South Africa's

The Rough Guide to South Africa 5 (Rough Guide Travel Guides)
$26.99
As a disclaimer, I should note that I really enjoy reading travel books, and I went through almost every book on South Africa before my trip. This book was the one I decided to purchase, as it was the most recent, and had the most information. These aren't books for those who enjoy looking at pictures of all the different areas, but has the most details for each area of the country. We spent roughly 2 weeks in the country and I used basically just this book in planning my trip. Did not use the book for hotel recommendations or restaurants as we had friends who had lived in the country and gave us plenty of those before we left. One nice feature was multiple pages of animal ID information, which was good for touring in Kruger.

Frommer's South Africa (Frommer's Complete)
$23.99
The book has a very narrow view, focused on ultimate luxury and non-afrikaaner history. oddly, safe is equated with boring. hotel guide is absurd, with proices rangeing from expensive to stratospheric. despite the above, it does contain decent and useful information, and is worht the money. it cannot, however, serve as the sole bookin in planning a trip.

South Africa (EYEWITNESS TRAVEL GUIDE)
$25.00
This book for South Africa is just as fabulous as the ones we have used for Istanbul, Paris and other cities. I borrowed it from the library and liked it so much I bought it!

South Africa Travel Map (Globetrotter Travel Map)
$8.95
The map had terrific information but the quality of the paper was not terrific. It ripped and wore out only a few days into our trip. It's enough to make us think twice about this brand the next time we need a map.