Lonely Planet. Thank God Its Finally Dead

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Re: Lonely Planet. Thank God Its Finally Dead

Postby marie-angelique » Tue Apr 05, 2011 8:05 pm

i find the thorn tree very annoying. it's like the rick steves of forums. tons of info for backpackers in spain. shite info for say russia. watch out for a bitch named Ruth or something like that if you try to get info on russia.

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Re: Lonely Planet. Thank God Its Finally Dead

Postby JamesInTheWorld » Wed Apr 06, 2011 8:51 am

130 Mil? - man good on them, the American dream


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Re: Lonely Planet. Thank God Its Finally Dead

Postby coldharvest » Thu Apr 07, 2011 3:36 am

JamesInTheWorld wrote:130 Mil? - man good on them, the American dream

It was a shoddy product that's over-hyped and sold for more than it's worth to chumps, so yeah, American as apple pie.
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Postby el3so » Thu Apr 07, 2011 2:40 pm

marie-angelique wrote:troll city
Remember when we invaded them?
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Re:

Postby coldharvest » Thu Apr 07, 2011 2:45 pm

el3so wrote:
marie-angelique wrote:troll city
Remember when we invaded them?

Kurt's whaling post is one of the funniest things I've ever read......having read The Bible and Koran.
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Re: Lonely Planet. Thank God Its Finally Dead

Postby crotalus01 » Fri Apr 08, 2011 4:17 am

The only times I ever used a LP was in Cambodia and Morocco. Both were the newest editions available, and both were hopelessly outdated. Cambodia in 2002 I can understand being outdated because things change so quickly there, but Morocco?? I tried for a restaraunt in Marakesh that was raved about in the 05 edition (this was in 05) and the place had been closed for 2 years! NO excuse for that kind of shoddiness in a guidebook.
I also use Bradt whenever they have a guide for the country i am going to - The miniguide for Kabul served me very well.
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Re: Lonely Planet. Thank God Its Finally Dead

Postby friendlyskies » Sat Apr 09, 2011 5:12 pm

crotalus01 wrote:The only times I ever used a LP was in Cambodia and Morocco. Both were the newest editions available, and both were hopelessly outdated. Cambodia in 2002 I can understand being outdated because things change so quickly there, but Morocco?? I tried for a restaraunt in Marakesh that was raved about in the 05 edition (this was in 05) and the place had been closed for 2 years! NO excuse for that kind of shoddiness in a guidebook.
I also use Bradt whenever they have a guide for the country i am going to - The miniguide for Kabul served me very well.


Well - that wasn't Tony and Maureen per se. What happened was that in 1999 or so, they sold 15% of the company to this Australian businessman, I forget his name but he was the "Donald Trump of Oz." His big thing was that they had to streamline the company to make it more profitable. So, one of the first things they did was review the contracts of authors who had been working on the same book for five, six, seven editions, and who were getting paid like $40,000-60,000 per book. That might seem reasonable for a year of work, but remember that there were trust-fund kids fresh out of college who were willing to lose money to write a Lonely Planet guide - you could get away with paying them a $4000 "advance," no royalties, and save yourself $36,000-$56,000 per edition.

So, they fired all these old-timers. I have no idea if the Cambodia and Morocco books were among them.

Afterward, they hired all these new authors and then didn't train them. Zip, zero, no training. And, since the editorial staff was being cut (they laid off 150 people in 2002), many authors didn't get the readers' letters or book notes until after they'd done the research trip. New authors were told that the low payments were part of LP's new plan to force them to be "real" budget travelers - it was for authenticity rather than increasing profits. I mean, there books where you really needed to rent a car to cover the region, but they'd say, "Hey, take a bus like the backpackers do." But tourists don't have to go to that little tiny town with one bus per day, authors do. If an author complained that it wasn't enough, they were harshly chided - and even publicly humiliated - for being too wasteful and not resourceful enough. The guy with the job of doing that, T.D., was paid his full salary as a managing editor whenever he wrote a book, while I know of some authors who lost thousands of dollars because they agreed on a contract without really knowing what they were getting into (since for many of them, it was their first time in the country, or as an author of any kind). As a result, a lot of new authors skimped on coverage, though many did the best that they could with insufficient funds and training.

This didn't affect sales, thanks to LP's excellent branding, although it obviously hurt quality. Since then, I've heard they've really taken pains to increase pay to authors, train authors, and fixed a lot of went wrong during that period. But I have a feeling your 2002 Cambodia and 2005 Morocco book were among of the victims of that little episode.
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Re: Lonely Planet. Thank God Its Finally Dead

Postby Penta » Sat Apr 09, 2011 5:46 pm

That explains a lot. I knew something along those lines had been going on, but not the detail. Thanks.
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Re: Lonely Planet. Thank God Its Finally Dead

Postby gazavat » Wed Apr 13, 2011 11:17 pm

I guess they might be different depending on authors and countries. One i had in Iran had a big boxed text advertising a multi-language travel guide in Tabriz. I have strong reasons to suspect that this guy snitched on me to the authorities (i had some paperwork problem) and that ultimately landed me in Ministry for Criminal Investigations in Tehran. Later i had heard same opinion from another traveler - he claimed he was deported because of that Tabriz guy statements.
On the other hand Tibet book of 2001 was great - with a lot of information, hints on illegal traveling in closed zones and a very impartial assessment of trekking in Ngari. Problem is that you can never tell beforehand which edition calls really dangerous trek "dangerous" (like Tibet book) and which will call an easy walk "a demanding trek" (as new Indian Hymalaya editions do).
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Re: Lonely Planet. Thank God Its Finally Dead

Postby friendlyskies » Sat Apr 16, 2011 9:34 pm

gazavat wrote:On the other hand Tibet book of 2001 was great - with a lot of information, hints on illegal traveling in closed zones and a very impartial assessment of trekking in Ngari. Problem is that you can never tell beforehand which edition calls really dangerous trek "dangerous" (like Tibet book) and which will call an easy walk "a demanding trek" (as new Indian Hymalaya editions do).


Well, re: the Iranian tour guide, it's impossible (and probably risky in Iran) to vet every tour outfit to see how "cool" they are about doing drugs or overstaying visas. You can't always ask about illegal activity directly.

And as far as warnings in travel guides, in general, guidebook writers err on the side of caution - that stuff is written for weaker, newer travelers. For instance, the "demanding trek" might not have been that demanding for you, but what about a pudgy chain smoker coming straight from sea level, or a family with preteen children? Writers can't do every hike in a country, either; he or she might have been told, probably by a park ranger, that it was demanding. It's always better to confirm actual trail length, elevation change, and difficulty on the ground, and consider your own physical condition when planning for it.
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