The Not-so-Romantic Life of a Lonely Planet Travel Writer

Hi Jim:

While I was wandering around aimlessly with my Amazon cart looking for my name listed as a contributor in the extensive acknowledgments page of Lonely Planet’s Australia guidebook, only to find that my cobber-sounding surname had been expertly deleted by one of their more dour and aloof editors for the updated reprint edition, I paused, and, totally forgot what I was really after in the first place.

Great, I spent all that time giving them all this information, and even got a free guidebook out of it, and then they pull a stunt like this one.

I glanced once more at the acknowledgments page, as one searches their face in the mirror for some inkling that one’s soul is still there, waiting for some ghostly automatic writer to resurface my name with a Magic pencil, then left the online world alone, gasping and coughing with the inadequacies of landing upon your own name in various publications in bookstores, magazine shops, and other people’s address books.

Congratulations, Jim. You’ve tied Frank’s world depress-o-meter for this week’s most uplifting blog. The fingerprint-happy EU is running a close second.

Just don’t shoot the messenger. That’s all I ask.

Or yourself. Hang in there TambourineMan!