OLD & NEW GUIDEBOOK WRITING STYLES

Guidebook travel writers of the '90s and '00s straddle two eras of travel and travel writing. Between the 'old travel' when many places were yet to be discovered (eg all of East Europe, the USSR, Southeast Asia more or less) and the 'new travel' when masses go on package trips or well-oiled backpacker routes through Laos and Vietnam and Hungary. Less and less is 'new' anymore.

How does that affect the books?

When books like Lonely Planet were first made it was for a different, more adventurous audience. Introduction sections dryly retold historical and cultural background for a more serious (or perceived-to-be more serious) audience. Now there's debate of how much of that information is useful, wanted or ever read by guidebook users.

Compare crusty LP books from the '70s -- the first Southeast Asias -- with the '90s video star Ian Wright, who -- briefly for LP, later Globe Trekker -- hosted TV travel shows, where he tripped his way through destinations, got drunk, and did it all with a goofy, good-natured grin. He wasn't shy to learn, but the fact that he wasn't immediately familiar with the exotic world before him struck a chord with many viewers.

No LP author does much research without hearing 'Oh, Lonely Planet? Do you know that guy on the TV show? Ian... somebody?'

Thought about this while in Bagan, Myanmar, recently. I bought a little photocopied paperback of 'Folk Elements in Burmese Buddhism' (written in the '50s). The sort of book that maybe two or three tourists pick up a year these days. These were the sorts of resources that the first guidebook writers must've lept at, read fiercely and pooled into little cultural/historical sections that still remain, in some form, in the fronts and backs of guidebooks several updates down the line.

I always enjoy this sort of thing: a piqued interest in Burmese nat spirits, then following it up by trying to find out more. But guidebook authors rarely have time to follow such tangents on the road these days. One, there's tight deadlines to worry over, and limited budgets (guidebook publishers don't pay expenses), and the bulk of new options (travelers cafes, Internet cafes, travel agents, guesthouses, private bus companies, souvenir shops) that just weren't around in the beginning.

Just commenting on the difference.