“I was in Peru and visited a building near Lima built by the Incas. It was low in height, with no windows at all, but all the way in the back there was air movement. And I couldn’t figure out how they’d done it; it was incredible.”
– Frank Gehry
Lima Travel Guide: Insider Advice from Expats in Peru
There’s a blog I really like called Expat Chronicles. I’ve read the whole site, it’s packed with fascinating stuff. Recently I found out that the blog’s owner, Colin Post, wrote a travel guide on Lima. As a resident of Miraflores I decided to check it out.
Lima Travel Guide: Insider Advice from Expats in Peru is one of the best travel guides that I’ve ever read. Instead of trying to cover every single point of interest within the country, something that companies like Lonely Planet always try to do, this book focuses on a single location. By narrowing the content down to Lima the information becomes a lot deeper and more significantly more detailed. Restaurants and bars that barely get mentioned in bigger tour books are laid out in detail here.
The other night I was trying to find a restaurant near my apartment. Knowing that my Lonely Planet guide had some good suggestions I decided to thumb through the restaurant section. To do so I had to find the name of each dinner, read the description, and then flip 20 pages back to look at a map showing where each place was located. Lima Travel Guide is very convenient and doesn’t have this issue. Most venues are hyperlinked so that you can see pictures and get a better idea as to where you are going. This was really helpful as it saved me a lot of time and frustration. One click would give me a whole slew of additional data.
Another thing that I really liked about the book was Colin’s expertise. Amazon has a lot of horrible travel guides that were made by copying and pasting information from Google. The information in here is actually backed by legitimate knowledge. Everything feels well researched and there are quite a few tips that I’ve never seen anywhere else.
Lastly, I had been a bit worried that this book was going to turn into a “bro guide.” There are quite a few eBooks floating around that specialize in niches like “Where to buy the best drugs in country X?” or “Brothels of nation Y.” Since Colin has had some pretty wild adventures in the past I was a little worried that I’d end up with a guide to scoring drugs or haggling with prostitutes. This never happens and the book offers practical advice on legal activities throughout.
Overall I liked Lima Travel Guide: Insider Advice from Expats in Peru a lot. The information is solid and more in-depth than my Lonely Planet guidebook. If you’re interested in moving to, or visiting, Lima you should definitely check this out. It has great content and I learned quite a bit from it.