Richard Ferguson wrote:
> Surely you travel with a guidebook.
Nope, I definitely don't.
> I agree that one needs a plan and some priorities, and then be willing to
> adjust the plan if problems arise or if an opportunity develops, so
> perhaps the plan is more important than the guidebook. But how do you
> develop a plan without a reading a guidebook or other reference material.
I'm not a big believer in extensive planning, but the way I come up with a
broad plan is by looking through guidebooks and other reference materials
before the trip to get a sense of what's on offer. My plans aren't any more
specific than "buy a ticket to city X, spend a few days there, head up to
city Y somehow, spend a week there, find a way over to area Z, hang out
there until it's time to get back to the airport, then get back to city X
and fly home."
> I see guidebooks as an essential tool for a traveler, I never travel
> without one, sometimes two, so I am puzzled to see you talk about
> over-reliance on guidebooks. Maybe you could provide some examples of
> what you mean.
It's a matter of personal style, I suppose. For me, if I eat in a restaurant
I read about in a guidebook instead of having discovered myself, then it's
less enjoyable - I feel like I'm living someone else's trip instead of my
own. The essential joy of traveling is discovery, and I want to maximize
that and minimize paint-by-number checklist travel.
A specific recent example was in Male, capital of the Maldives. We'd heard
it was a difficult destination (not much conventional budget tourist
infrastructure) so we flipped through Lonely Planet beforehand and made a
photocopy of the city map page. They listed a handful of places to eat,
mostly characterless dusty teahouses, serving nothing but reheated samosas,
and all in the southern half of the island (it's a 30-minute walk from one
end to the other). That's all there was, they said, take it or leave it. The
north side of the island? Boring, not worth the trouble.
Well, on the second day, disappointed by what we'd found so far, we decided
to check out the north side anyway. Turns out there was a vibrant square
that alone had more restaurants than the entire remainder of the island put
together, every one of them cheaper, better, more atmospheric, and serving a
greater diversity of food than anything Lonely Planet recommended. Not only
that but there was live music on weekends, a good way to mix with the
locals. And unlike the southern half, these places stayed open until late.
It was quite clear that their researcher simply got bored after walking for
20 minutes and didn't bother to go the rest of the way. Anyone following
the book's advice would have had a much lousier time than someone who just
followed their nose and explored.
I've seen the exact same thing happen over and over again. Guidebook writers
don't have magic powers. They can't find anything that you can't find
either. And they're probably even more rushed.
Additionally, the restaurants in guidebooks are often middling quality and
packed with tourists, and consequently have dumbed down their cuisine and
increased the prices. Same with hotels, bus lines, and so on.
If you want to know where to go and what to do, there are three basic ways
that always work:
1. Ask the locals.
2. Ask other tourists, because they've just been there.
3. Explore for yourself.
Guidebooks are a distance 4th. They're useful for two things:
1. Maps.
2. Finding out where in a city the budget accommodations are clustered.
Individual hotel listings? Worthless. But knowing the neighborhood or
intersection, so you can wander around and examine for yourself, is handy
when you're first touching down at the beginning of a trip so haven't been
able to ask fellow travelers yet.
All this information can fit on one or two pieces of paper.
P.S. Please no email copies of newsgroup postings. Thanks.
miguel
--
Hit The Road! Photos and tales from around the world: http://travel.u.nu
Site remodeled 10-Sept-2003: Hundreds of new photos, easier navigation. |