Guide Books for Guatemala

Guide Books for Guatemala

Wildlife Guide Books
General Wildlife
Lonely Planet’s Watching Wildlife Central America.
Lonely Planet’s Watching Wildlife Central America.
$20 or so. Not a very good book for Guatemala and I don’t even think I would recommend it for Belize (which it does cover). The one nice thing about the book is that it tells you which parks (in Belize, Costa Rica, and Panama) to hit for wildlife viewing.

Belize and Northern Guatemala. Ecotravellers’ Wildlife Guide
Belize and Northern Guatemala. Ecotravellers’ Wildlife Guide
$25 or so. If you looking for one guide for the region this is it. An all inclusive wildlife guide, including birds, reptiles, amphibians, and mammals. It doesn’t give all that much information about each specific species but it does give the meat: range maps, illustrations, and a bit of the biology.
Birds
A Guide to The Birds of Mexico and Northern Central America.
A Guide to The Birds of Mexico and Northern Central America.
$25 or so. A very good guide book in my opinion, some of the range maps were a bit off but for the most part it was a great book. I thought the illustrations were adequate and there was a ton of information on each bird. That being said, the book is huge! It is not ideal for in the field use. This book does not have the illustrations for many of the migrant breeders.
While traveling I believe I saw a field guide of much smaller size, with smaller, but all of, the illustrations and no other information other than the range maps. It very well might have been an updated field guide version. It was orange and white.

Amphibians and Reptiles
A Field Guide to the Amphibians and Reptiles of the Mayan World.
A Field Guide to the Amphibians and Reptiles of the Mayan World.
$35 or so. A great book that has photos and not illustrations, a downfall in my opinion. It does have range maps for all species in addition to the hundreds of drawings. The range maps only show the Mayan World.
Travel
Lonely Planet Guatemala
Lonely Planet - Central America on a Shoestring
In our opinion the better of the two guides for Guatemala. We ended up getting the Central America on a Shoestring edition along with 75% + of the other travelers, its only downfall in my opinion. If they were to put out an updated Guatemala specific edition, I would recommend it. It’s a fun guide, that centers around nature based travels on the cheap.
Rough Guide Guatemala
The Rough Guide to Guatemala: Includes Copan and the Honduran Bay Islands
A much more thorough guide, partly because it was a Guatemala specific guidebook. My first, and probably the last time we will buy a Rough Guide. Unlike the Lonely Planet it didn’t give the times the buses were leaving, which is very important when it is you r only means of travel and your trying to plan out your week.