The new 5th edition of the massive Lonely Planet Guide to the USA is published March 2008, with 1192 pages, 25 authors, and comprehensive coverage of the United States.

The new 5th edition of Lonely Planet's comprehensive travel guide to the USA was published March 2008. This massive guidebook to the United States comes in at 1192 pages, requiring 25 authors who spent 613 days on the road, drove 67,774 miles, and saw, according to the back of the book, four Elvis impersonators.

It goes without saying that every major US city, town, National Park and other attraction is covered in the usual Lonely Planet detail – where to stay and where to eat (for all tastes and budgets), what there is to see, practical information.

Tuscon

Checking on one place in the Southwest that's very familiar to this reviewer, Tucson, the Lonely Planet guide can't be faulted, given the space available. If having a weekend in Tucson you'd probably want to buy an Arizona guide, but if passing through for a night while traveling round, the Lonely Planet USA guide would be all that you'd need. It covers a good range of restaurants and hotels, and all the area's main attractions.

National Parks

A special 16-page color section gives an overview of the USA's magnificent National Parks, with color photos, maps, some suggested lists like the Top Five National Parks for Escaping the Crowds, and a magazine-style interview with NPS Ranger Ken Hires. It also makes some recommendations on routes to enable visitors to take in a number of the best National Parks on one trip. This section is in addition, of course, to the entries on each park in the guidebook itself. (And Lonely Planet has recently also published excellent individual guides to some of the National Parks.)

Road Trips

As well as the National Parks, one of the greatest things about the USA is the number of beautiful road trips you can do, and this guide covers such scenic and historic drives as Route 66, New Mexico's Turquoise Trail, and the Pacific Coast Highway. This isn't a driving guide to enable you to drive those routes, but it does cover pretty-well all the places you're likely to want to stop off and see on the way.

The American People

As anyone who travels in America knows, the American people are among the most welcoming anywhere. They are a national asset. This USA guide continues the feature introduced recently into other Lonely Planet guides of including interviews with some interesting characters – or Local Voices, as they are called. In the Southwest USA and Hawaii these are Kelly Tucker, a performer with Cirque du Soleil in Las Vegas, and Jim Marshall, Hollywood actor and Charlie Sheen stand-in.

Hot Topics

Lonely Planet (along with their great rivals the Rough Guides) have never been afraid to bring current events into their guidebooks. Travelers, after all, don't travel in a vacuum, and need to know what's happening. They don't delve into the subjects in depth, but they do at least acknowledge, for instance, the problem of illegal immigration in southern Arizona, and of homelessness in O'ahu in Hawaii.

The Bottom Line

The 5th edition of the Lonely Planet USA guidebook is thorough and also very readable. Highly recommended if traveling throughout the Southwest USA, and of course the rest of the United States. It costs $28.99 in the USA, £16.99 in the UK. Further details from the Lonely Planet website.