Lonely Planet vs. Rick

I´ve been meaning to write this post for some time, but then I keep doing things to actually write about.

For this trip, I´m traveling with the aid of Lonely Planet´s South America on a Shoestring. Normally, I would be using Rick Steves, but Rick sticks to Europe, so that´s not really a possibility.
I can´t say enough good things about Rick. Holli and I have had some really really good trips thanks to Rick. He tells you exactly where to go and what to see, and even includes possible itineraries so you know what to see and when. With the exception of our dad of course, we say that he´s the only man that´s never let us down (ahem). He´s that good.

Lonely Planet, on the other hand, is no Rick. Lonely Planet has let me down several times. Take today, for example. I´m in San Ignacio, Argentina. The main attraction here are the ruins from an old Jesuit settlement. According to Lonely Planet, there are "several bizarre museums" as you enter the complex. With several museums to tour and the city worth of ruins, I assumed it would take half a day, maybe more. There were not several bizarre museums, there was one normal, very informative museum, and therefore, the whole thing took an hour and a half. It was still an interesting place to visit, and a good way to break up my trip to Uruguay, but still annoying.

The biggest problem is that Lonely Planet casts their nets a bit too wide. They publish guides for every place on the planet. Since Rick stays in Europe, everything´s more carefully researched and more recently published. My problem with Lonely Planet is also that everything´s out of date. I have the most recent book, but it´s several years old already. In Santiago, I was wandering around, looking for an English bookstore mentioned in LP. I heard two men speaking English at a cafe table, so I asked them if they knew of it. They told me it no longer existed. Turns out, one guy had spent that whole morning looking for it, while the other, who had been living there for awhile, said he tried to find it a whole year ago and couldn´t. Good thing I ran into them. It saved me a lot of Lonely Planet-induced frustration.

I miss Rick...