We travel for two months at a time each year. The last two years were in Turkey -- as will be this year's trip. Our practice is to travel cheap, moving from place to place in short hops every couple days. For the next three years, we plan to do the same thing in the Balkans. I ordered this guide to aid in planning our trips.
First, I would like to address comments in two other reviews. Yes, this is a heavy book. I don't know if I would actually take it on the trip. And on my copy the blue tabs are all properly labeled. My experience has been that the Kindle edition is awkward to use for detailed planning, but is great for traveling. We often whip out the Kindle in bus stations and on street corners when we need a refresher.
Eastern Europe is a big bite to chew up in one book. Lonely Planet, in my opinion, does an excellent job, within limits. It would be rediculous to expect the same coverage as a single-country, dedicated guide would provide. But combined with the Internet it is proving to be an excellent planning tool.
We will be traveling to multiple countries. Until I received this guide, I found it difficult to put everything into perspective well enough to make travel plans. I would not recommend this guide for someone visiting only one country, but I cannot imagine another single source that would be as helpful to the multi-country traveler.
And I particularly appreciate that Lonely Planet includes common phrases for all the languages one might expect to find.
If a book like this assists in avoiding even one blunder, it is worth the price.