Twilight of the Travel Guidebook?

I find professional guidebooks very useful, though I’m not wedded to the idea that they have to be in print form.

I admit, too, I also don’t use guidebooks. Unless I’m in the bookstore and thinking of a place I want to travel. Then I’ll use them for inspiration. But I can’t remember the last time I did anything beyond look at photos.

But.. last year I did work on a chapter of a TIme Out guidebook. It’s particular niche is travelers who don’t have months to explore and want a luxurious vacation. I covered the tiny town of Tafi del Valle in Tucuman province, Argentina. It certainly made me see the place differently than had I just been there for a night or two.

I’m not really answering your overall question, more just think-typing. But it does seem the guidebook needs some reinvention in order to stay current.

I’m with Leigh – guidebooks are more an inspirational, daydream kind of thing for me. However, I don’t think Google or Yelp or whatever are the answers either – there is far, far too much bullshit online to filter through. It’s way to easy to find “destination experts” on the Internet.

Guidebook apps are great – I enjoyed reviewing Sutro’s Boston app last month, it was something I’d actually use if I visited the city – but again, there are so many apps for all mobile devices that are pretty much useless.

In the end, they’re all just what they are – guides. Something to follow or use periodically when you need them, but easily abandoned. I don’t intend that to sound negative, because guidance is a good thing, but who has ever 100% planned their trip based on the advice of any book or source of information?

I have love/ hate memories of guidebooks that I have had relationships with. I never figured out how to ditch “Let’s Go” when I was in Europe, in college. That book treated me badly. I was totally dependent on my Lonely Planet in South America for places to stay and tips on how to get around.

I only became intimate with guidebooks when I traveled for more than a month.

The urgent need for a reliable source on where to find the jitney vans is, in some ways, separate for the need for great writing about a place. I often read travel writing at home. I rarely read guidebooks. But at the same time, if I trust the voice of a book — the tone, the spirit, the writing — then I am more likely to rely on it.

It’s true that paper books are destined to be replaced by iPad apps. The danger is that the “search for the nearest hamburger” nature of interactive content might push people away from reading essays or exploring. But then there’s Matador… Is this place an iPhone app yet? Probably.

Also, not only can you not burn your iPad for warmth, it’s probably unwise to take it with you into the Amazonian jungle.

So, I think guidebooks remain important.

Guidebooks are not obsolete, just like books are not obsolete. Sure we can now Google anything we want, find hotel reviews on all the places the guidebooks left out, and read blogs galore on this cool site or that interesting stopover. But guidebooks do something that all of those things can’t – they bring all that information together in one practical, often insightful, sometimes even humorous place. They give the lay of the land, so to speak. I always like to have a guidebook, or guidebooks, when I start planning a trip. I’ll even read them for the fun of it when I’m looking for inspiration. I just wish they weren’t so heavy, is all – which is why I might eventually go digital someday. No matter, I’ll always be thankful for my guidebooks.

When considering adventure travel outside of the U.S., I always gravitate toward Cicerone Press for ideas, inspiration, and expertise. I’ve used their books for over ten years now, and I believe the guide books they produce are still very relevant in today’s world. Cicerone seems to have carved out a very specific purpose for the type and style of books they produce. I think that’s why they’re still so useful. Though, even they are now pushing an iPhone app on their homepage I see.

guidebooks have both been an uncanny travel mate, pointing me in directions i could have never guessed and a burden keeping my nose in the pages looking for the hostel mentioned on page 176…my new philosophy is use sparingly…fellow travelers and locals are better informed and more up to date than any guidebook you can pack.

so straight up transparent d. sweet.

i thought of one other potential positive use for a guidebook (particularly if (a) it’s on a foreign country, (b) you happen to live in that foreign country, and (c) it has your name in it as a contributor.) it’s good for showing the carabineros at border crossings when they flip through your passport and look at you like “really?” and start asking questions about trabajando in their pais.

‘si, si. i’m a guidebook writer.i’m writing a guia turistica. i’m compilando informacion.’

dios mio.

sometimes everything seems so stupid.

borders should be like finish lines at races. instead of soldiers there should be ppl handing you water and cheering. there should be music playing and large bottles of champagne and huge cardboard checks you hold up to the crowd.

anyway, back to the guidebooks:

i’m without a doubt in the same ‘camp’ as you in thinking that the whole guidebook ‘industry’ is dubious, and that ppl paying for books ‘guiding’ their travels is essentially a point of entry into a conversation that’s been mostly overlooked [for going on about 500 years now, i'd say] about people’s–particularly non-indigenous people’s–relationship with the land and expectations of speed / convenience / ‘comfort’ when traveling across it.

one thing i should clarify–i’m not saying that having access to information is inherently wrong and you should go pull a chris chandless.

i’ve just traveled for years and never really used a guidebook. i never thought of this as a ‘statement’ or anything–it just never occurred to me that having one was necessary. i had my spanish-english dictionary + whatever books and notebooks i was reading / writing at the time. and for ‘big picture’ beta i’d print out surf reports and buy maps and write stuff down in my notebooks. as far as local beta–it never occurred to me not to just ask ppl questions along the way and write down what they said, let them draw maps in my journal, etc.

10+ years later and i still do the same thing.now. http://thetravelersnotebook.com/journal-pages/the-longest-running-travel-notebook-ive-ever-had/

this reminds me of something. when i hiked the AT there were these mile by mile trail logs that they sent you when you joined the ATC. they had information about distances, water sources, everything, all laid out for you. i never saw the purpose in carrying those. you had your map with distances, elevations, water sources–why this extra book?

from the perspective of being a guidebook writer: if other ppl need guidebooks, then i’m happy to get paid to write them, and i’m happy for those opportunities to exist for ‘up and coming’ writers at matador. but truthfully, i’m like your hommie–to me the things i really want to read and write are more about the connections between people and place–the overlooked history alluded to above–than recommendations or routes or anything else you might call ‘useful.’

i guess i’ll try to conclude with the (probably way oversimplified) notion that overall: (a) the ‘market’ will ‘reflect’ and ‘adapt’ to whatever ppl are willing to pay for, and (b) that it’s all moving towards mobile devices, which are (c) ‘totally badass’ on one level but (d) just continue to funnel who makes money into narrower and deeper channels while continuing to (e) cultivate ppl’s absolute dependence on ‘gadgets’ that (f) probably aren’t really all that flammable if it came to it.

Write it the way you want and if they don’t like it too bad.

A good guidebook like any good writing is timeless.

Often I go places with no internet, no bookstores, and many times no English speakers. I enjoy reading guidbookes to find out what the heck some other poor sod thought of this place, heck most the time the place isn’t in the book. I read them to while away the time.

Many times the same streets are used to sell noodles at night and that old hotel gone to seed is still there and still retains her charms. I like reading those little asides about a town or a place that only someone who has spent years there would know.

All of the fluff about hotels, restaurants, and transportation, I only read after I’m in my room or eating or on the bus anyway. I mean I have a mouth I can just ask someone.

I also like the bits on language. If everyone knew all the phrases and vocabulary in the guidebook they would have an easier time of it. Usually 99.9% of people can’t say more than hello in the local language.

A good writer inspires me, he loves the place and wants me to also. I never had an interest in the symbolism of the different styles of rooves on the wat, I didn’t know there were different architectural variations depending on which section of the country, that stuff used to bore the hell out of me. A good writer explains it and makes in interesting.

Something was lost when we went from written descriptions to topos. There’s a reason the Brits still have adjectival grades.

Heard via twitter that Lonely Planet has had a bit of a reshuffling of it’s online presence last week, maybe the computer monitor isn’t such a great place to research a country from.

I think the future of guidebooks is owned narrative. Something identifying who the writer is, why they ended up somewhere, but with an obligation to provide more details and accuracy than standard travel writing. As someone who travels alone a lot to sketchy locales, it can be comforting to have another view riding shotgun, even if you think they’re dubious. I think the blind monolith writing style, however, is should carry on. Who’s really an expert on anything?

Yeah, walking down the street, I may notice a little tea shop and it may be the best tea of my life, but the guidebook says “and did you notice this? Or that?” I use it as a second set of eyes and ideas. No one says you have to visit every cave and statue, but imagine if you were in close proximity to one and you missed and later read about it in a piece of travel writing?

I like finding a travel guide that takes me to a place and I think “yes, this was a good choice” and then lists a lot of other good choices in terms of food/accom/entertainment. I’m pretty travel savvy, so by now I’m picky, and I’ve found the odd guide that’s dead on and a lot that aren’t. I also like to read guidebooks after I’ve visited an area and see what someone else describes a place as, testing if they good parts and seeing if I agree. Sometimes they help me to see what other travelers see and to relate to them better.

And, for the record, I am lazy and not organized and a small book with relatively accurate collected information has frequently come in common over long treks. You could assemble all this boring, yet sometimes useful, information on your own… or not.

Too early, David. Too early. Honestly it’s tiring to read the near continuous focus and predictable pieces on the death of the book, the guide in this instance.

The population is not getting any smaller. There’ll always be enough people preferring guidebooks over online searches that require one to sift painfully through largely useless, inadequate and unnspiring information that searches throw up online. So there’ll always be enough numbers to break-even or profit. Just get interesting and useful content in.

As for folks using fancy gadgets to source their information or access e-readers, they’re free to do so. Maybe the were never inclined towards books in the first place, using them because the had no other option.

And none of the gadgets can match the speed with which I can flip pages back and forth or even see them simultanaeously. If need be I can detach the pages I need and carry them. Atleast pages will not put me at risk in places where a gadget can be a tempting target for snatchers.

Oh yes, when travelling I can lend my guidebook for the night to a fellow traveller and strike up a friendship or maybe leave it behind at the hotel like many do, so that travellers to follow can use it.

Far easier to identify for certain and hence possibly befriend a dedicated traveller from the way he’s immersed into a guidebook than say another using a gadget, for you wouldn’t know to what purpose.

What Somsai said.

Though I’d add it depends on your audience. If your guide is to some place with patchy power and crap internet then Wiki or an iPhone App probably isn’t going to cut it. Likewise if you’re talking about a fast changing, totally wired metro hub even the best website will have issues.

How well do you know your readers? Paper clutching or totally wired? That should play a big part in the decision.

Trade in the iPad on a language course — will pay you back in tens.

Ahhh I mean Somchai — sorry!

Amusing post. I guess there are two issues at play here. Paper vs mobile devices (I’, firmly in the paper camp) and the utility of guides (in whatever form).

You struck a chord with me with “Give me a half-decent map, a good 19th-century explorer’s narrative, a gallon of water and maybe a headlamp for good measure, and I’ll set off across the landscape giddy into the unknown.” You are right I think I would shoot for a decent book with a narrative over a modern guide book. Guess that leaves the LP serving a purpose simply as an out of date bus timetable!

“Guidebooks are not obsolete, just like books are not obsolete. ” – Michael

“A good guidebook like any good writing is timeless.” – Somchai

Try traveling with a 30 year old guidebook. Guidebooks are not narratives or novels. They are information compendiums and are as good as the information they contain. If the information is bad or out of date, then the book cannot be used as a guide.

I’ve had this debate before and I’ve noticed one thing: the people who defend guidebooks are the people who make money writing them, not the people who spend money on them.

Like many of the people who have commented here, I don’t use guidebooks. Internet aside, you can find most of the information you need on the ground. There is usually an entire industry built around giving tourists information the information they need to spend money at hotels, restaurants and attractions. Throw the internet into the mix, and you have even more information.

I’m not anti-information (the interent) nor am I anti-book (history books). The idea of 1) hierarchical, authoritative information and 2) compiling timely information into heavy tome of dead trees isn’t a business with a future.

As for Lonely Planet getting rid of their online staff, you should read closer what the CEO of LP said. They are moving more toward curation of user generated content online. The idea that a few layoffs at LP is somehow going to turn back the hands of time and get people away from their computers is silly.

The following was up top of my twitter feed this morning.

travelfish RT @EverywhereTrip: Twilight of the Travel Guidebook? http://bit.ly/b4Oa0N Best guidebook I’ve read to Bali. Written in 1946. Never updated

Lonely Planet’s online content has been the butt of jokes for longer than the one year newly arrived (from Wall Street) CEO has been on the job. Perhaps he’s looking to do for Tohy Wheeler’s old company what the banks did for the market.

My arguement isn’t dead trees versus electrons as much as it is well informed researched content verus third hand information. My favorite guide is online only, but they employ writers, often expats who speak the language and know the country. Lonely Planet claims a land border between Thailand and China. A cursory look at Wikitravel reveals information that was wrong before it was posted. I can read something for laughs only so long.

Guidebooks can be useful for newbie travelers who may be uncertain of their travels, especially if they’re traveling solo. Experienced travelers may not use guidebooks, but new travelers may appreciate them and give them a sense of security. They’ll know what places to see and have all the information in one location.

‘owned narrative’

i like that.

“My favorite guide is online only. . .”

as jeff jarvis said, ‘transparency is a necessary ethic of the age.’

who is your favorite guide? why keep it hidden? big them up.

Gary,

Just to clarify when I said “Guidebooks are not obsolete”… I didn’t mean a specific guidebook (let’s say one that is 30 years old), I meant the Guidebook as an institution. Clearly they need to be updated as places change, businesses go under, even political situations make one destination safer (Colombia) while another more dangerous (Pakistan).

As for getting information on the ground… I feel you might be writing from the perspective of someone who is constantly on the road. If you are in perpetual motion, then perhaps there’s no need (or time) for guidebooks – because you are always on the “ground”. Why read a guidebook when you can just look around, interact, and experience? However, if you spend most of your time in one place, and not on the road, then guidebooks can be especially practical and inspiring, especially when they are well written. I find the internet often provides too much information, and that by reading a guidebook first, I am better equipped when I do use the computer to go into more depth or get more up-to-date info.

I’ll weigh in as a guidebook user. While guidebooks are certainly not the only source of information I use as an expat traveler, I still enjoy having them and using them. I use them in the planning phase to get ideas for itineraries and learn some background info on local cultures. Traveling in northern Pakistan I used 3 guidebooks, although I also speak Urdu, stayed with local families and learned from expats living in the area.

One guide was invaluable in that it described each part of the Karakoram Highway’s terrain. I was reading it as we were driving it in our Toyota. We knew where to stop, when to get gas and what parts of the road were most likely to have landslides.There were no people around to ask. It was often miles between towns and you’d be lucky to see a goatherd in the distance. In North West Frontier Province, I’d much rather read the guidebook than ask a local, some of whom were throwing rocks at our car and all of whom were men.

Trekking sections and accommodation info are particularly helpful. Many places I go there’s no Internet and there might not be any other travelers. I like to know which hotels have running water, western toilets and food that won’t land me in the ER for a month. These places are not online due to a small amount of travelers to the area, so even if a guidebook writer stayed there several years before, this is better info that I might get otherwise. Yes I can look at all the area hotels myself, but at the end of a multi-bus trip that’s not always something I want to do. Sure info will be outdated, but if a place was dirty and moldy and ran a brothel out of it before, it’s probably still a place I’d want to avoid.

Not only do guidebooks offer practical information, but guidebooks can serve as a catalogue for notes. I still look back to some of my old guidebooks to see where I stayed, who I met and how much things cost. I write notes in the margins about all sorts of details, and I manage to hold on the guidebook better better than I do my hundreds of notebooks.

i have been traveling rtw but haven’t use much travel guides; in some countries i have not even bought one. instead i prefer talking with locals and others travelers along the way and get inspired by their stories and hints

I still buy a guidebook before every trip. It is less for specific planning and more to help the dreaming. I don’t really route my trips until I feel like I have a good overall understanding of the country/region and for that, guidebooks are still valuable to me. And I love holding something in my hands that isn’t a print out. That said, I almost didn’t buy the LP Brazil because I saw the published date of the most recent edition and thought, well, I’ll have to use other travel sites to figure out where to say because the reviews aren’t as current as the ones I could find online. Then again, the ones online can be flubbed by the owners and their competitors. It’s a complex question for sure.

I find that what I’m most often looking for in a guidebook is the practical logistics stuff that I cannot possibly know and which is too mundane to be easily available online. For instance, in planning my upcoming trip to Peru, it’s helpful that the Lonely Planet spells out the fact that most Peruvian cities don’t have a reliable central bus station, but instead each private company has its own separate HQ and point of departure.

Guidebooks are often a good way to get a basic sense of a country, especially geographically – how far are Lima and Cuzco from each other? Are there other places in Peru I might want to visit? How far are those places from the places I already know I want to see? What’s the best way to travel between all of these places? How long will that take? Sure, one can google the information nowadays — but for the most part, it’s available because guidebooks have begun to morph into online guides. Not because the genre is dead.

We still use guidebooks–in particular for the hiking/backpacking trips we take. The Lonely Planet guide to Torres del Paine and the Spanish Camino de Santiago provided day-by-day itineraries for those treks. The Wilderness Press guides to the Pacific Crest Trail are a basic necessity. (Not that these guides are always accurate, but they still are important resources.) On top of that, many of the places we travel don’t have the Internet or phone coverage.

When I am traveling within a country, I carry a guidebook to that country (or region) to see what museums to visit, etc. I know that I could get much of that info online or with various apps, but I wouldn’t want to be bothered when I can easily find what I want in an organized guidebook.

Unlike some of the earlier comments, I rarely buy guidebooks for inspiration. I tend to be inspired about new places in newspaper’s travel sections or by word of mouth.

I think the future (and the future is now) of publishing will be publishing guidebooks in multiple formats (print, online, etc.)

I often buy 2-4 guidebooks for each place I expect to visit during a trip. I find it much easier to use comprehensive guidebooks and decent paper maps to begin planning a journey than to start first with on-line resources. Then I turn to Websites for updated information on hotels, restaurants, modes of transportation, visitor ratings, on-line booking, etc. (Guidebooks save me time on-line by providing the Website addresses for those sources of information).

Frommer’s, Moon, Lonely Planet, and (for Europe) Rick Steves’ guidebooks are the ones I most often use, although I also visit local bookstores during my trip to look for guidebooks by local/regional authors that aren’t readily available in stores where I live.

I rip out relevant sections of guidebooks and take them along when I’m on the road using my netbook and iPhone to access on-line information when I’m traveling. I also carry paper/plastic folding maps although I use my iPhone’s mapping/location-based Apps, too.

And, of course, I’m not averse to wandering off down the less-trodden path just to see what I’ll find, or asking “locals” or other travelers for recommendations, too.

@ Gary – I’ve always wanted to travel with a decades out of date guidebook. It would have to be the right sort of trip – for instance I would at least need to speak the local language enough to rectify the lack of reliable information. And I’d want it to be a place that has been on the scene long enough to have an interestingly old guidebook.

We have the WPA Guide to New York City – filled with descriptions of NYC from the 1930′s, laid out in the format of a guide book. It’s pretty excellent!

I like guidebooks. I don’t always use them but I like having them, reading them and admiring them. As a music/travel/film geek I have shelves and shelves of Cds, travel books and DVDs. Splendid things guide books.

I don’t use them to book hostels – hostelworld is normally far more use – but I like the background info, the maps and the basic info and they’re invaluable for planning. I’m invariably whizzing round in a rush with no time for dallying so guidebooks are great (if they have bus journey lengths) for planning a vague route.

Also, when I live in a place, I use them for Sunday afternoon inspiration. It’s so easy to forget to be a traveller in your own back yard. Before I left England, I spent a month going to museums and galleries in my own city that I’d never bothered with before.

Read the ‘people and culture’ info about your own country. Fascinating to see how you’re seen from outside. Any guidebook to England is full of reminders to drive on the right which is the most obvious thing in the world to me.

I have been involved with traditional print publishing for over 30 years, and I am saddened to say I might be helping its demise by not buying guide books.

So much in your article resonated with me–good words strung together in comprehensive sentences are always fun.

“Owned narrative” migtht make the most sense of anything to me–I like doing my own guide books, from online sources, and then doing print on demand, so I only take what’s necessary to me BUT I am always asking “what do you know about _____ because I like the back story, I like the personal and intimate reasons why anyone travels, and I can add those things to my personal guidebook.

To me guidebooks are like cookbooks–”Pretty shiny picture. Must go Rome now.” Then I can tweak the Rome recipe any way I want it and, and it becomes my experience and not someone elses. Plus I don’t have to carry all that weight.

I’ve been travelling since 1994, back before internet cafes and mobile phones were even options. A lot of the time, i was too broke to buy guidebooks. I had a lot of false starts and frustrations as a result- showing up in Barcelona at 2am and trying to find a hostel with no idea where to even begin? Not fun. Tromping around for hours trying to find a place to cash my travellers cheques in the days before ATMs? Annoying.

That said, I managed to travel for about three years without guidebooks or internet but I think I’m doing much better now, with a combination of internet research and paper guidebooks. A bit of both helps a lot when you are somewhere in Eastern Java trying to figure out how on earth to get to a certain volcano when public bus routes are really hard to figure out and very irregular in their timing.

Locals don’t necessarily know what you need to know about where you are travelling. I spent two years living in central Turkey and I ended up knowing more about buses and small hotels and places to eat while on the road in that area than my colleagues did because they often didn’t use regional hotels or inter-village mini buses or eat street food. For me, a guide book is a lovely tool to get everything you need together in one place, including internet printouts I slide between the pages with additional information I might need. I like knowing that this road will eventually end and that there’s a bed waiting for me at the other end. All too often, in my let’s-hope-for-the-best days, I ended up sleeping in dodgy places or missing out on things I wish I ‘d seen or eating really dodgy food. In a happy clappy ideal world some lovely local would take you under their wing and all sorts of wonderful adventures and insights would ensue but that’s not necessarily going to happen, no matter how outgoing you are.

It’s an interesting discussion. I’m David’s guidebook publisher making the suggestion that a guide now needs to be crafted in a way that compliments rather than competes with digital delivery. I travel with an iPhone, own a GPS device, etc. In general, these things way outdo a printed guide if you’re in a place and want to find a pizza joint in the neighborhood. The lookup functions way outshine print.

Where the guidebook still has a role is in travel planning. We all are tending to take shorter vacations and that puts time at a premium. You don’t have the first couple of days in a place to figure it out or you’ve blown half your time there. So, there’s a premium on advance planning. Trying to do that using iPhones and the web is not easy.

David’s an adventurer. So, having some tinder in the form of a printed guide along with some basic orienteering is all it takes. That’s fine. But, it begs the question of how you picked and ended up in that particular venue in the first place. We print our seasonal catalogs with a slogan of “Books that take you where you want to go”!

In short, guides are most certainly going to change. But, until we have devices that deliver digital differently than what we have today, I’m willing to bet printed guides are not yet in their death throes.

My biggest beef with guidebooks is that they make everything, everywhere sound like it’s the best thing ever. Hardly will a sight or place live up to the hype that a guidebook builds it up to be. I enjoy reading the history/background sections the most. I learned more about Cuba reading a travel narrative – Zoe Bran’s “Enduring Cuba” – than from the guidebook we had.

Nonetheless I still think there are very practical bits of information in them and it’s nice to have it distilled in one convenient to-carry book. As it’s been said many times before, sometimes they’re just good to let you know where NOT to go.

My fave guidebook was Trailblazer’s Transsiberian Handbook by Bryn Thomas. It was almost purely practical info, with none of the hyped up BS prevalent in almost all guidebooks. His template on how to write a Cyrillic note to buy your train ticket was priceless.

As another guidebook author, I can definitely relate to the underlying message here – book-buying per se is an endangered species, and people can get a LOT of info online without ever picking up a book in any way. But, from what we see with our Orlando title (admittedly for the UK market), there is definitely still a solid market for a well-focused, info-packed and realistic guidebook, especially for the more complicated (and bewildering) destinations like Orlando. We also bought a LP guide to Chile quite recently and were glad we did as we were able to appreciate the country’s history, culture and wildlife MUCH more as a result. Plus, we could read it on the plane!

Planning my trip and becoming intimate with a place, its history and its culture, is just as much fun as visiting. Not only does this get me excited with anticipation and helps me day-dream, it helps me avoid the pitfalls and maximizes my precious time so that I get to do and see what intrigues me the most.

To do this, I trust guidebooks. More importantly, I trust travel writers. I know their names and find their books. I cross reference one author’s description of a place to another. I compare one brand of guidebooks to another. I trust certain brands of guidebooks and their authors, and I distrust others.

Although I may double check outdated print sources online, I definitely prefer print. Web sources for travel are often unorganized, incomplete and depending on the source, distrustful. I work all day with computers, smart phones and web browsing. The last thing I want do after coming home from work, is to make my travel planning like work. I stay analog.

To take this a step further, I don’t think one is immersing themselves in a place they are visiting if they’re checking their iPhone for a place to eat. Com’on! We all know you’re also checking your email, what the weather is going to do tomorrow and where the hippest club in Beirut is. Drop the electronics!! Be human again, even if its only for your measly two week of PTO a year.

Having a strict plan when you travel is also no good– it will only go wrong. But, having a trusty back-up in the bottom of your pack like a good guidebook is always a good thing. Besides, you may need to stay warm and start a fire, or throw something across your shared accomodation at the guy across the room whose snorring. I bet you $100 you won’t throw your iPod!!

Guidebooks need to become more relavent, stay up-to-date and tell a better story. But they still need to do what they always done…be your friend away from home when your lost or need direction.

I just want to say that on my flight from Boston to London, my first solo trip outside of the country, I had Lonely Planet’s guide to London. I was thumbing through every page that I thought could even be remotely relevant to my trip, focusing on the areas around where I was going to be (Lambeth area, South of the Eye). I couldn’t stop getting more excited, I think I slept about 2 hours on that flight (mistake). By the time I arrived at customs I probably had 15 to 20 different pages dog eared in my guidebook, destinations, restaurants and attractions highlighted, I was ecstatic. However, I’m an extremely sociable person, and my excitement could not be contained. Every single person I talked to I asked if they had been to London before:

“You have?! If you could only see one thing, eat one thing, do one thing, or all of the above, while here, which would it be?! If you can’t pick one….then just give me a couple!”

Literally everyone, I asked the cute Indian lady at the customs counter the same thing. She was, and still is, the only happy customs agent I have EVER had, literally ever… She was more than glad to give me some tips. If I hadn’t spoken to her I never would have found out about Burrough Market, this place is Heaven. It’s like God came down to Earth, decided he was going to group every cuisine in the world that is known for good food, bring natives from those countries, experts on their food, and group in this one open air market across from the London Bridge. During that week, I should have been Turkish with the amount of Turkish delight I ate; or maybe Argentine, because I ate two jars of dulce de leche for dessert(lie, whenever I so chose); I reached back to my roots with this old Italian gentleman who made the best bread in the world, filled with garlic, dried peppers and tomatoes, topped with golden cheese, made every night before; I sipped fine, home crafted wine from a new bottle every day; had strips of meat cut off a dry roast where the Spaniards love my feeble attempts at Spanish; I ate mozzarella cold out of the water from the young Italian woman who I had a huge crush on that week.

My ramble over- I sit here at my desk in my dorm room and look at the books leaning at the top of my desk, and right there in the middle, dwarfed by my larger copies of The Prince, Utopia, The Picture of Dorian Gray, Looking Backward, Beowulf, Fight club, The Illustrated Man, and Bless Me Ultima sits my copy of Lonely Planet’s guide to London. The same pages are still dog eared and I have opened maybe twice since I returned from London. The only information I received from that book was from the tear out map of London from the back, which was invaluable. However, I would still buy another guidebook before my next trip. Who knows if I would have been as excited about London had I not. There will always be a special place in my heart for London, maybe it’s thanks to Lonely Planet, or the cute Indian woman at customs, but whatever it is, it was a great trip.

The best guidebooks are like the best professors: they deliver history, narrative, legends and jokes, and take you into some world you’ve never seen. The Turkey you learned about from historian Tom Brosnahan, Lonely Planet’s original Turkey guidebook author, was not the one you found in the crotchety Rough Guide or the matter-of-fact Fodor’s; nor could a dozen random websites compare.

When solar-powered Kindles offer every book on earth, and we’re able to download travel guides for $2.95 each, we’ll stop having this argument.

Ooooh, I’m a New Yorker — I should get my hands on a copy of that and play Great Depression Tourist in my own city…

I think guide books are useful but in conjucntion with the internet & word of mouth. I have been living in Soain for almost three years now & when we moved here from England people gave us a variety of guidebooks. We often refer to them as we are still in the getting to know our new area stage. Many of the places around here are referred to in them as ‘just a pass by place’. with ‘nothing of note’ there. I’ve lost count of the times I’ve ended up going to a lot of these places & finding that yes there is something to see there. These places are worth a stop. So now we often explore without the guidebook………

Great discussion! Thanks for the read all of you.

If someone is counting the votes, yes, I have and will always use guidebooks for the big trips among all the other sources. Print variety. Whether my trips are short or long, the itinerary simple or complex, back to a place(s) I know fairly well or to a completely new destination, somehow there are always choices to make, alternatives to consider, changes to welcome and revisit or avoid.

Reading about it ahead of time or referring to the book while enroute or in place doesn’t need to diminish the spontaneity of the experience for me.

I truly believe that travel apps will be able to provide just as much (maybe even more, current=relevant information) as guide books did. Regarding the starting fire question – I will admit that I have needed to rip out pages of my Lonely Planet to roll a certain special cigarillo.

Regarding travel writing and stories – bring along a novel and pass it along. This couldn’t be done with an iPhone, (or Kindle really, for that matter which I do not condone) but fill the extra room your iPhone leaves in your backpack with other travel books or….just relish that fact that you can now travel even lighter.

There are as many manufacturers of lousy electronics as there are hack guidebook writers. When electronics are produced that can sustain the hardship of nature (and when the last Boomer takes their final breath) then perhaps the modern printed guidebook will die.

I still like the smell of ink and feel of paper. It’s comforting to know that when the battery dies on my IPod in the middle of the Alaska, that I can still reach for my tattered copy of “Roughing It.”

I read one article where a woman used her guidebook as emergency toilet paper.

Personally, I thought guidebooks were useless, until I got some as gifts. Then again, it depends where you go. I loved reading my Montreal & Quebec City Lonely Planet Guide– highlighting it, making notes of the places I went to, cutting and pasting helpful info in the back notes page…especially since I didn’t keep a travel journal of my trip.

I also loved my Lithuania Bradt guide book, because there wasn’t much info on Lithuania on the Wikitravel website, and the results from searching on Google were for tours. My Lithuania Bradt guide was something else to make notes in, even though I kept a journal of that journey.

Now, I am planning a trip for Ukraine and an overnight stay in London, but I am not exploring the whole region. I don’t think I really need a guidebook, because I’m looking at the In Your Pocket Guides and trying something different: Moleskines. You can do anything in these books, but I am writing all the information I’ll need in these books. They also have an expandable inner pocket to insert stuff in. I’ll see how these are.

Good points.

No 100 % sure that this is the one Somchai meant, but it’s the best contemporary guide for SE Asia online or in print.

http://www.travelfish.org/

Thanks, my computer broke and it took me a couple of weeks to get up again.

yes travelfish, still small and new enough to be opinionated. Even if I disagree I love to know what someone thought of a place.

Thanks everyone for all the terrific and finely honed comments! We’ll see how it plays out.

In the meantime, if you haven’t already, check out NPR’s Andrei Codrescu on the pleasures of traveling with a century-old guidebook (thx @evaholland!).