Sure, tell me that now.

Turns out there isn't a Cheap Bacon Breakfast place in Tel Aviv.

F*cker lied to me.

Still substantially superior to the "Let's Go!" series.

ComicBookGuy: Still substantially superior to the "Let's Go!" series

As in "Let's Go Get A Better Guidebook" series. Yeah. I had relatives from Britain visit me in eastern Ontario, rent a car, and based on that, tell me they were going to drive to Sudbury, but they'd be back for dinner. Sure.

Hah! Probably the same guy that told Shaq the Parthenon was a nightclub in Greece.

40below tell me they were going to drive to Sudbury

great, enjoy the copper mines... wonder what the guide had to say about Sudbury

The part in that article where he claims he was attacked by a Cheetah in Uganda is ridiculous. What a dope!

Lonely Planet - duhr

Here's a better reference, updated and republished almost annually since 95:
World's Most Dangerous Places (new window)

online info from the book is here (new window)
He has more books and the website has some cool stuff.

crinz83: The part in that article where he claims he was attacked by a Cheetah in Uganda is ridiculous. What a dope!

He also claims he saw a penguin killing and eating a polar bear. That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard - polar bears and penguins don't even live on te same continent.

Send him to do one on Iraq.

FTA: "claimed that he plagiarised and made up large sections of his books..."

he's simply following a basic question:

what would Jesus do?

Was it this guy?

skinink: Lonely Planet guidebooks -In many of the more relaxed civilizations on the Outer Eastern Rim of the Galaxy, the Lonely Planet guidebooks has already supplanted the great Encyclopedia Galactica as the standard repository of all knowledge and wisdom, for though it has many omissions and contains much that is apocryphal, or at least wildly inaccurate, it scores over the older, more pedestrian work in two important respects.


First, it is slightly cheaper; and secondly it has the words "DON'T PANIC!" inscribed in large friendly letters on its cover.

nice!

So what's his Fark log-in?

Approves

I have a Lonely Planet phrasebook. It is full of gems like "I won't do it without protection," "Touch me here," "Don't worry, I'll do it myself," and "It helps to have a sense of humor."

I may never go to Portugal, but at least I know I'm prepared if I do.

I have a confession. I never read this article. I made up the Cheetah bit.
I apologize to the Lonely Planet writer and his family. I hope I haven't caused any harm. What I did was clearly wrong.
Crinz83

alacoco: I have a Lonely Planet phrasebook. It is full of gems like "I won't do it without protection," "Touch me here," "Don't worry, I'll do it myself," and "It helps to have a sense of humor."

I may never go to Portugal, but at least I know I'm prepared if I do.

Sounds like it might be more useful in Brazil.

"There's no way to keep it out of Lonely Planet, and once that happens it's countdown to doomsday" - Alex Garland from The Beach.

I say burn the whole lot.

JustinCase: Lonely Planet - duhr

Here's a better reference, updated and republished almost annually since 95:
World's Most Dangerous Places (new window)

online info from the book is here (new window)
He has more books and the website has some cool stuff.

its amazing RYP gets into the places he does, I have to imagine his giant balls make it difficult to get around at all.

40below

He also claims he saw a penguin killing and eating a polar bear. That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard - polar bears and penguins don't even live on the same continent.

WhatEVar. I totally saw this happen. Yesterday. In your mom's backyard.

I prefer the Jetlag travel guide series (new window)

Kiss, Bow or Shake Hands is full of shiat too and I know the people who wrote it.
Used to consider them friends.

She told me there was no booze to be found in Malasia. She was wrong.

Very, very wrong.

I looked like a chump deplaneing from Bangkok with 2 gallons of JD, a case of wine and a bottle of Gin.

Kinda like bringing coals to Newcastle.

Or young boys to the Vatican.

I worked at LP in the early nineties, and the experience shut down any envy I might have had for travel writers. Except for about twenty brandname writers, they either had hustle like a mf'er to make ends meet, or they were creepy borderline survivalists. Met some very, very bitter people.

Nothing you didn't already expect,


To be a grammar nazi or not to be a grammar nazi...

With skills like that, he could review CDs...

The Lonely Planet for the Canadian Maritimes is very useful. It led me to Meat Cove (^). And it was good.

I took a travel journalism class at UCLA awhile back. You simply don't make enough money to travel to all the places you write about. It's easy enough to gather information on a place and write an honest story, but it's another to misrepresent yourself as though you were actually there. Having said that, I'd view the bulk of travel writing as inspirational. But if I were planning an actual trip, I'd read authoritative reference material.

Dear Jerk -- The best authors are usually the ones who live in country part of the year and have some connection to the culture. Also authors who lead tours themselves are usually pretty good.

I was always under the impression that Lonely Planet started out doing guides for Asia on a shoestring and their strength was in Asia/Europe anyway. Lonely Planet is still better then most of the guidebooks out there too for a specific type of vacation.

/Still shouldn't have used a fixer, sullies up their reputation in general.

Meh, Lonely Planet is still the best guide available, if you're not in to lame package tours at shiate overpriced resorts. A lot of the authors for other countries really know a lot about the country their writing about, as in they actually live there pretty much full time and speak the local language.

This is an excerpt from Big Apple Almanac 2 by Patrick M. Reynolds:

"At the height of the Blizzard of March 12, 1888, a man named Richard Farrelly trudged into the editorial office of the New York World at 32 Park Row. '...Besides having a lot of newspaper experience, I know plenty about cold weather because I spent a lot of time in the frozen north. I propose you hire me to cover the storm!'

"They did. Farrelly went outside, clumped across City Hall Park, and checked into the Astor House where he spent the day. [Illustration: Farrelly on the phone in bed saying, "Send up another whiskey."]

"Every once in a while he would bundle up and plod back to the World building. There, he would create terrific yarns about his 'adventures' in the storm-ravaged city.

"His scam was not discovered until many years later, but by then, Farrelly had become the World's managing editor.

"Richard Farrelly left the New York World in 1898 to become the managing editor of the New York American and later helped to organize Hearst newspapers in other cities as well as the International News Service. He suffered a heart attack and died, October 26, 1923, in his home at Broadway and 86th Street."

Of course, they've all stopped printing travel guides to Haiti (for at least the past four-five years). But if ye olde free market made that decision, it's better for me, because it will mean less chance of bumping into american tourists while I'm there!

/ wanted to go for years
// going with Haitian friends
/// kreyol much cooler than french!

Aww nuts, I used to love that series. I used their guidebooks extensively when I was researching travel options.

God, I farking hate Lonely Planet. You see it in the hands of every rich douchebag backpacker anywhere you go.

Gothmolly: God, I farking hate Lonely Planet. You see it in the hands of every rich douchebag backpacker anywhere you go.

What should people use when they're traveling then? Scry the locations of hostels and guest houses from a set of chicken bones?

hmmm, well that explains my 6 mile hike through the pouring rain to see a church covered in lava when I could have taken a 65cent bus ride and wound up right at the base of the ruins. Like the locals do.

/it's called the volcano paricutin, the ruins are san juan viejo.
it is in the state of michoacan near the city of uruapan, in mexico.

// seriously, when I got back to my (mexican) friends house later that day and told them where I went and how I got there, they were like, "oh geez, that's where you went??? why did you go that way, why didnt you just take the bus??!??!"

just about the only time lonely planet has let me down.....

it still was worth it, very cool ruins.....

BTW I'm not a rich backpacker, and I didnt even know tour books existed until the first time I went to europe.
I was just winging it, I had the map from my eurorail pass and that was it.
At a youth hostel in amsterdam I realized everyone has these books.....
I had to ask someone, "hey what's that??!!?"


now I love traveling with lonely planet.
listings of hotels, their phone numbers, it's very useful for the basics.

Of course, you still have to find your own entertainment if you don't want to just meet other douchbag backpackers....

"They didn't pay me enough to go to Colombia. I wrote the book in San Francisco. I got the information from a chick I was dating -- an intern at the Colombian consulate," the newspaper quoted Kohnstamm as saying.

Aside from the content of the story, this guy is a jerk and his spawn will hate him.

That is all.

Gish21

Welcome to the false dichotomy.

People who travel religiously with their LP guides are usually suffering from accute personality deficit.

I've spent 6 months in Argentina watching South America on a Shoestring (LP) toting douchebags pretend to be original.

McDingus:
I've spent 6 months in Argentina watching South America on a Shoestring (LP) toting douchebags pretend to be original.

I've lived abroad in Asia for a few years and I see backpackers with LP all the time. It doesn't bother me at all. If I was going somewhere for a few weeks I'd use one too. Yeah, some of them are pretentious, but oh well.

McDingus: Gish21

Welcome to the false dichotomy.

People who travel religiously with their LP guides are usually suffering from accute personality deficit.

I've spent 6 months in Argentina watching South America on a Shoestring (LP) toting douchebags pretend to be original.

So what should an aspiring traveler like myself do, then? I don't have the experience, or balls, to just drop in someplace and learn on the fly. What can I read that won't offend your street cred?

Five Minute Standup: alacoco: I have a Lonely Planet phrasebook. It is full of gems like "I won't do it without protection," "Touch me here," "Don't worry, I'll do it myself," and "It helps to have a sense of humor."

I may never go to Portugal, but at least I know I'm prepared if I do.

Sounds like it might be more useful in Brazil.

Then it also needs the phrase, "Do you have a penis or a vagina?"

Wait, so if american/canadian backpackers use those, what the hell the europeans use?.

/Never asked

Meh. The write himself was a douchebag, but the LP guides rock. LP's guide to Australia (one of their first) was what first inspired me to come to visit Oz. That first visit got me hooked, and it was only a matter of time before I moved here. So, thank you, Lonely Planet - your guide book has made a huge difference in my life.

/YMMV
//Will continue to use LP guides, despite the fact that it may harm my cred with certain Farkers...

CygnusDarius: Wait, so if american/canadian backpackers use those, what the hell the europeans use?.

/Never asked

Backpackers all over the world use LP - it's why the Wheelers were able to sell the company for mega-millions.

RealFarknMcCoy2: Backpackers all over the world use LP - it's why the Wheelers were able to sell the company for mega-millions.

I see. I guess it beats asking for directions in a country you don't know the language.

what I really like is the fact that they found no inconsistencies or errors in the books he had written.....hahahahahahaha

douchbag!

thinking is the best way to travel

And nobody commented on this?

Lonely Planet said it had reviewed Kohnstamm's guidebooks but had not found any inaccuracies in them.

So what if he pulled a Jules Verne, in the end it didn't make any difference.