Lonely Planet Colombia writer never set foot in the country…
Wow, talk about some travel controversy. The Lost Weekend is reporting that author Thomas Kohnstamn had written the Colombia guidebook without even going to Colombia. He justifies it by insisting that Lonely Planet wasn’t paying him enough to write the thing.
Is that the best you can come up with? I personally, spent a few years being a freelancer, however, not as a travel writer. I was also paid a pittance, but I never faked my writing and editing! It never even crossed my mind! Travel writing is something you do for the love of travel, not for the virtually non-existent paycheck.
In this case, I am more disappointed in the starving writer than in the big corporation signing his cheque. If you want to be a travel writer, you should be a travel writer, and worry about the money later. Not only does constantly worrying about money corrupt your travel writing biases, it also doesn’t get you into an occupation that you will enjoy.
What do you think? Tell me about it in the TravelPod forums.
See you there!
Louise Brown
TravelPod Community Manager
April 14, 2008 at 10:45 pm
This is not the first time we have heard such claims regarding the travellers bibles. We were travelling in Venezuela last year and got chatting to a guy who claimed he used to be a writer for the Lonely Planet. His reason for quitting was down to them wanting him to just phone around places from one edition to the next, checking if hostels and restaurants were still open and prices were about right in order to save money. There were also stories about other travel writers working for them living in 5 star hotel rooms, just making phone calls and never actually visiting anywhere in the country they were meant to be writing about.
Travel guides are great and the Lonely Planet we have always found to be well laid out and full of great suggestions. However do not use one as your Bible. Take everything with a pinch of salt, use multiple sources (like blogs on Travelpod & Lonely planet website) and use your tongue to speak to other travellers and locals. You’ll never go far wrong then.
April 15, 2008 at 8:22 am
Yep, you’re absolutely right. I love travel guides, especially for their walking tours and simplified history lessons.
However, I think the best reviews come from real people who have actually been to the places they are talking about. That’s why I think sites like TravelPod and Trip Advisor are so useful! Without the internet, you couldn’t get this kind of first hand information from real travelers, and it’s turning the industry on its head.
April 15, 2008 at 9:23 am
We have used the Lonely Planet book for all our travels and found it a very useful resource - especially in the days before the Internet!! Although we did not rely on the information in the guides, we did expect it to be unbiased and reasonably accurate.
I can understand how it is just to expensive to visit EVERY single establishment and adventure activity, but in this instance it sounds like the writer did not visit ANY!! This raises serious doubts about the accuracy and relevancy of the information in this guide. Hopefully this episode will root out any bad apples within the organisation.
April 16, 2008 at 10:49 am
We can only hope, Gary. We can only hope…
Sadly, the nature of communication in general means that instances like these will happen, and keep happening in the future!