Tag: Guidebooks
Michelin’s Guides Explained
by Eva Holland | 09.24.09 | 10:58 AM ET
The Daily Beast demystifies the powerhouse foodie-travel guides from the tire manufacturing giant. Did you know that the books actually started out as road trip pamphlets marking the locations of gas stations and mechanics?
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Yahoo! BuzzThe Medieval Icelandic Guide to Marauding
by Eva Holland | 09.22.09 | 12:35 PM ET
The Telegraph highlights the mostly intimidating descriptions of Scotland that pop up in a series of 13th-century Icelandic chronicles. “Icelanders who want to practise robbery are advised to go there,” reads one section. “But it may cost them their life.” The chronicles, the story explains, “were often used as route guides for raiders, traders, crusaders and explorers, effectively a road map of medieval Europe and the Middle East.” Apparently, they’ve remained accurate enough over the centuries that they’re still used by archaeologists today.
Are Zagat Ratings an Endangered Species?
by Eva Holland | 09.09.09 | 10:11 AM ET
The New York Post reports that the company’s book sales are “down dramatically” and that web traffic is declining, too. The culprits? The recession—and its impact on high-end dining—on the one hand, and free online upstarts like Yelp and Chowhound on the other.
Skip the Colosseum? Give Prague a Pass?
by Eva Holland | 09.02.09 | 10:24 AM ET
Eva Holland sees an emerging trend in the world of travel advice, and she's not happy about it
Pedaling Through New York’s Neighborhoods
by Eva Holland | 07.15.09 | 9:47 AM ET
Good news for travelers on two wheels: New York City’s planning department has launched a series of cycling guides to lesser-visited areas of the five boroughs. The Times’ J. David Goodman took the first installment, “Queens Around the World,” for a test drive, and apart from a few logistical hitches he gives it a positive review. He wrote of his trip through Flushing, Corona and Jackson Heights: “Cruising this route by bike reveals how each community bleeds into the next, and does so at a speed that is quick enough to show the juxtapositions, but not so fast that each is lost in a blur.”
A guide to the Bronx is due out next.
Google Unveils City Tours, Comes One Step Closer to World Domination
by Eva Holland | 06.25.09 | 12:40 PM ET
Look out, guidebook publishers—Google is coming for you. The all-new Google City Tours provides users with suggested urban itineraries and then allows for customization from there. The Guardian’s Benji Lanyado takes it for a test drive.
The Great Guidebook Retail Showdown
by Eva Holland | 06.18.09 | 11:48 AM ET
Who knew the world of guidebooks-in-bookstores could be so fraught with conflict?
Last week came the news that WH Smith—a large British bookstore chain found in most of the country’s airports and major train stations—had reached an exclusive deal to sell only Penguin-published guidebooks (namely DK Eyewitness and Rough Guides) from its shops. According to the Guardian, the chain reasoned that travelers “are often pressed for time and want to have a straightforward range of travel guides to choose from.” Michael Palin and Margaret Drabble are among the big names opposing the move. Arthur Frommer also has a predictably furious response, calling the deal “an unthinkable act of literary censorship and corporate greed.”
Travel Writing as a Political Act
by Robert Reid | 06.02.09 | 10:39 AM ET
REUTERS/Romeo Ranoco Lonely Planet writer Robert Reid explores the role of travel writers in a complex world
Interview With Nicholas Gill: Life in Chaitén, Chile, a Year After the Eruption
by Michael Yessis | 05.29.09 | 10:43 AM ET
Photo by Nicholas Gill Michael Yessis talks to the Frommer's Chile contributor about Chaitén's fate
Chaitén, Chile: Life After the Eruption
by Nicholas Gill | 05.29.09 | 10:39 AM ET
Photo by Nicholas Gill A year after a volcano began ravaging the Patagonian town, Nicholas Gill looks back at the destruction
See the full photo slideshow »
What Can You Still See in Paris on $5 a Day?
by Doug Mack | 04.22.09 | 10:26 AM ET
iStockPhoto Doug Mack explores the City of Light with a classic 1960s Frommer's guidebook -- and a little willful ignorance
See the full audio slideshow: »
Help for Hungry Travelers Who Can’t Handle Gluten
by Jenna Schnuer | 04.02.09 | 11:15 AM ET
Having grown up with a sibling who has a major food allergy, I give a huge thumbs-up to anybody who helps ease the way for food intolerant folks on the road. Fellow travel writer (and friend) Hilary Davidson does just that on her Gluten-Free Guidebook. Her latest piece discusses Philly tourism’s online guide to gluten-free restaurants.
Know of other online guides for allergic eaters around the U.S.? We’d love to hear about them.
Interview with Michael Buckley: Searching for Shangri-La
by Frank Bures | 01.15.09 | 9:09 AM ET
Frank Bures talks to the author of a guide to a place that may or may not exist
R.I.P. 2008: From Philip Agee to Papa Wendo
by Jim Benning | 12.31.08 | 10:09 AM ET
We said goodbye to great writers, adventurers, musicians and others in 2008—all people who, as we see it, had an impact on the world of travel.
R.I.P.:
- Philip Agee, CIA agent and Cuba travel activist
- Bud Browne, surf filmmaker
- Cachao, musician
- George Carlin, comedian
- Michael Crichton, writer
- Elmer Dills, writer and critic
- Steve Fossett, adventurer
- Dave Freeman, writer
- Sir Edmund Hillary, climber and philanthropist
- Tony Hillerman, writer
- Samuel Huntington, writer and political scientist
- Miles Kington, linguist
- Don LaFontiane, voice-over artist
- Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, guru
- Richard Marks, activist
- Paul Newman, actor
- Herb Peterson, inventor
- Sydney Pollack, filmmaker
- Dith Pran, photographer
- Diana Barnato Walker, aviator
- David Foster Wallace, writer
- Papa Wendo, musician
Thomas Kohnstamm’s Lonely Planet: The Firestorm Around ‘Do Travel Writers Go to Hell?’
by Frank Bures | 04.14.08 | 6:16 PM ET
Photo by Annie Musselman. The author of a new book that purports to explore the underside of travel writing is taking a lot of hits. Frank Bures asks him about the controversy he's stirred up and his take on the guidebook industry.
Baby on Board, Baby Abroad
by Frank Bures | 04.09.08 | 4:05 PM ET
Frank Bures ruminates on the art of travel with kids and the guidebooks aimed at helping parents through the experience
Robert Reid: A Guidebook Writer in the Digital Age
by Eva Holland | 03.14.08 | 10:47 AM ET
Eva Holland asks the Lonely Planet writer turned Web publisher about the rise of online guides and why he sometimes believes he's "living a doomed profession."
Borat: Touristic Guidings to Kazakhstan and U.S. and A.
by Frank Bures | 12.10.07 | 4:04 PM ET
In the new spoof travel guide by Sacha Baron Cohen's alter ego, Frank Bures says the joke is on, well, everyone.
Illuminating ‘Dark Travel’
by Frank Bures | 06.18.07 | 1:45 PM ET
The "Lonely Planet 2007 Blue List" and Adam Russ's "101 Places Not to Visit" spur Frank Bures to contemplate why travelers don't always want to be delivered from inconvenience.
Mark Ellingham: Rough Guides and the Ethics of Travel
by Michael Yessis | 05.11.07 | 9:40 AM ET
Photos courtesy of Mark Ellingham The celebrated guidebook publisher marks its 25th anniversary this month. Michael Yessis asks its founder about the early years, "binge flying" and the ethics of travel in the modern age.