Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I ordered this national park guide because it was the newest guide and because it listed “detailed maps” in the description. I’ve added photos of the maps from Grand Canyon and Bryce Canyon since I recently visited both. Take a look at the Bryce Canyon map. It is missing all the popular hikes. The pages after the map mention them and Queen’s Garden is listed as the best hike in a highlight section, but none are on the map. We hiked Queen’s Garden to Navajo to Peekaboo trails, which make up the Bryce Canyon Traverse. It would’ve been nice to see that in print on the map. If I were planning this hike now, I wouldn’t know what those trails are like from looking at the map. There’s no way I could’ve put those trails together from using this guide book. Moving on to Grand Canyon, they have a two page spread of the map for that park, but the area most visitors go to is about 3” x 2” on the map. Had they kept this one and then added another one zoomed in on the canyon and trails, it would’ve been more useful. Instead, the only other two page map is of the village streets. Even that isn’t complete since they show Mather Campground as just a short stub of a driveway, rather than showing all the campground loops with the names of them. That would be useful for planning a camping trip! The best hike of Grand Canyon is listed as Bright Angel Trail, which they represent with a 4” x 5” map that barely has a bit of a squiggled red line to show the trail. There are no mileages indicated, other than the first two resthouses are named for their mileage. Good luck if you want to see the South Kaibab Trail or find out where Ooh-Ahh Point is located on the map. Don’t even think about figuring out where that trail meets up with Bright Angel for an “in one end and out the other” hike. If you don’t hike and can get by without knowing where the trails are located, these maps are still very poor maps. The colors are all pale with very little contrast. The text is extremely small, which is to be expected I guess when the maps are so small. What else is missing when popular trails are missing? The rest of the information may or may not be ok, depending on what you want to know. The parts I glanced at were basically sentences that listed several points of interest with no details. A chart would’ve been better than reading one or two lines of places in sentence form. They did highlight all the places in bold print. That might have been a nice feature if there had been more to read. Instead it looks like every 3rd word is bold print, which is annoying to read. Lists and charts would’ve been so much better. As for the book itself, it is printed on the thinnest tissue paper pages possible. You would not be able to stamp this at each park without having the ink go through the page. It may also smear since the pages have a slight sheen to them. They remind me of those super cheap magazines that are offered for free when you buy another subscription. In comparison to other guide books, they may be about the same thickness, but just know that when they cram 700 pages into just over 1” thickness, you’re not going to get the nicest quality of paper. Also, there is a map folded up in the back of the book. ROADS would’ve been nice. This map is strickly a map to show you where the parks are within the states. It’s not going to be useful for much of anything without any roads or nearby towns. They could’ve left that out and took a buck off the price. On a positive note, this book has a pretty cover. The fonts used are modern and pretty. The photos are gorgeous. If you need beginner ideas of what to look up, this is your book. If you are looking for detailed maps and more info than a highlight read, this is NOT the book for you. I am sending mine back. If anyone reading this knows of a better book to get that has detailed trail and campground maps, as well as lists of trails with descriptions, please comment with your suggestions.