New LP South Pacific eliminates Micronesia?

I guess I should have realized from the title (LP South Pacific) that the new guide (to be available this month) would not cover Micronesia, as did the last guide (titled LP South Pacific and Micronesia), but I saw the new guide's Table of Contents (on amazon) and realized it would not cover Micronesia (Guam, Palau, Yap, etc.).

So, does anyone know if a separate guided, dedicated to Micronesia, is planned (many years ago there was such a separate, dedicated LP to Micronesia, but it was combined with South Pacific a few years ago)?

Thanks

don't know but Papa Mike has a book on Micronesia, or perhaps just Palau (I should know this by now)- he is around a lot so PM him- he is well versed in the area although I cannot vouch for his book since I haven't seen it. But I've heard good things about it.

Yes, 5 Waldos, you should know this by now. I forgivr you - the book covers only Palau and thanks for the plug.

Papa Mike

I somehow remember you also going on about Yap which is what threw me as I wrote that. And you are welcome.

The Moon Micronesia guide, now 6 years old, remains the only one in print now.

What little info the previous SP & Micronesia LP had on the region was basically what could be gathered from the Micronesian tourism authorities' website, so it's not a huge loss not to have it in the book.

I still keep a copy of the last edition of the separate LP Micronesia.
That's a great book, even if dated for practicalties.

If you want to find out whether LP still has any plans to publish a new guide to Micronesia, try asking here.
I'd be surprised to hear if they do.

Glad you said that and not one of us!

5 Waldos, sometimes I open my bis Yap too much, or so I am told, but I can assure you I have never been there or written about that country.

Papa Mike

Thanks, I have been to Micronesia (Guam, Saipan, Yap and Palau) and I used the LP Micronesia guide (the separate, older book). Its just that I was surprised to see Micronesia dropped from the upcoming guide, and was wondering if a new LP Micronesia was planned. I hope to visit Chuuk, Kosrae and Pohnpei and there was some good info in the old LP and was hoping for it to be updated.

Thanks for all the info.

It looks like Micronesia is being treated even worse than Solomon Islands, which is now only an addendum to PNG, even though many people going to Solomon Islands have little interest in PNG.

Funny you mention that -- I am planning a trip to the Solomons and I bought the old, Solomons-only LP on alibris.com.

Money well spent. VERY well!

Somebody who borrowed it returned my old Solomons guide the other day , so if you need any updates, I can check what the old one says, eg about prices. By the way, the new Visit Solomons website is much better than before, and has lots of information about all levels of accommodation.

There's no standalone LP Micronesia+ book any more, and you are quite right that these Micronesian destinations are not in the new +South Pacific (Aug 09). We've made the decision to stop publishing these destinations in guidebook form, because the traveller patterns do not make them viable.

However we are investigating continuing to provide these destinations in Pick & Mix format, from the old South Pacific & Micronesia+ (Oct 06). Note, those chapters were researched (on the ground) a full three years prior to the new +South Pacific, so there will be some out-of-date information. If this would help, please let me know?

Cheers,
Errol
Lonely Planet

PS: Solomons is of course still in the South Pacific. (Our poor, intrepid author, got terribly sick there and was looked after extremely well by heroic medical staff!)

It's hard to imagine Guam, Saipan or Palau getting fewer visitors and indeed being harder or pricier to research (on the ground) than Pitcairn or Wallis & Futuna which are still in the new book.

I think publishing PDF versions of the old editions of separate country/regional guides to places like Micronesia or Solomon Islands would make more sense than publishing those very brief Micronesia chapters from the previous SP guide, though I understand this would involve negotiating some copyright issues with the old authors.

BTW Errol, would you perhaps tell us why the Solomons is getting such a poor coverage nowadays? In a LP catalogue advertising the pending publication of the latest PNG & Solomons book there was an announcement like "we have listened to reader criticizm and added 2.5 times more coverage of the Solomon Islands", yet when the book came out, its coverage of the Solomons was pretty much as limited as before, only dealing with Guadalcanal, Western Province, Malita, Renbel and Central (36 pages in total), still ignoring about half the country altogether. Outer islands of other SP nations like neighbouring Vanuatu get better coverage even in the general SP guide, let alone in a two-country guide.
In fact it seems to me that the coverage of the Solomons in the PNG & Solomons guide is pretty much exactly the same brief (same page count too!) as in the SP guide that covers 15 countries.
You may have had an "intrepid" author for that country but there's no way we would know that looking at the books! The truly intrepid and expert qualities of the author of the separate Solomon Islands guides (David Harcombe) were, in contrast, very obvious.

Thanks, Errol, for the explanation.

I went to Guam, Saipan, Yap and Palau in December 2007, and for that trip, I used the older, separate LP Micronesia (even though shorter, updated chapters were available in the more recent LP South Pacific and Micronesia).

It would be helpful if the chapters from the lengthier LP Micronesia could be made available as "Pick & Mix", or barring that, making the chapters from the LP South Pacific and Micronesia available as "Pick & Mix."

My next trip that I'm considering to that region is to Fiji, Tuvalu and Wallis & Futuna, so I'm glad those remain covered.

Thanks Thit_cho. That's helpful feedback.
I'm afraid we wouldn't sell the old Micronesia+ (published Sept 2000) chapters, as the research is far too out of date for us to have sufficient confidence in. We hope to have those PDF chapters from +South Pacific & Micronesia (Oct 06) available for another year, starting soon.

Hi Laszlo.
The Solomons is different to many of those Micronesian destinations in that in that for those few travellers who do go to the Solomons, it's a destination where a guidebook is very useful. Ie, it's low traffic, but a very 'guidebook' kind of place. We include the Solomons as a 36pp chapter in the South Pacific+ and +PNG+ guides, both chapters also available as standalone PDFs for travellers only going to that one country. (But the +South Pacific one was researched more recently, so people should buy that one.)

The standalone Solomons book came out in 1997, and that's too long ago for us to sell it. We don't want a LP product on sale with information that out of date. The only issues for us with publishing very old books are about currency of the information. There's no copyrite issues.

Errol, with respect, Solomon Islands is a vastly different country to any of Micronesia, being larger than Vanuatu or New Caledonia, and similar in culture and geography. After PNG and Fiji, it is the largest country in the Pacific, both geographically and in population, and it is now much easier to get to from Australia. When I first went to live there in 1991, the Lonely Planet guide was the only comprehensive book available about the country.
In the last 5 years, infrastructure has improved out of sight, and tourism is expanding rapidly.
In this climate, I think they deserve a guide that is not stuck on the end of one to PNG, which attracts a different group of people.

G'day,

I have a somewhat related question - i am planning a trip to vanuatu next year - am i better off buying the old (2006) 'Vanuatu and New Caledonia' guide, or the new 2009 south pacific guide?

this will be my first OS trip so apologies if the answer to this question seems a little obvious for some.

cheers.

I agree, Laszlo, but they could edit out any references to price.
However, there have been a lot of changes to what is available recently - have you looked at the revamped Visitors' Bureau website?

In 2005, I still found the last Solomon Islands guide far more useful in the country than the then new but very brief Solomons chapter in the PNG & SI guide.
A PDF version of that old book could always be sold alongside the updated but much briefer new chapter.

west_oz, there's scheduled to be a new LP Vanuatu and New Caledonia later this year (in November, I think). You can get the info by looking at the current guide in the Shop -- it will indicate scheduled publication date of forthcoming guide.

Cheers Thit_cho,

i had a look in the shop at new and upcoming titles but didn't see vanuatu in there - in any case i'm gonna need to start booking flights etc before then so i went out and got the 2006 version. should do the trick.

thanks tho.