I was very surprised to read the last two reviews and feel a need to express another opinion. My husband, David, and I just spent six and a half weeks in the Dominican Republic and we found the Lonely Planet guidebook to be very helpful (we did not travel at all in Haiti and, so, cannot comment on the book's coverage of Haiti). But we thought the section of the book that described the Dominican Republic was excellent. The prices were sometimes higher than the book said, due to inflation, but the descriptions were nearly always right on the mark. For example, we decided to climb Pico Duarte, the country's highest mountain, and we found the information provided about guides and lodges and climbing difficulty was very accurate. The author had clearly climbed the mountain and knew what he was talking about. The guidebook include maps of the various routes up the mountain and to nearby peaks and not one of the other guidebooks on the Dominican Republic that we looked at (about 10 in all) had such maps. Also, while we were in the area of Pico Duarte we went to a lovely waterfall few people go to that the author wrote about that wasn't mentioned in either of the other guidebooks we took with us (the Moon book was terrible, incidentally). I also really liked all of the history in the book. The island is rich with Indian history and colonial history and pirate history, and I thought the author did a super job presenting it.