Customer Rating: 

This is a good travel guide, but it's way to big and heavy to carry around. India really needs to be split into multiple books covering different regions. I suggest this is a great pre-holiday read, to take with you for reference and leave in the room. If you want a book to walk around with day to day, this may not be for you.

Customer Rating: 

I have used Lonely Planet guides for years and have always found them a sound base on which to build a trip. However they are not always as well researched or as accurate as you think they are. On a recent rip to India the guide said a local temple was off limits to non-Hindu's, so we didn't plan to visit it, as much as we wanted too. We later spoke to a local man who said that we could go in with no problem, which we did, and had a fantastic experience. This change was not a recent development, so it just confirmed what is common sense really: any guide is just that, a guide. Always check things out yourself.
Some of the hotel and restaurant descriptions are limited or inaccurate, but again, these are guides. They can't research every hotel or eatery, and the wealth of information contained in these books makes them an absolute must for all but the most experienced traveller. A great guide to build the foundation of your trip, and really does give a sense of security when in strange places, but don't be afraid to go beyond it's recommendations regularly : )

Overall, highly recommended, and still the only guide I'd use, or that I ever see in the hands of other travellers.

Customer Rating: 

So, the positives:
-Good coverage of many different places - India is a huge country, and the Lonely Planet managed to cover a vast array of places.
-Also, as ever with the LP, some of the background, including the interesting history section, were very well written, and the LP is incredibly easy to use.

The negatives:
-The maps were terrible - on many occasions alot of time was spent aimlessly wandering around, trying to decipher a map that bore no relation to reality, especially in terms of distance, and on more than one occasion you'd spot other tourists looking similarly perplexed at their LP clearly lost.
-The photos in the book were also uninspiring, making you wonder why they put them in there at all.
-There was also alot of conjecture about places to stay in the book, with slightly rambling descriptions where actually I would have preferred a brief description, and then for them to recommend more guesthouses in place of unnecessary words.
-It was also clear that there were many different authors with different agendas in the book, so that what was said for one area or city (or even in the little sections such as 'food' and 'festivals) didn't tally with others. -Additionally, it was no help in many practical areas of travelling, such as how to use the train system well (we went for a website called indiamike).
-And it fell apart very early on.

Overall, I am a big fan of the LP, but I was disappointed with this. By the end, we referred to it as 'the paperweight' or 'that bl**dy book'. However, it will get you around, and was generally ok

Customer Rating: 

You will only need this for the budget hotels listings and the background/history to a place your going to but it is worth it for this reason - you only need one guidebook tho!

Customer Rating: 

Great value for money, much cheaper than buying in store. A really useful and comprehensive guide.