Nicaragua Country Information

• Lonely Planet

#1 best-selling guide to Nicaragua *

Lonely Planet Nicaragua is your passport to the most relevant, up-to-date advice on what to see and skip, and what hidden discoveries await you. Kayak through Central America's largest mangrove forest, experience life on a coffee farm, or chill out on idyllic white-sand beaches; all with your trusted travel companion. Get to the heart of Nicaragua and begin your journey now!

Inside Lonely Planet Nicaragua:

• Color maps and images throughout
• Highlights and itineraries help you tailor your trip to your personal needs and interests
• Insider tips to save time and money and get around like a local, avoiding crowds and trouble spots
• Essential info at your fingertips - hours of operation, phone numbers, websites, transit tips, prices
• Honest reviews for all budgets - eating, sleeping, sight-seeing, going out, shopping, hidden gems that most guidebooks miss
• Cultural insights give you a richer, more rewarding travel experience - history, architecture, land & wildlife, arts, cuisine
• Over 45 maps
• Covers Managua, Masaya, Los Pueblos Blancos, Granada, Southwestern Nicaragua, Leon, Northwestern Nicaragua, Northern Highlands, Caribbean Coast, San Carlos, Islas Solentiname, the Río San Juan and more

The Perfect Choice: Lonely Planet Nicaragua, our most comprehensive guide to Nicaragua, is perfect for both exploring top sights and taking roads less traveled.

• Looking for more extensive coverage? Check out Lonely Planet Central America on a Shoestring.

Authors: Written and researched by Lonely Planet

About Lonely Planet: Since 1973, Lonely Planet has become the world's leading travel media company with guidebooks to every destination, an award-winning website, mobile and digital travel products, and a dedicated traveler community. Lonely Planet covers must-see spots but also enables curious travelers to get off beaten paths to understand more of the culture of the places in which they find themselves.

*Best-selling guide to Nicaragua. Source: Nielsen BookScan. Australia, UK and USA

Lonely Planet Nicaragua is your passport to the most relevant, up-to-date advice on what to see and skip, and what hidden discoveries await you. Kayak through Central America's largest mangrove forest, experience life on a coffee farm, or chill out on idyllic white-sand beaches; all with your trusted travel companion. Get to the heart of Nicaragua and begin your journey now!

Inside Lonely Planet Nicaragua:

• Color maps and images throughout
• Highlights and itineraries help you tailor your trip to your personal needs and interests
• Insider tips to save time and money and get around like a local, avoiding crowds and trouble spots
• Essential info at your fingertips - hours of operation, phone numbers, websites, transit tips, prices
• Honest reviews for all budgets - eating, sleeping, sight-seeing, going out, shopping, hidden gems that most guidebooks miss
• Cultural insights give you a richer, more rewarding travel experience - history, architecture, land & wildlife, arts, cuisine
• Over 45 maps
• Covers Managua, Masaya, Los Pueblos Blancos, Granada, Southwestern Nicaragua, Leon, Northwestern Nicaragua, Northern Highlands, Caribbean Coast, San Carlos, Islas Solentiname, the Río San Juan and more

The Perfect Choice: Lonely Planet Nicaragua, our most comprehensive guide to Nicaragua, is perfect for both exploring top sights and taking roads less traveled.

• Looking for more extensive coverage? Check out Lonely Planet Central America on a Shoestring.

Authors: Written and researched by Lonely Planet

About Lonely Planet: Since 1973, Lonely Planet has become the world's leading travel media company with guidebooks to every destination, an award-winning website, mobile and digital travel products, and a dedicated traveler community. Lonely Planet covers must-see spots but also enables curious travelers to get off beaten paths to understand more of the culture of the places in which they find themselves.

Insight Guides Central America is a brand new title covering the seven countries that make up this fascinating and culturally rich isthmus, from Guatemala to Panama, exploring Belize, Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua and Costa Rica along the way. In addition, the guidebook covers the Southern Mexico states, in recognition of their cultural links to and practical inclusion on many trips to this region. Be inspired to discover these varied countries with this comprehensive, full-colour guide.

Inside Insight Guide Central America:A completely new guidebook written by expert Central American writers.Stunning, specially-sourced new photography that brings this colourful region and its people to life. Highlights of Central America's top attractions, including the ancient Mayan temples of the Yucatan and Guatemalan regions and the immense biodiversity of Costa Rica's rainforests.Descriptive country-by-country accounts cover the whole isthmus from pristine beaches and islands to picturesque colonial cities.Detailed, high-quality maps throughout will help you get around and travel tips give you all the essential information for planning a memorable trip.

About Insight Guides: Insight Guides has over 40 years' experience of publishing high-quality, visual travel guides. We produce around 400 full-colour print guide books and maps as well as picture-packed eBooks to meet different travellers' needs. Insight Guides' unique combination of beautiful travel photography and focus on history and culture together create a unique visual reference and planning tool to inspire your next adventure.

'Insight Guides has spawned many imitators but is still the best of its type.' - Wanderlust Magazine

• Avalon Travel Publishing

• Used Book in Good Condition

#1 best-selling guide to Nicaragua *

Lonely Planet Nicaragua is your passport to all the most relevant and up-to-date advice on what to see, what to skip, and what hidden discoveries await you. Climb a volcano on Isla de Ometepe, stroll through colonial Granada and Leon or drink coffee at sunrise on a cooperative farm; all with your trusted travel companion. Get to the heart of Nicaragua and begin your journey now!

Inside Lonely Planet's Nicaragua Travel Guide:

• Color maps and images throughout
• Highlights and itineraries show you the simplest way to tailor your trip to your own personal needs and interests
• Insider tips save you time and money, and help you get around like a local, avoiding crowds and trouble spots
• Essential info at your fingertips - including hours of operation, phone numbers, websites, transit tips, and prices
• Honest reviews for all budgets - including eating, sleeping, sight-seeing, going out, shopping, and hidden gems that most guidebooks miss
• Cultural insights give you a richer and more rewarding travel experience - including history, poetry, art, literature, architecture, music, politics, landscapes, wildlife, customs/etiquette
• Over 44 maps
• Useful features - including Walking Tours, Off the Beaten Track Itinerary, Activity Guide
• Coverage of Granada, Leon, Isla de Ometepe, San Juan del Sur and its beaches, Corn Islands, Pearl Lagoon, the northern highlands, Rio San Juan, Isla Solentiname, Managua and more

The Perfect Choice: Lonely Planet Nicaragua, our most comprehensive guide to Nicaragua, is perfect for those planning to both explore the top sights and take the road less traveled.

• Looking for more extensive coverage? Check out Lonely Planet's Central America on a Shoestring guide.

Authors: Written and researched by Lonely Planet, Alex Egerton and Greg Benchwick.

About Lonely Planet: Started in 1973, Lonely Planet has become the world's leading travel guide publisher with guidebooks to every destination on the planet, as well as an award-winning website, a suite of mobile and digital travel products, and a dedicated traveler community. Lonely Planet's mission is to enable curious travelers to experience the world and to truly get to the heart of the places they find themselves in.

TripAdvisor Travelers' Choice Awards 2012 and 2013 winner in Favorite Travel Guide category

'Lonely Planet guides are, quite simply, like no other.' - New York Times

'Lonely Planet. It's on everyone's bookshelves; it's in every traveller's hands. It's on mobile phones. It's on the Internet. It's everywhere, and it's telling entire generations of people how to travel the world.' - Fairfax Media (Australia)

Explore the heart of Central America with National Geographic's Nicaragua, Honduras, and El Salvador Adventure Map. Hundreds of points of interest are highlighted including national parks and reserves, World Heritage sites, archeological sites, churches, shipwrecks, castles, and more. This map includes the locations of thousands of towns and villages along with a user-friendly index, plus a clearly marked road network complete with distances and designations for highways, roads, and other routes.

The front side of the print map includes Honduras and El Salvador, two countries whose coastlines offer wonderful opportunities to surf, scuba dive, snorkel, or just soak up the sun. Sites for these activities and more are noted, as are hotels, lodges, and resorts. Nicaragua covers the back side of the map, and its detail includes diverse points of interest from museums and historical sites in Managua and Granada to areas noted for windsurfing, fishing, and observing the country's unique wildlife.

A hot spot for ecotourism, this region boasts tropical rainforests, white-sand beaches, colorful wildlife, and stunning barrier reefs for outdoor enthusiasts to enjoy. The ancient and colonial history of these countries offer additional attractions from the impressive ancient Maya ruins of Copan in Honduras to the rich architecture of Granada, Nicaragua. As the smallest and most densely populated country in Central America, El Salvador offers a rich nightlife in addition to its beaches along the Costa del Sol.

Every Adventure Map is printed on durable synthetic paper, making them waterproof, tear-resistant and tough — capable of withstanding the rigors of international travel.

• Used Book in Good Condition

Hemmed in by the Pacific and Atlantic oceans, the slender land bridge of Central America stretches from Mexico to South America – seven piecemeal nations stacked on top of each other in a narrowing isthmus. Its geography is in many ways its destiny: a small but distinctive region which for millennia has been the meeting point of the plants, animals and people of the giant continents to the north and the south. Although Central America has receded in the general public consciousness following the resolution of the conflicts which convulsed it during the 1980s, the region’s new-found stability has resulted in something of a tourism renaissance, as thousands of visitors have come to experience its startling natural beauty and biodiversity at first hand, along with a range of man-made attractions ranging from the Maya ruins and traditional highland communities of Guatemala to the modernist skyline of Panamá City.

Central America’s position at the volcanic cusp between North and South America, and at the meeting point of tropical and temperate climatic zones, has created a startling, often surreal landscape, ranging from the rugged, mountainous cloudforests of Costa Rica and Panamá to the impenetrable swamp-jungles of Mosquitia in eastern Honduras and Nicaragua. Beaches, coves, cayes and island archipelagos hem the coral-laced coasts, while volcanoes – some active – form a backbone of fire that stretches the length of the isthmus. Not surprisingly, given its pivotal geographical and biological position, Central America seems to have been designed for the ecotourist, with a complex system of interlocking terrains, from pristine rainforest to rare mangrove, which are home to a fascinating range of birdlife and wildlife, including tropical, temperate and hybrid species. And along with ecotourism go more traditional pleasures: lolling on Costa Rica’s palm-draped Caribbean beaches, diving and snorkelling off the coral atolls of Belize, or exploring the sand-fringed islands of Panamá’s San Blas archipelago.

Amidst all the hype about the region’s natural beauty it’s easy to forget that this part of the world was home to one of the Americas’ most sophisticated pre-Columbian cultures, the Maya, whose splendid civilization flourished in Guatemala – and to a lesser extent in modern-day Belize, Honduras and El Salvador – between 300 and 900 AD. During this period the region was made up of independent and often mutually antagonistic city-states – Tikal in Guatemala, Copán in Honduras and San Andrés in El Salvador being three of the more prominent – which fought each other for prestige and economic dominance while their architects and craftsmen fashioned fabulous cities and stelae and their scientists created the famous Maya calendar, one of the most complex systems of measuring time ever devised.

The high point of Maya civilization had already passed, however, when Central America was "discovered" by the Spanish during Christopher Columbus’s fourth and last voyage to the Americas in 1502–4. Columbus himself barely set foot in Central America, however, preferring to anchor offshore and write florid letters back home to his sovereign, packed with references to maidens and gold (of which the Spaniards unhappily discovered very little). Nearly ten years later, in 1513, the conquistador Vasco Nuñez de Balboa slashed and clambered his way over the scaly mountain spine of Panamá, becoming the first European to set eyes on the American side of the Pacific Ocean.