Do You Still Use the Lonely Planet Guides?

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Do You Still Use the Lonely Planet Guides?

Written by Robert Vance on April 13, 2008 – 11:39 pm

There’s big news in the travel world this week. According to news reports, Thomas Kohnstamm, formerly a writer for Lonely Planet has admitted that parts of the guide books that he wrote were plagiarized or made up. He also says that although he wrote parts of a guidebook about Colombia, he never actually traveled there. I just have two questions. Is anyone surprised to hear this news? And with an increasingly wired world, do people still rely on the Lonely Planet Guides for travel information?

Just because Kohnstamm made up parts of the book doesn’t mean that other writers did the same thing. But it does call into question the reliability of the Lonely Planet Guide Books and how the travel information is gathered. Personally, I have always wondered how the writers collect the vast amount of information that is contained in these guidebooks. It seems too incredible. But then again, when I have used these books in the past, I have found them to be helpful and informative. Maybe it doesn’t matter how they come across the information, right?

But that was in the past. I haven’t used a Lonely Planet Guide Book in years. Why should I shell out 20 or more dollars for information that I can generally get on the internet? And the information on the internet is usually much more accurate and up-to-date. The point is, negative news like this about the Lonely Planet Guides will only push me farther away from buying one of their guide books.

So, if you own a Lonely Planet Guide Book, I wouldn’t throw it away. There is useful information such as maps and hotel information. But if I were you, I would always doublecheck the information contained in your guide book with information on the internet. You know, just in case the information you are reading in the guide was written by some guy sitting at a desk in San Francisco.

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