The lonely planet: Thailand

ou'll never fall into the tourist traps when you travel with Frommer's. It's like having a friend show you around, taking you to the places locals like best.

Winner of the Lowell Thomas Award for Best Travel Book, this newly designed collection paints a unique portrait of a complex and captivating land.

Culture Smart! provides essential information on attitudes, beliefs and behavior in different countries, ensuring that you arrive at your destination aware of basic manners, common courtesies, and sensitive issues.

Covering the past three centuries of Thai history, this book reveals how a landscape of sparsely populated forest and jungle was transformed into villages and paddy fields, with a rural society of smallholder peasants and an urban society populated mainly by migrants from southern China.

Writer Jerry Hopkins came to Thailand for a visit in the 1980s to find out and ended up a permanent resident with a temporary visa-a big, white farang haunting the bars and back alleys of Bangkok.

From the beaches of the south to the mountains of the north, Thailand is a beautiful and diverse land.

From start to finish, this is a classic example of the synergy of clear, thoughtful text, superb photography, and clean, attractive book design.