Maybe Lonely Planet has been feeling a little isolated lately. The travel guide publisher just launched its own video site, Lonelyplanet.tv, and is looking for your videos of excursions far and near.
One bit of advice: Videos of you guzzling cachaça and popping pills in a Brazilian hostel while on assignment, we'd imagine, won't earn you a five-star YouTube rating from LP.
After all the sniping, faux shock and criticism, Thomas Kohnstamm's book Do Travel Writers Go to Hell? is out today. Instead of rehashing old interviews and getting up on our high horse about ethics, we decided to, you know, actually read it.
We didn't get very far before stumbling across something we wish were included in that now-notorious "embassy chick" interview that upset so many people:
Author's note: For better or for worse, this book recounts true experiences. In order to distill the chaos of life down to a clear narrative, it was necessary to omit certain events, rearrange and compress chronology and combine a few of the characters.
So, yes, what you're about to read is true. Sort of.
In the wake of Thomas Kohnstamm abusing them for publicity, Lonely Planet has decided to show how classy an outfit it is with... a recipe for world-class pub crawls?!
We know most of the people who are dumb enough to tote an LP guidebook--besides those nice new National Parks guides of course--will probably rate getting wasted in a foreign pub as the greatest thing ever. But do lager louts really deserve a play-by-play?
For a great pub crawl, you need a few ingredients: · a city with pubs in profound proximity · a forgiving transport environment (you don't want cars bearing down on you as you stumble towards your goal) · good weather (try crawling on ice--not fun!) · an established drinking culture (you don't want to be the boorish outsider who's annoying the locals)
There you have it, Lonely Planet-carrying tourists: No boorish outsiders, please!
Uh-oh. Guide book writers tell lies. Not a big surprise to us, but poor Lonely Planet must be decidedly unimpressed by what former author Thomas Kohnstamm has said in his soon-to-be-released book Do Travel Writers Go To Hell?
LP must surely be wishing that Kohnstamm would go to hell, because he's claiming, among other things, that he wrote a guide book to Colombia without ever setting foot in the country. He claims he wrote the guide in question from his base in San Francisco, getting info from a girl he was dating who happened to be interning at the Colombian consulate.
The story goes that Lonely Planet--and probably a whole heap of other guide book companies--don't pay their writers enough to actually research everything that needs to go into a book, and their policy is not to accept any freebies. Whether this news goes down as a "we can't trust Lonely Planet" or a "Kohnstamm's a big cheat with a newly released book to sell" story remains to be seen, but if you're heading to Colombia, perhaps some other guide book might be a better choice?
Lonely Planet has just relaunched its series of national parks guides and the publisher sent over a couple for us to check out. We're not the biggest fans of LP books in general, but the sheer number of titles can certainly be helpful. (Who else sells chapters on Eritrea?)
There are four new guides to the national parks, and you'll get info on multiple parks in all but one of them. The books are designed specifically for the parks, with itineraries and activities based around what's inside the gates rather than in surrounding towns--though some of that info is there too.
What stood out to us is the cool "Hiking" section. Each book has a couple dozen different trails listed. After a header with the basics (distance, elevation change, etc.), a long description of the walk and what you might see follows. Totally handy, and given the fact that the new books are compact and light, you'll actually want to tote 'em along on the trail.
Now here's a groovy little move by the guidebook giants at Lonely Planet. A new "Pick & Mix" feature on their website allows customers to buy PDF downloads of only the guidebook chapters they want most.
Options include Montreal - Dining ($2), Cayman Brac Dive Sites ($3.50), Eritrea (part of a larger book on Eritrea and Ethiopia; $9.50) and so forth, from an extensive selection of books. A soft-cover country guide (such as Lonely Planet's Germany or Argentina) costs about $18 on Amazon.com.
Much like the 100-calorie pack phenomenon in the snack industry, there's a premium to be paid for smaller portions here. But the possible bonuses are ample: downloads weigh no more than the technology on which you view them (laptop, PDA, on paper as a printout), they're there for you when you're unexpectedly caught in a foreign internet cafe with nary an English bookstore in sight...and, of course, they're easier to conceal so you don't have to feel so touristy when you whip them out.
This is probably not what the Irish wanted to read in the newest Lonely Planet guide to their fine country:
Ireland's 40 shades of green don't, it seems, include the all-important eco-green.
These days, that hurts. The guidebook worries that Ireland's carbon footprint is apparently more than twice the global average--although statistics, as we know, can say nearly anything one wants them to.
The guide does mention that the recent introduction of a tax on plastic bags has helped Ireland's green credentials. The country's infrastructure and size make it popular for cycling and walking holidays, which are obviously pretty eco-friendly, too. So maybe Lonely Planet's being too tough on the Emerald Isle. Then again, when you're a country whose national color is green, it makes sense to play up that fact.
Ireland might have a reputation for bleak weather but it seems to have everything else going its way at the moment. The Lonely Planet Bluelist 2008 just decided that Ireland is the world's friendliest vacation destination, with its "deliciously dark sense of humor."
Not only are the Irish welcoming to tourists stepping upon their shores, but they're also virtually welcoming. Tourism Ireland claims to be the first such organization to have launched a marketing campaign in that other world, Second Life. (That'd put the Irish at odds with the Dutch, who claim to be the first in cyberspace.) First or not, there's a great replica of the city of Dublin in-game and the tourist board is holding a virtual festival there, leading up to a big St. Patrick's Day celebration in February 2008.
There's only one thing that worries us about this latest idea: If the virtual Ireland in Second Life becomes interesting enough, won't people stop visiting the real Ireland? Or does the full extent of friendliness only become apparent when you're face-to-(real)-face with those jovial Irish?
