Jaunted

When I was in Chile last year I used a Lonely Planet guide to get around. At least 4 times that I can remember, I went to a restaurant or adventure outfitter that did not exist. It was incredibly frustrating. One day I had to take an hour bus ride to get to a place they recommended and when I got there, there was no trace of the business they wrote of. It was bad.

Being Latino, when we traveled, we just WENT there. I never say my family use a book or even a map. I guess my family didn't trust these books. And now after hearing that someone wrote a book about Colombia without even being there is completely crazy.  When writing something (this goes for anything), the writer should be an expert or be in the country!

I hate it when I find out that things that I use are a waste of time! Granted, I did lose faith in LP when I did the same thing as Aviatrix in New Zealand - traveled miles to find a non-existent place, but I just assumed it had moved, considering even the latest books have about a year since the info was put together before being published.

I work for a company called Reevoo who collect and publish consumer reviews but, unlike the LP, we actually make sure that the reviews are from people who have actually bought the products. We do it by emailing questionnaires about the products to those people that we know have bought something online from one of our retail partners. No purchase, no review. If you're interested, you can check out the reviews at www.reevoo.com .

Totally agree with you ecortes!

I am traveling around S. America right now and I left my LP South America on a ShoeString on a bus a while back. It was too big and bulky and too not helpful to carry around for so long.
Instead, I have started going onto to vivatravelguides.com and printing out all the crap I think I might need. I'll be headed to Colombia in a few months and I have heard the Viva is putting out a Colombia guidebook. I am going to try to find out, I hope it is not as thin as the LP one and with more reputable writers, of course.
SIDENOTE: I hope no one out there buys this guy's book, cause that is just exactly what he wants and I am sure he is loving all of this publicity.

From the Times:

"Kohnstamm, 32, and Lonely Planet agree that there was never any expectation that he would travel to Colombia, as he was only commissioned to do desk-based research on the history, culture and food and drink. Two other contributors did visit the country."

It's really not that big a deal. If you want to shoot down the print guidebook sector, or explain why the bar/hotel/whatever isn't where they said it would be, talk about the huuuuge lead times. The fact that guidebooks occasionally use desk researchers is not a scandal - all factual publishing does.

Kohnstamm knows this perfectly well, but spinning it as a scandal will help promote his 'air babylon, but with travel writers' bull.

Still, I might buy it - I heard there's nookie.