Lonely Planet™ · Thorn Tree Forum · 2020 |

# New LP travel guide? Country forums / Pacific Islands & Papua New Guinea / Samoa
nene 18:02 UTC 02 Jul 2009 | Does anyone know when the next Samoa (and Tonga) shoestring guide is due? The last one was issued in 2006 and I wonder - before buying it - if it is not a little outdated. Any comments? Do you know another guide book? Ta. |
silvanocat 03:05 UTC 03 Jul 2009 | I would not use that guide for (Independent) Samoa. I wondered if the author had actually been there. The Tonga and American Samoa sections were good. My trip was is 07. | 1
Laszlo 05:13 UTC 03 Jul 2009 | Outdated or not, it is the most recent guidebook around. In theory, LP guides are updated every 3 years or so, meaning a new edition should come out this year. But while this piece of info is given in the Shop website of LP for most titles individually, it is not given for the Samoa-Tonga guide, which makes me suspect it may not be published this year. However, the new edition of the Sourth Pacific & Micronesia guide is promised for October, and given the high costs of researching the Pacific islands, LP might decide to use the reasearch done for that book for the new Samoa-Tonga guide too, which should not come much later then. The South Pacific guide obviously only has much less detail on Samoa than the separate guide, of course. | 2
nocoolusernamesleft 07:28 UTC 05 Jul 2009 | I was rather happy with the July 2006 edition when I went to Samoa in February 2009. Most of the entry fees have increased and almost all the airlines that are listed are out of business. Most other information was accurate. (note: Pacific Blue & Polynesian Blue airlines are still operating; if you have problems to get access to their websites, the problem is with your provider. I could get to the sites from the office but not from home.) If you don't live too far away from Germany (=to keep postage reasonable) you could consider buying my used guidebook - send me a private message if you are interested. | 3
Laszlo 08:59 UTC 12 Jul 2009 | FWIW, the downloadable 41 pp Samoa chapter of the new SP guide is already for sale! Incidentally, this edition of the book omits Micronesia, which will now be once again the last sizeable region of the World without a LP guide in print covering it. | 4
nene 08:15 UTC 14 Jul 2009 | Thanks no. 4. Just downloaded it. | 5
mortyman 21:55 UTC 08 Sep 2009 | According to an email I got from LP regarding this issue, there won't be another edition of the paperversion guidebook about Samoa / Tonga. They regard it as non economical.So it seems that the 2006 edition of the Samoa / Tonga paper edition is the last one. Samoa and Tonga will now only be presented in the South Pacific edition of the paper version, which ofcourse mean that it will be less information. Same goes for the paperversion of the guidebook from the Cook islands Go figure... Sucks if you ask me. | 6
Laszlo 14:46 UTC 10 Sep 2009 | That's bizarre. Samoa is quite touristy, and Tonga and the Cooks are not untouristed either... I would have thought they certainly get more tourists than PNG, for example! Wonder about the Vanuatu & New Caledonia book, too... | 7
Laszlo 10:37 UTC 21 Oct 2009 | Well, a new edition of Samoa & Tonga has just been released! However at a mere 220 pages, down from 320 in the previous edition, I wonder if it contains any more info than what is in their South Pacific guide - most likely, they just got the relevant chapters out of that book! | 8