Huge Trees, Bronze Medals, New Guidebooks

A quick round-up of Interesting Things over here:

1. Holy #$%@!! Redwoods. Amazing. Utterly Amazing. 

Maren and I headed out to northern California for our honeymoon. We did a little road trip among giant trees, hillside vineyards, and a certain infamous island prison. The highlight, without question, was the ten-mile hike we impulsively decided to do at Prairie Creek State Park, home of some of the tallest living things on the planet.

Redwoods. Go there. Put away all your Eight Gazillion Things to Do Before You Die guidebooks and trust me on this one: You've gotta see these forests. Photos don't begin to do them justice. It's like ... it's like I want to take back all the other times in my life that I've used the word "majestic," because nothing else seems worthy.

Also: fern-walled canyons, like something out of The Lost World. 

Actually, Spielberg came here to film scenes for Jurassic Park 2: The Lost World. But you don't even need to know that, or to have seen the movie, to be awe-struck and struck, in an elemental and abiding sort of way, by how wondrously, mesmerizingly primeval this place is. As Maren put it, "If a Tyrannosaurus Rex ate me right now, I wouldn't even mind, because it would feel so appropriate."  

Redwoods. I'm telling you, begging you. Go. See them. You can thank me later.

2. An award for Europe on Five Wrong Turns a Day

The day of our trek through the Land Of The Giants And Maybe Some Dinosaurs just so happened to be the same day that the Society of American Travel Writers announced the winners of their annual Lowell Thomas Awards. When we got back to the hotel, I logged onto the internet for just a sec to check the announcement and ... Hey! Sweet! 

I'm delighted and honored to say that Europe on Five Wrong Turns a Day picked up the bronze for Best Travel Book!

3. Back to basics: The Return of Frommer's Guidebooks

I'm not one for fantasy football, but if there were a fantasy league to keep tabs on guidebook publishers, I'd be all in. I mean, you've all been following this as closely as I have, right? The ups and downs and power plays and intriguing goings-on?  

For anyone who hasn't been been hanging on every detail, here's a quick run-down of my own favorite publisher:

August 2012: Google buys Frommer's

March 2013: Google quietly says that well, y'know, there's a chance that ... ummm ... Yeah, we're not gonna keep publishing Frommer's as a hard-copy guidebook line. Sorry about that but, well, changing world and all that. 

Two weeks later: Arthur Frommer buys his guidebook line back from Google. (As a friend of mine said, incredulously, "I didn't know you could do that--buy something from Google.") Frommer announces plans to start printing new guidebooks in the autumn. 

Hey, you know what it is right now? Autumn 2013. And true to his word, Frommer is relaunching his new guidebooks. As he told the Los Angeles Times, “Fifty-seven years later, I’m returning to what I originally did. ... I'm probably the oldest fledgling publisher in world history.”

Full article: "Now reinventing the Frommer guidebooks: The Frommer family."

That weird honking noise is me blowing my party horn. While wearing a paper party hat, natch. In my world, this is big, exciting news. 

Guidebooks of doom and the new Chinese Grand Tourists

These links are a bit old, but still of note: 

1. Guidebooks to Risky Attractions Stir Up Trouble in Paradise

The Wall Street Journal reports that in Hawaii, too many tourists are doing dangerous-slash-stupid things based on guidebook recommendations. So many, in fact, that the state legislature is considering a law to "hold Hawaii guidebook writers personally liable for deaths or accidents at spots they recommend."

I think it bears repeating: the best guide is some common sense. 

2. The Grand Tour: Europe on fifteen hundred yuan a day (from The New Yorker)

There's that old headline trope again: Europe on [monetary amount] a day, the cheap journalism cliche that originated with, of course, Europe on Five Dollars a Day, and now just won't stop. In any case, though, this article offers an interesting insight into the newest generation of Grand Tourists. Many of the points and anecdotes are similar to those in the Economist article from last year about Chinese Grand Tourists, although it's still fertile ground for storytelling. 

In the front row of the bus, Li stood facing the group with a microphone in hand, a posture he would retain for most of our waking hours in the days ahead. In the life of a Chinese tourist, guides play an especially prominent role—translator, raconteur, and field marshal—and Li projected a calm, seasoned air. He often referred to himself in the third person—Guide Li—and he prided himself on efficiency. “Everyone, our watches should be synchronized,” he said. “It is now 7:16 p.m.” He implored us to be five minutes early for every departure. “We flew all the way here,” he said. “Let’s make the most of it.”

As long as the demographics of tourists keep changing--that is, as long as more people from more places and more backgrounds start traveling--the tourist trail will continue to evolve, to have fresh stories, to retain an intrinsic newness and intrigue. Each person, each culture passing through, leaves its own mark.  

A guidebook for the forgotten tourists

This article from the Times is several months old, but new to me:

For almost three decades beginning in 1936, many African-American travelers relied on a booklet to help them decide where they could comfortably eat, sleep, buy gas, find a tailor or beauty parlor, shop on a honeymoon to Niagara Falls, or go out at night. In 1949, when the guide was 80 pages, there were five recommended hotels in Atlanta. In Cheyenne, Wyo., the Barbeque Inn was the place to stay.

The story also provides an interesting example of guidebook as snapshot of a particular historic and cultural moment--because they are, in a sense, a how-to manual for everyday life, they can provide all kinds of unvarnished insights into the cultural norms of an era ... for better or for worse. In this case, the Times headline gets at the underlying story: "The Open Road Wasn’t Quite Open to All." Read the whole article here.

On a related note, one interesting thing I learned in my book research was that, even through the 1950s and 1960s, there was a strong tradition of middle class African-American tourists traveling to Europe not just to see the sites but because they knew they would encounter less racism, and be able to travel more freely, across the Atlantic. For more on that ... you'll just have to wait a year for the book (and then turn to the Vienna chapter). Or check out Christopher Endy's Cold War Holidays.

Fodor: "The Spy Who Loved Travel"

I know a guidebook writer. He claims the gig isn't quite as glamorous as you'd think. I'm inclined to believe him since, hey, travel writing isn't all daiquiris on beaches and Mai Thais on mountaintops, either. But Eugene Fodor, it turns out, was every bit as dashing and bad-ass as the rest of us travel scribes only pretend to be. 

He was a spy. And he hired other spies to write for him. No joke. From the AP: 

According to Hunt, Fodor had worked as a spy in Austria when the Office of Strategic Services became the CIA and continued in intelligence for 12 to 15 years. Fodor tried to keep the lid on in late 1974 and early `75, fearing relatives of his Czech-born wife could be put in danger. But pressed by the paper's expose, he acknowledged his covert work _ and his hiring of many guidebook writers who were CIA spies during the Cold War.

"But I told them to make sure and send me real writers, not civil engineers. I wanted to get some writing out of them. And I did, too," Fodor told the Times in June 1975.

In unrelated guidebook-related news, I was kind of amused by this post on Esquire.com about "Great Moments in Italian Food History," specifically this line:

1960 — Arthur Frommer's book Europe on $5 a Day becomes a bestseller; tens of thousands of young Americans travel to Italy

Truth. And Chef Boyardee, among others, piggybacked on the new American fascination with this sauce-covered deliciousness. For more on that, step right this way, please.

100 ways social media will make your travel experience, like, SO much more authentic and enlightening and off the beaten path and, you know, all that awesome stuff. Also, Justin Bieber (is not mentioned anywhere in this post).

Trying out a new SEO tactic here. You know, like the cool kids. You'll see why. Also, this post really isn't as grouchy as that headline might lead you to believe. 

Stop me if you've heard this one before. From today's Washington Post:

Crowdsourcing a Panama trip


Less than 24 hours after I announced on Facebook that I was heading to Panama, the tips started rolling in.


... Never mind that I hadn't seen these people in years. They were my Facebook friends, and I was willing to take their advice. I am, after all, a Facebook junkie.


Which is why I was thrilled to discover several new Web sites that merge my two favorite things: social media and travel. TripAdvisor recently integrated its site with Facebook so that you can see where your "friends" have visited and read any reviews they've posted. Other Web sites - Gogobot, IgoUgo,Travellerspoint and Tripping, among others - are creating communities of travelers Facebook-style.


So I wondered: Could I toss aside my guidebooks and plan an entire trip based on tips from virtual friends? Could I, in social media lingo, crowdsource a vacation?

Now, if you just read the first page (of three) and the last couple of paragraphs of the article, you could easily get the distinct impression that the conclusion is this: guidebooks are dead--social media is the only way to go! All hail social media! Now, I've already ranted about offered oh-so-insightful comments on some of this before, but it's worth revisiting it, especially because I think this Post article offers a more complete picture, even if you have to sort of read between the lines to see it.

I'm guessing various bloggers and Facebookers are going to latch onto those themes without a second thought, never mind that the writer, Nancy Trejos, encounters some serious setbacks, namely: (a) she gets too many tips and ends up trying to do too many things, and (b) a bunch of the tips are total duds.

In short, the experience is hit-or-miss--like most travel methods. But here's a kind of maybe REALLY IMPORTANT observation that passes by without any real comment: the things that save the trip are:

• Serendipity.
• A local expert. 

After a series of frustrations, Ms. Trejos comes to prefer the advice of that local expert, a friend-of-a-friend who works for the UN.

In other words, the true lesson to draw from the article is that you're ultimately best-served by relying on the exact same thing that travelers have been relying on for, well ... forever. The person on the ground. The local expert. Also, it helps if that person works for the UN or is otherwise someone with an outsider's perspective but an insider's knowledge.

And, yes, social media can help you work your network to find that expert. Granted. But, let's face it, there are many other ways, aside from Facebook and the like, to make those contacts. Online crowdsourcing is just one more means to that end. And sometimes it just gets in the way.

Of course, that conclusion won't get you a lot of Diggs and "likes" and retweets. It's not great SEO. A few months back, the Post's inimitable Gene Weingarten had a column about the "new media"-oriented newsroom.

Every few days at The Washington Post, staffers get a notice like this: "Please welcome Dylan Feldman-Suarez, who will be joining the fact-integration team as a multiplatform idea triage specialist, reporting to the deputy director of word-flow management and video branding strategy. Dylan comes to us from the social media utilization division of Sikorsky Helicopters."

I can't help but wonder if that social media emphasis becomes self-perpetuating: social media loves social media, so social media types get all excited when someone talks about social media. (Still with me?)

And I strongly suspect that's the ultimate reason that this travel article doesn't play up what seem to be its most important points: not much has changed, actually. At the top of page one of that article, there's a slide show sidebar (say that five times fast). The caption reads:

Panama: Off the beaten path
Nancy Trejos discovered Panama's hidden gems thanks to recommendations from her online social network.

Wait. No, she didn't. At least, not really, since her online friends led her astray just as often, and her best guide was--say it with me now--THE LOCAL EXPERT.

I guess honesty isn't very SEO-friendly.

(You know what is SEO-friendly, though? Cliches. Can we please please have a moratorium on "off the beaten path," at least in headlines?)

Guidebooks vs. the internet, part 9829

From Sunday's New York Times:

Narrowing the Choices, Online

When it comes to planning a vacation, travelers can either spend hours online figuring out where to go, which flights and hotels to book, and what to do when they get there, or they can call a travel agent to figure it out for them. Now, a new breed of members-only Web sites is offering something in between.

Call it the curated search. These hybrid sites aim to eliminate much of the annoyance of online trip planning by winnowing the selection of hotels and destinations to an edited list, which has been vetted to appeal to the sensibilities of affluent travelers

Gosh, what a concept! You know what would be even better? If they printed those recommendations and compiled them into a dead-tree edition! But "curated search" is kind of a mouthful. Let's come up with a new name.

Call it ... a guidebook.

From $5 to $95: the evolution of a guidebook budget

You used to be able to find the Europe on $__ a Day guidebooks listed on the Frommers.com web site, here. Now you land on a page reading "404 error - page not found." The metaphor is all too obvious, all too cheap, yet still retains some essential poignancy: the guidebook that led millions of people around unfamiliar terrain is now lost itself.

The "dollar-a-day" books ended in 2007, fifty years after it started; the final version was Europe on $95 a Day. The timeline below shows how the titular amount evolved over the years. Just for kicks, I've added the inflation-adjusted worth of $5 in 1957; these amounts are listed in brackets (and for the record, according to the US government, $5 in 1957 has the same buying power as $38.87 now--in general terms, if not in travel terms). 

1957:  Europe on $5 a Day

1972:  Europe on $5 and $10 a Day  [$7.44]

1979:  Europe on $15 a Day  [$12.92]

1981:  Europe on $20 a Day  [$16.17]

1987:  Europe on $25 a Day  [$20.21]

1990:  Europe on $40 a Day  [$23.26]

1991:  Europe on $45 a Day  [$24.23]

1996:  Europe on $50 a Day  [$27.92]

2000:  Europe From $60 a Day (note the change in wording!)  [$30.64]

2000:  Europe From $70 a Day 

2007:  Europe From $95 a Day  [$36.89]

(Note: I wasn't always able to determine the precise year of each title change, so in some cases it's an educated guess based on the earliest publication date I was able to find for the title.)

Quote of the day: guidebook as script

"Modern tourist guides have helped raised tourist expectations. And they have provided the natives—from Kaiser Wilhelm* down to the villagers of Chichacestenango—with a detailed and itemized list of what is expected of them and when. These are the up-to- date scripts for actors on the tourists' stage." 

-- Daniel J. Boorstin, The Image (1961).

* The Kaiser Wilhelm thing is pretty amazing, actually. I've heard several versions of the anecdote given in this 1950 Time article:

"At the stroke of noon one day, as the imperial military band began its daily concert in front of Berlin's imperial palace, Kaiser Wilhelm interrupted a conference of state by jumping to his feet. "With your kind forbearance, gentlemen," he said, 'I must excuse myself now to appear in the window. You see, it says in Baedeker [guidebook] that at this hour I always do.' "

NY Times on travel apps vs. guidebooks: "trust books"

The New York Times reviews various guidebook iPhone/iPad apps and concludes that the dead-tree editions are still more useful:

I have often found myself ignoring the smartphone while sightseeing. It can be frustrating to repeatedly open an app and navigate an unknown amount of content, often in an unfamiliar format. A book with a dog-eared page, meanwhile, offers instant gratification and gets a traveler back to sightseeing much more quickly.

Notes on Mexico on $5 a Day

The New York Times' Frugal Traveler has an interesting interview with John Wilcock, who wrote the first editions of Mexico on $5 a Day, Greece on $5 a Day and Japan on $5 a Day in the 1960s:

How did you approach a country like, say, Japan, when there were no prior budget guidebooks to serve as a baseline and no Internet to search on?

I was very lucky in Japan. My column in The Voice had been picked up all over the place, including the Mainichi Daily News in Tokyo, and my editor there introduced me to a couple of guys who were doing an underground paper in Tokyo. He also took me all kinds of places I wouldn’t otherwise have found, like a whale meat restaurant and a bear meat restaurant. But there were other people there – as there always are – who speak English or actually are American. After I wrote the Mexico guide, my contacts said, “How did you find all those things? I’ve lived there for years and I only know some of them,” and I said, “Yes, but I spoke to you and 20 other people.”

I find the comments especially interesting. In my edition of E5D, Arthur Frommer notes that some people have been complaining to him that he's not frugal enough--they've traveled the continent for $2 a day or less. (His response is that, sure, it's possible, but he's trying to show how you can do it while still having a modicum of comfort and not sleeping in ditches or fleabag hostels.) A few of those naysayers are still around--and commenting on this blog post.

Do guidebooks create the beaten path?

I have a recent edition of Rick Steves Europe Through the Back Door. Here's what it says on the back cover: “Avoid crowds and tourist traps . . . Discover off-the-beaten-path towns, trails, and natural wonders.”

But as anyone who has followed the insider knowledge of such guidebooks can attest, by the time you get to one of these hidden gems, you'll find a dozen other tourists already there, each one bearing your same guidebook and the glum expression that says, "This is not what I was promised."

You know that famous Yogi Berra line, "No one goes there; it's too crowded"? With guidebooks, we get just the opposite phenomenon: everyone goes there because it's not crowded.

This is nothing new. A 1963 profile of Arthur Frommer in Time included the following anecdote:

Last week in Paris one proud hotelier told Frommer: "It is your book which bought this elevator." But the new lift meant higher rentals, and Frommer sadly made a note to drop the hotel from the next edition. 

Or there's this, from the 1966 edition of Let's Go: The Student Guide to Europe (and which serves as a reminder that the snarkiness of youth is timeless):

In the low-cost field the most popular guide is Frommer's Europe on $5 a Day, which has become so widely circulated among American tourists that you will generally find them sitting on top of each other in the hotels and restaurants recommended.

The most telling example of a guidebook's impact on a place is, I think, one that involves Frommer's rival Temple Fielding, he of the raffia basket carry-on and the portable record players and the mink-covered beer can opener. Such was the impact of his guidebook that, according to John McPhee's 1968 New Yorker profile, "A waiter's strike in Italy was postponed when leaders of the national waters' union were informed that Fielding was in the country."

The guidebook effect extends way off the beaten path, too. In Getting Stoned With Savages, J. Maarten Troost travels to the South Pacific island of Malekula, where he meets a man while walking through the forest:

"I am George," he said curtly. "Do you have a Lonely Planet?"

I did indeed have a Lonely Planet guide to Vanuatu. We had brought it out from the U.S. Remarkably, they had a chapter on Malekula, which I had read thoroughly, highlighting all the references--and there were many--to the dangers posed by sharks.

"Turn to page one-fourteen," he said. "Do you see?" He jabbed at the page. "That's me."

The entry to which he referred read, in its entirety: "In the village on Wala Island, George's Guestroom  is small, for one or two people."

And have you read Eat, Pray, Love? Don't lie. You're reading a travel blog. I'm just going to guess, then, that you've either read or intentionally avoided Elizabeth Gilbert's gazillion-copy-selling spiritual self-help tract masquerading as travel writing. Just a hunch.

Anyway. So she goes to Bali. To (proper-noun) Love. But she's not quite done with the praying and the physical health stuff, either. Gilbert befriends a healer named Wayan, and decides to help her out--in part so that Wayan can reach that eternal goal of the tourist-area business owner: a listing in a prominent guidebook.

If she had a home, she could finally be listed in Lonely Planet, who keep wanting to mention her services, but never can do so, because she never has a permanent address that they can print. 

As it turns out, Lonely Planet was not the book that really put Wayan on the tourist trail. That, of course, fell to . . . Eat, Pray, Love.  From Time last month:

Wayan, an outspoken Indonesian healer of dark beauty and another of Eat, Pray, Love's personalities, was, with her young daughter and two adopted orphans, once on the verge of eviction. Now a staff of well-built men churns out her healthful Vitamin Lunches for calling travelers. From January to March of 2006, 237,260 foreign tourists stopped by Bali. Since then the number has swelled steadily, and in the same three months of this year, there were 551,186 visitors to the island.

While precise figures are not yet available, industry observers from the Denpasar Tourism Academy have confirmed that the island has been repopulated by tourists looking to develop their spirituality. . . . "It's a thing we want to promote because those activities bring peace to mind," says Nyoman Suwidjana, deputy chairman of the Bali Tourism Board. "And Bali loves peace."

Emphasis mine. Just in case you missed the irony.