Another Travel Writers Resource

Underemployed Travel Writer and Trained Cat

DMOZ is another one of those contributor-based websites sort of like Wikipedia, but really not in the same league. Their site on travel writing apparently hasn't been updated in ages, and many of the 19 listings are self serving promotions for writers who either write books for prospective travel writers or provide seminars for the same. Proceed with caution.

A few lines of the main page, then the link:

00AandEsTravelWriter - How to make a living as a travel writer. Writing discussions and tips. Finding markets that pay. Small email list.

Adventure Travel Writer - Editorial advice and how to break into travel writing. Learn about the travel writer's lifestyle.

Australian Society of Travel Writers - Information and member details of the Australian Society of Travel Writers

Freelance Travel Writing - Learn how to create compelling travel writing features. Free newsletter with tips and travel markets.

Media Kitty - Online information exchange uniting top working journalists and PR professionals in travel and tourism worldwide.

Offbeatrips - Online freelance travel writing course providing tuition in key aspects of freelance travel journalism, encompassing writing, photography, sponsorship and marketing. Australia.

Philip Greenspun's Travel Writing Career - "How I got started as a Travel Writer", article by Philip Greenspun.

Restless Me Forum - An online forum for travelers and travel writers.

Travel Info Exchange - All about travel information: how to get it, judge its quality, price it, write it, picture it, design it, update it, and communicate it to travelers. How to write a travel guide, resources and an email discussion.

Travel Media Association of Canada - A professional, membership-based, non-profit organization of travel writers, broadcasters and industry personnel.

Travel Writing for Fun and Profit - Travel Writing for Fun and Profit, an article by Phil Philcox.

Travel Writing Tips - Freelance travel writer Flo Conner provides step-by-step tips and articles to turn your 'Treks into Checks'.

Travellady Magazine - "Everything you Ever Wanted to Know about Travel Writing" article by Madelyn Miller.

Travelwriter Marketletter - Monthly newsletter for those in the competitive field of travel writing

DMOZ Open Directory Project on Travel Writing

Transitions Abroad Travel Writing Site

Papua New Guinea by Carl Parkes

I've been searching out travel writing websites and blogs for over a decade, and have witnessed dozens of decent efforts to help out prospective travel writers possibly make a living in this perilous craft. I'm not just talking about general writing sites, but those specifically oriented to the craft of travel writing. The results have not been very pretty, to tell the truth. Too much of a scattershot approach or, quite often, an obvious conflict of interest where the author of the travel writing website or blog is also in the business of promoting their books or lectures about the profession. And the whole industry is surprisingly incestuous.

A few days ago, Tim Leffel launched a travel writers resource website for Transitions Abroad that finally puts together nearly every possible helpful angle any travel writer could hope for, and provides enough links to keep everyone busy for months and months. This website is a work of art, and all it needs now is an ongoing blog to keep everyone coming back on a daily basis.

Tim?

P.S. And did I mention that Transitions Abroad is the world's most useful publication for world travelers, volunteers, and anyone who wishes to work overseas?

Transitions Abroad Travel Writers Website

Eugene Fodor -- C.I.A. Spook?

Concorde Final Flight

There has long been a rumor that guidebook publisher Eugene Fodor worked for the C.I.A. as an undercover spook, and that his early series of guidebooks to Europe were actually used by other agents are covers for information collection. While the whole idea sounds absurd to me, Gridskipper recently picked up the thread with some new observations. I'll post the short article below, but you'll need to visit the website to click the active links, some of which are very intriguing.

The Fodor Supremacy

Everyone’s familiar with the legendary Fodor’s travel guides. Founder Eugene Fodor, who died in 1991, published his first guidebook (1936 … On the Continent) just in time for a healthy increase in war-related European travel. He was also dogged by a rather weird accusation: that he worked for the CIA. As indicated by this clipping from Fodor’s obituary in the New York Times, the dirt apparently originated with Watergate scoundrel E. Howard Hunt.

Though it seems unlikely that Fodor himself worked directly for the CIA, he was very well educated, spoke five languages, and had served five years in the U.S. Army’s intelligence branch. The undenied possibility that CIA agents abroad pretended to be guidebook researchers seems pretty plausible. Of course, how do you explain that none other than E. Howard Hunt wrote guidebooks to Cozumel and Guadalajara and other exotic destinations! Oh wait, those are spy novels. Or are they? Also consider this pivotal document signaling the souring of Fodor’s-CIA relations as late as 2004. Someone’s off the reservation, if you know what I mean.

About Us [Fodor’s]
E. Howard Hunt [Wikipedia]
CIA or State: Whose Advice Most Up to Date? [Fodor’s

]

Gridskipper on the Fodor Conspiracy

Ditch the Guidebook?

Some Cats Need Guidebooks

The Australian recently published a somewhat interesting and thought provoking article about the merits of taking a guidebook along with you on your next vacation. One author argues that your journey will be far more rewarding and adventurous without a guidebook, while publisher Tony Wheeler counters that guidebooks are, in most cases, an essential tool for all travelers.

I'd split this argument down the middle. Very few travelers would even consider a long journey across Indonesia or even a more accessible country such as Thailand without the aid of a guidebook. The countries are just too damn complicated for first-time travelers. However, if you've previously made an extended trip around Southeast Asia, and are in a more adventurous mood, then travel with a guidebook will almost certainly provide more adventure and unique experiences than yet again relying on the advice from guidebook writers.

Readers of the pack

Franz Wisner says guidebooks are no longer necessary. Lonely Planet's Tony Wheeler begs to differ

The Australian
July 09, 2005

GO ahead. Do it. I know the thought has crossed your mind ... probably the last time you walked into a tourist trap packed with fellow travellers holding the same copy of Fodor's or Lonely Planet.

Throw the guidebooks away. Or burn them in protest. Either way, your trips will improve dramatically. Think about it. When tourists come to Orange County, California, the guidebooks point them in the direction of Disneyland or the Newport Peninsula. Is this the best they have to offer? Do those places truly reflect Orange County today?

On the other hand, if the tourists spent a couple of minutes talking to Orange County residents, they'd learn about, say, a desolate beach in Laguna, a wonderful Mexican restaurant in Santa Ana or a pristine wilderness trail.

Still not convinced? Here are some more reasons. The whole concept of an up-to-date guidebook is impossible. Look at the date on yours. If you're lucky, it is only a year or two old. Or is it? Find a 10-year-old copy and you'll probably conclude the book hasn't been rewritten, just edited, tweaked and spruced up with fancy new photos.

How many people work for a guidebook? One hundred? Two hundred? Even if the number were 100,000, it wouldn't be adequate to scour every neighbourhood for the latest and greatest information. For example, I went to Rio and heard about a nightclub jammed with dance-crazy Brazilians. I saw no tourists the entire night. On a return trip, I saw no people the entire night. The Rio revellers had moved to another venue after declaring that one passe.

Of course none of this information was in the guidebooks. The only restaurants, clubs and bars they promote are the ones that have been around for years, the same types of establishments we avoid at home.

How about basic information concerning an area's main sights? The books do better here, I'll admit. The best ones throw in a decent history lesson or two along with detailed maps.

Still, they often miss things such as holiday schedules, hours that have been adjusted, discount days or the best times to view the must-see spots. Besides, all this information can be easily obtained with a quick stop at an information centre or through a chat with a concierge.

Another reason to ditch the guidebooks is the practice of paying for print. Though the reputable publishers prohibit payola practices, hotel, tour and restaurant owners across the world brag about buying favourable mentions.

In Vietnam, a cafe owner told me he sent money every year to a writer so his establishment would remain in a guidebook. He was angry with his cheap neighbour for refusing the bribe yet tacking up a sign that trumpeted a recommendation.

Think about having to get all your news from books, everything from weather reports to stock prices to headlines to sports scores. Impossible, right? Yet this is precisely the rationale of travellers who cling to guidebooks as their sole source of information.

Are you wavering yet? Here's what will happen if you do leave the guidebooks at home.

You'll talk to more people, many of them offering rides, meals or personal escorts in addition to recommendations. You'll feel as if you're experiencing something authentic as opposed to being led through another tourist trap. You'll travel far more spontaneously, taking advantage of gifts and opportunities when they arise. You'll realise you don't need to see everything on a trip. The churches and museums will still be there the next time. You'll probably make more friends with whom you'll stay in contact long after the journey is over. You'll feel like you know a location far better than you did with guidebook-dominated travel.

There are whole industries that exist solely by convincing travellers they cannot leave their homes without certain essential services: travel clothes, travel insurance, even travel agents in the age of the internet. The truth is you don't need any of them.



"I ALWAYS use your books," the letter said. "I take your list of hotels and when I arrive in town those are the places where I definitely don't stay. I don't want to bed down in a place where the only people I meet are fellow travellers. I never eat in a restaurant you recommend either. I certainly don't want to eat in a place where there's not a local in sight."

Well, that's an imaginative use of our Lonely Planet guidebooks, I thought. I could approve of that.

The cold reality is that many guidebook users rely on them far too much. For a spell we even put a warning in the front of our books: "This is not an instruction manual. Your warranty will not be voided if you decide to find your own restaurant; this is a guidebook, not a blueprint."

I'm in complete agreement with Franz Wisner that talking to the locals, putting an ear to the ground and wetting a finger to feel the breeze will all improve your trip. The best experiences on any visit are always the unexpected ones, the surprises that underline what travel is all about.

Many of those experiences are strictly ephemeral. Today's hot club is precisely that: hot today, gone tomorrow, and there's no way we're going to pretend that our guidebook can predict what will be the placewith the longest line-up at midnight this weekend.

But would I leave my guidebook behind when I'm travelling? Absolutely not. This week's cutting-edge nightclub may be worth chasing but there's usually a good reason a particular restaurant or bar has been around for years. It has become a long-term survivor because it does the job, it keeps the customers satisfied, it's reliable and honest. If we really avoided those places at home, they wouldn't stay in business. When we're in the mood for familiarity we'll go to the solid, time-worn place in our home town just as readily as on our travels.

Ditto for 10-year-old (or 1000-year-old) tourist attractions. We don't need to rewrite the history of the Taj Mahal with every edition of our India guidebook; we may worry a bit more about what pollution is doing to the marble, but essentially it's the same marvel it's always been and I'll still go back there every time I'm in Agra.

I'm happy to make repeat pilgrimages to the Sydney Opera House, the Eiffel Tower and a hundred other famous landmarks as well. I certainly don't want to miss the local tourist draw just because it's such a familiar part of the scenery that the locals don't even notice it any more.

As for places paying to get into our books, if we find a writer has been bribed, you can immediately add "ex" before the words "Lonely Planet writer". On the other hand, I'm not at all surprised that it was in Vietnam where Wisner encountered a cafe owner who had paid for a favourable mention. A few years ago in Vietnam, we discovered a cunning local had been following our writer around and dropping off an invoice at every establishment our researcher visited.

I don't like to point fingers but such sneaky deals are par for the course in the Vietnam tourist business.

Even the Government can't be trusted. A couple of editions earlier the Vietnamese Government had deported our writer, then set the presses rolling to print a pirated version of our guidebook, so this new variety of local enterprise is hardly surprising.

So experiment, go beyond your guidebook's limitations, but remember you can get bum advice from almost anywhere. The next time you arrive at a strange airport and that friendly taxi driver says, "Oh, I'm a local. Nobody uses the meter here. That's what everybody pays to get into town," don't complain to me if you've left your guidebook behind.

Franz Wisner's essay is an edited extract from his new book, Honeymoon with my Brother (Random House Australia, $32.95; www.honeymoonwithmybrother.com)

The Australian