Travel Guidebooks Archives — Page 3 of 3

Don’t judge a guidebook by its cover: judge it by its author, or, How to choose a guidebook

Last week we wrote the posts Brilliant minds think alike, or, Why so many guidebooks share the same listings: part 1 and part 2, in which Terence and I tried to explain why guidebook reviews don’t always resemble the places they’re written about, and why reviews of a certain place across a number of books … Read more about Don’t judge a guidebook by its cover: judge it by its author, or, How to choose a guidebook

10 oddest travel guides ever published

by Lara Dunston

While we’re on the subject of oddities in travel (see yesterday’s post on 10 odd jobs in travel and tourism), Slate has published a fabulous reading list by Paul Collins called ‘Baboons are simply too small for leopard bait: the 10 oddest travel guides ever published’. The quirky list includes such delights as A Guide … Read more about 10 oddest travel guides ever published

Death of the (guidebook) author?

by Lara Dunston

If you’ve been following the Lonely Planet author fraud scandal or the Thomas Kohnstamm Affair as some of us like to call it, and you’ve read the comments following online articles and visited Lonely Planet’s travellers’ forum Thorn Tree, then you may well think this spells the end for guidebook authors. Or at the very … Read more about Death of the (guidebook) author?

Death of the guidebook?

by Lara Dunston

That’s the headline of a story in The Age yesterday written by former Lonely Planet writer Chris Taylor who recounts his discovery that the author who’d updated the China guide before him hadn’t visited places himself, but had sub-contracted a cafe owner (who subsequently recruited his cousin!) to do the research instead. Taylor argues that … Read more about Death of the guidebook?