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Do Travel Writers Go to Hell?: A Swashbuckling Tale of High Adventures, Questionable Ethics, and Professional Hedonism By Thomas Kohnstamm ( Three Rivers Press )
Release Date: 2008-04-22
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Product Description
For those who think that travel guidebooks are the gospel truth.
The waitress suggests that I come back after she closes down the restaurant, around midnight. We end up having sex in a chair and then on one of the tables in the back corner. I pen a note in my Moleskine that I will later recount in the guidebook review, saying that the restaurant “is a pleasant surprise . . . and the table service is friendly.” –Thomas Kohnstamm, professional travel writer and author of numerous Lonely Planet guidebooks
WANTED: Travel Writer for Brazil
QUALIFICATIONS REQUIRED
Decisiveness: the ability to desert your entire previous life–including well-salaried office job, attractive girlfriend, and basic sanity for less than minimum wage
Attention to detail: the skill to research northeastern Brazil, including transportation, restaurants, hotels, culture, customs, and language, while juggling sleep deprivation, nonstop nightlife, and excessive alcohol consumption
Creativity: the imagination to write about places you never actually visit
Resourcefulness: utilizing persuasion, seduction, and threats, when necessary, to secure a place to stay for the evening once your pitiable advance has been (mis)spent
Resilience: determination to overcome setbacks such as bankruptcy, disillusionment, and an ill-fated one-night stand with an Austrian flight attendant
As Kohnstamm comes to personal terms with each of these job requirements, he unveils the underside of the travel industry and its often-harrowing effect on writers, travelers, and the destinations themselves. Moreover, he invites us into his world of compromising and scandalous situations in one of the most exciting countries as he races against an impossible deadline.
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 I didnt' want the book to end !!!
The book was fantastic! Having been a serious traveler for 30+ years (and having purchased dozens of guides, including Lonely Planet) I couldn't put this book down!
The author essentially did all the things I wanted to do (when a younger traveler) but never had the courage to. The writing style's a mix of Hunter Thompson and Frances Mayes (although Mayes would probably object ...)
It's a great read, I highly recommend it.
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 Oh My!! ( rockydog85251 )
Not sure what to make of this! I will never read another travel guidebook in the same way after reading this. The publisher's expectations seem to be unrealistic while the person that wrote the book really lost my respect.
W R Bodrak
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A real Trip (No pun intended!) ( bbrody13 )
I couldn't put this book down! It was funny in a sad kind of way, like when you were a kid and laughed when someone fell off a bicycle. We laugh at others' misadventures and troubles because we are uncomfortable and don't quite know how to react. The Lonely Planet should get much lonelier as less travelers buy their books and realize that a lot of what they publish is made up or plagiarized from some other travel guide. I give the writer credit for having the courage to share this tale. It appears that Lonely Planet has kept him on as a reviewer despite this scathing account of their practices. (Makes me wonder what masochistic tendencies he has to stay on with this employer!) I also want to thank him for the eye-openers about the travel writing industry as a whole. This book that my interest throughout. I laughed out loud, I felt righteous indignation about the travel industry rip-off and this poor fellow's misadventures. I also admired his inventiveness for making, as they say, lemonade from lemons. In his case, he smoked some dope, mellowed out and created a cottage drug-selling industry to finance the travels when Lonely Planet left him high and dry (pun intended!) This is definitely a job for the young and adventurous. Keep on writing!
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 Pretty average and somewhat boring ( jon81 )
Most of this book is repetitive whining about lack of funds and huge hangovers....Jeez, grow up. Thomas is getting paid to write for Lonely Planet and can not find enough ambition to do the job, so he gets drunk and obsesses about his dwindling funs....Get over yourself Thomas.
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Dream job? Not so much. ( classic_o )
In his book Do Travel Writers go to Hell?, intrepid traveler Thomas Kohnstamm does a fascinating job of weighing his own addiction of travel with the highly unreasonable expectations that are associated with being a guidebook travel writer. Also, Kohnstamm admirably demolishes the popular conception that travel writing is some sort of dream job; his consistently neurotic analysis of the futile planning, budgeting and writing for Lonely Planet, or any guidebook publisher for that matter is not only sobering, but warranted for those blinded by their travel-induced naivete.
Kohnstamm begins by disclaiming his addiction to travel and the atypical circumstances in which he decides to pursue it as a career. He subsequently embarks on his adventure to cover northeastern Brasil's most likely and unlikely tourist destinations (on behalf of Lonely Planet) and the people he meets along the way. It is here that one arrives at a recurring theme throughout the book: it is not necessarily the places one visits but the people met that makes the story worthwhile.
Insufficient stipends and unreasonable deadlines are just two of the variables obstructing Kohnstamm's progress. Throw in a constant stream of Brasilian cachaca, drugs, late nights/early mornings, the gamut of intestinal illnesses, opportunistic thugs as well as the usual bribery schemes (among all the players), and it is no wonder that the journey itself is truly the thing.
The book, however, is not simply a retelling of Kohnstamm's escapades. It does raise a lot of questions even for the novice traveler. He ponders the implications of cultural relativism, the apparent lawlessness and corruption, as well as the increasing commercialization and urbanization of Brasil at the expense of its history and identity. Not to mention the fringe benefits of writing positive reviews, especially if those reviews are generated by the favors exhibited on behalf the restaurant or hotel one is writing about.
If there was one thing I regretted about the book, apart from my envy, it is Kohnstamm's overindulgence at the expense of his craft. Granted, his wild nights performing "research" forces harried and slightly unethical writing; however, the descriptions of his supporting characters would subsequently suffer. Therein lies the dilemma: is this a travel writing book or a book about travel writing? The lines aren't always clear.
Kohnstamm does well to capture the sweltering zeitgeist of Northeastern Brasil and the plight of the travel writer, thereby leaving the reader with a nuanced yet realistic depiction of the industry, and tells a captivating story while doing so. His advice: if you really love to travel, think twice about making it your occupation.
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