The Guidebook of Choice

Lu, editing the Vietnam section of her Lonely Planet guide.

I spent a couple days travelling with Lu, who's seen above with her copy of Lonely Planet's Southeast Asia on a Shoestring open to the Vietnam map. She's marked up the map with the comments of other travellers about places to go. Lonely Planet, either "Shoestring" or the local country book, is by far the most popular guidebook among English-speaking foreigners.