I'm glad that I bought this at Goodwill, as I found it to be a weak book in comparison to Wizard Publication's Hawaii Revealed series. It hops here and there over the island, and has some frustrating panels that list "best places to visit" and doesn't list the actual CITIES along with the places. Um, the Big Island is, uh, big. That info is important. In other places, it's redundant; it mentions restaurants along with shopping, so I was surprised to find a full restaurant section a bit later. I also wish it had more useful pictures (a close up of flowers is not helpful)--and most importantly--more maps. It does come with a large fold out map, but I would have liked more maps in the text.

If you're looking for a good travel book, go for the Hawaii: Big Island Revealed book by Andrew Doughty. I think the comprehensive, chatty nature of that book has ruined all other travel books for me. ( )

The only thing useful about this guide was the pull-out map in the back. Otherwise, the strange organization of the book made it hard to use. Things were organized by category, like restaurants, beaches, hotels, attractions, etc., instead of by geographical region. So when you were in a certain place and wanted to find out what there was to do or where to eat, you had to keep flipping back and forth. You couldn't just look at a chapter on a place and figure out if you wanted to go there, and it was hard to figure out if different attractions and restaurants and hotels were in proximity to each other. ( )