Customer Rating: 
Summary: beautifull book about puerto rico.
Comment: i just love this book, it tell you all about the island it's history,
the people, and the food. you can even learn how to speak spanish, there's
a section in back of the book that teaches you even how to order food in
spanish.
Customer Rating: 
Summary: Coffee Table Travel Guide
Comment: We bought the Insight Guide and were pleased by the wonderful photos and the descriptive sections that cover culture, food, activities, and regions. However, if you are looking for hard details essential to making travel plans before and during a trip, this book is totally useless. Even if other books fail to capture the flavor of Puerto Rico, they can be relied upon to locate hotels, restaurants, museums and hours etc. This is a decorative book, worth reading, but not a travel guide in the usual sense of the word. All these impressions are fresh, since we arrived home just last night. As Northern Californians who look to Hawaii and Mexico for tropical vacations, we found PR, especially the time we spent on Vieques, to be at least the equal of our usual locales, and the time on Vieques to be unmatched in terms of mile-long beaches that you have to yourself.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Colorful Helpful Maps and Photos with useful information
Comment: The insight guide to Puerto Rico is typical of the insight guides in that it provides full color photos of attractions, people and area maps. They cover most topics about the destination.
The book is almost as colorful as any National Geographic book. However, it does contains more in depth information on most aspects of Puerto Rico.
This guide is written with information that will remain valid for at least 5-8 years from the day it was written. However, you will not find website addresses nor recent prices for hotels, museums or attractions. If you are looking for bus schedules or travel times you'll also have to look elsewhere. That more mundane but useful travel information is not the focus of this book.
This book includes a great area map just inside the fold out front cover and a second one of Old San Juan on the fold out back cover. The logical place for all maps are on the covers just like this one. Good thinking people!
Read this book along with the Lonely Planet guide and you'll find just about everything you'll want to know. But, if you only get one book, this is the one to get.
Customer Rating:
Summary: The guide I recommend for my travel course to P.R.
Comment: I was a professor at the Univ. of Puerto Rico during the 1980s, and return occasionally for scientific work. I also teach a Tropical Biology course every other year that includes spring break in Puerto Rico. I've read about eight guides to Puerto Rico and nearby islands, and I think this is the best in terms of accurately reviewing history, culture, and some of the biology and geology. The photographs are extraordinary, and really capture the island in all its facets. This Guide also gives the best information about each town's history and points of interest. It probably devotes the least space to casinos and cruise ship information, but I see that as a strength. I want my students to develop some understanding of the history and culture of Puerto Rico, even though it's a biology class, and I have found the first couple chapters of the Insight Guide do a better job than any of the drier academic sources out there. If you want to buy a guide to Puerto Rico for your own enrichment, this is the one to get.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Pictorial Tour of the Island of Enchantment
Comment: Known for their numerous photographs, researched facts, and great coverage of historical and cultural items, the "Insight Guides" series has covered almost every nation on earth with wonderfully. Their "Insight Guide to Puerto Rico" was especially much more fascinating to me since they covered a lot of things and places I did not know about my homeland.Beautifully binded, full of colorful photographs and drawings, and informative, this guide allowed me to explore more towns, sites, and places that are usually off the beaten track for a normal tourist. Their coverage of Puerto Rico's satellite islands: Vieques, Culebra, and Mona, was very interesting, and I was happy to see Mona in photographs, because it is rarely captured in photographs. The chapters on Old San Juan, Ponce, and the Karst Country were also all informative and refreshing, making my trip much more entertaining. From the island's plethora of important rum distilleries (world's biggest producer of rum) to a brief discussion on local dialect, the editorial staff at "Insight Guides" did an excellent job of representing this beautiful Caribbean island in all its' splendor. If you are looking for the best travel guides to Puerto Rico, this book and "Lonely Planet's Guide to Puerto Rico" are the two best travel books to this island. Don't forget to pick them up before your next visit to the island.
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