The October issue of Lonely Planet’s email newsletter, Comet, arrived in my inbox this morning. It included the usual stuff about the latest guidebooks they’ve released – a new guide to India, anyone? – as well as a recruitment call for new writers. As a high percentage of the emails I get ask me how to become a travel writer, I thought I’d alert you guys to it.
Personally, I reckon researching a guidebook sounds like a lot of hard work – all those hotels and restaurants to check out and internet cafes to locate. And to be honest I think Lonely Planet have become far too politically correct of late – an Inuit guide to Canada can’t be too far off. But you do get paid to go travelling. And it is a foot in the door to the world of travel writing.
So, if you’re interested visit the Lonely Planet recruitment page. I just hope you do a better job than Frances Linzee Gordon did on the Lonely Planet Ethiopia guidebook. I stayed at The Tropical in Addis Ababa after she described it as ‘cheap and clean.’ It turned out to be a brothel.
She could have been talking about the girls I guess.
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I get the Comet too, and I duly copy and pasted the ‘how to’ guide onto desktop … then I read your blog tonight. Mmmm, first I quietly snorted with laughter, agreeing – having not seen the pc nature of LP, then had to commit to something more hearty when I read your last line.
Thanks.
yeah, but it would be nice if Lonely Planet ‘researchers’ actually engaged in some research, actual fieldwork is required to write a travel guide i believe.. not that we all need directions on how to get from the airport terminal into a taxi and so on but maybe they have stretched themselves a bit far with such a variety on guides on sale now, how about the ‘Read this before you go to India’ book to prepare for the actual India guide(??!), quality has dropped for the sake of making a quick buck.. give the folks at Rough Guide a go, support the underdogs!
But are there any ‘budget’ hotels in Addis Ababa that don’t double-up as brothels? The one I stayed at 2 months ago, the Baro (also recommended by Lonely Planet), is the only hotel I’ve ever seen where they put free condoms in the rooms! A couple who I later met, who’d also stayed there, told me that when they arrived they had to wait half an hour for their room to become available as it was being used by … well, you can guess. Added to that, I noticed one fellow-guest cop off with one of the cleaners, evidently supplementing her income! What LP doesn’t say about Addis is that, but for HIV/AIDS, it would probably be one of the world’s top destinations for sex-tourism.
Bradt’s website maintains a permanent call for submissions and they seem to encourage creativity and originality rather than the uniform, ultra PC approach taken by both LP and RG these days. They don’t seem to have much interest in exploring unique locations anymore. I guess that’s when you know your favourite guidebook series has gone to the dogs, when it spurns specialization in favour of being all things to all travellers (apparently there was even a time when Frommer’s were considered cutting edge). Bradt will eventually get my submission for a guide to Guyana, French Guiana & Suriname (when I get round to it) but I won’t bother sending it to LP.