Travellers' Checks | Lonely Planet’s China guide has come a long way, with 15th edition out this week
First published in 1984, a time of FECs and black-market RMB, the guidebook has steered generations of visitors through the country’s ever-changing landscapes and climates, political and otherwise
The 15th edition of Lonely Planet’s long-running guide to China will be published on June 1. This hefty tome first appeared in 1984, as China – a travel survival kit, a title changed to simply China from the sixth edition, in 1998. The page count has, of course, grown over the years – from 819 to 1,056 – not much considering that Hong Kong and Macau were included only from the fifth edition, in 1996, and that the country is much more open to foreign tourists than it was in the mid-1980s.
Back then, it really was a travel survival kit, explaining the difference between the RMB and the FEC (a currency for foreigners that was withdrawn in 1994, as that year’s edition just had time to note on its inside cover), and pinpointing the poste restante and hotels that accepted backpackers and their black-market RMB.
And it seemed like every backpacker had one – at least until 1997, when Rough Guides put out a similar-sized guide.
