigate, rejects the use of gimmicks or things that will annoy the user, and looks good throughout. It’s easy to see what makes Lonely Planet a winner.