Formerly known as the Southern Africa Travel Guide, Solomon's Guide has been updated annually and published without fail every year since 1971. This year, with the book entering its fifth decade, a host of new information has been injected, designed to give it a burst of fresh ideas, an easy-on-the-eye layout, and an even greater relevance to today's traveller. With such a bewildering amount of information available online, the guide aims to give travellers concise advice written from an informed personal perspective.
During the collation of the 41st edition the guide's compilers have travelled to every corner of the sub-continent, giving the book an unrivalled spontaneity and accuracy.
The new look includes a brief background to every region and clear concise maps. Accompanying these are suggested sights to see and thrills to risk. There is a range of restaurants and shops, pubs and bars all with excellent standards for varying budgets. There is some history, some botany and some geology, all in an easily digested format, and there is a smattering of fascinating facts - they call it the Wisdom of Solomon - and some entertaining gimmicky information to keep the reader entertained.
Solomon's Guide is claimed to break new ground in providing so much in the way of interesting good-to-know off-beat snippets, along with a range of some of the best accommodation establishments in each area.
Editor Ian Solomon is highly enthusiastic about the book's new look.
"After four decades," he says, "we decided that we needed to freshen up the publication so we asked Chris Harvie, a respected South African travel writer, to give us the benefit of his extensive knowledge of all the regions covered and a touch of his appealingly quirky style. The new Solomon's Guide gives readers the inside story. It will spare them hours of sifting through the billions of gigabytes written about Southern Africa on the Internet. It is one of very few guide books to Southern Africa to be complied by the people in the know - real Southern Africans. And it's totally up-to-date."
Over the next few years, the intention is to beef up the content even further and to give even more carefully researched information, interesting thoughts and helpful tips. This book is the guide book the traveller to the region has been waiting for - it's designed to be a website in your luggage.
For more information go to www.solomonsguide.com
