I came across a few fun travel links today for everyone. First off, a t-shirt for those of you looking to pretend to blend in (or just be ironic): The I am a local photographer (I am not a tourist) t-shirt. This is a limited edition so order before the end of June.

Finally, here’s a fun little video from Lonely Planet TV about Bolivia’s volunteer zebra crossing guards:

One thing I hear all the time is “when are you going to write a book?” I’m sure most RTW travelers hear similar requests and reply with the same ambivalence as I do. Every once in a while I ask what kind of book they suggest I write and I’ve been surprised by the answer.

One would assume that they mean a book about my travels, maybe an anthology of short stories or possibly a memoir but that’s not the case. Although some people suggest a typical travel memoir, most suggest something entirely different. A number of people seem to think I should write a “how-to” travel advice book or even compile a book of photographs or drawings.

For my own curiosity I wonder what you, my readers, would have me write. I’m putting a poll in the sidebar, but feel free to leave any brilliant suggestions in the comments.

After returning home last fall I spotted a new travel magazine at my local bookstore, Everywhere Magazine. It’s an interesting idea, using a website to gather content rather than relying on professional travel writers. It also gives regular travelers a chance to be published. I’ve been waiting for the perfect “theme” to come up and issue #4’s National Park theme seemed like a great opportunity to write about one of the more exotic places I traveled to.

Madagascar is one of the places I haven’t finished writing much about on this blog, much to some reader’s dismay. Although this article doesn’t contain a lot of personal anecdotes (they don’t encourage anything over 1,000 words) it’s a solid overview of the features of the four parks I visited. In addition to the text, the accompanying pictures may be new or slightly different shots than you’ve seen on this site. Head on over to Everywhere to check out my story and the others submitted for issue#4: My story, titled “Nature’s Experiment”

This makes me wonder, what magazines is the traveler reading these days? Most magazines I see are aimed at the high end market, stuffed with resort ads. Leave your awesome travel magazine recommendations in the comments.

There’s been a lot of talk in the travel community about a Lonely Planet writer’s admission that he wrote for a guidebook without actually traveling to the country. This isn’t surprising to those of us who have used Lonely Planet Guides over some time. Everywhere I go I hear Lonely Planet cursed. Travelers curse the inaccurate maps and out of date prices and business owners curse the authors for bad reviews or no reviews at all. Admission into the “LP” can put an entire town “on the travel map,” as it did with Muang Ngoi in Northern Laos, or put a restaurant out of business when it isn’t included in the newest edition.

Guidebooks have become a big business and keeping up-to-date information published is difficult in the internet age. Guidebooks to popular regions are always updated more frequently, after all it is a business. Less popular regions, like Central Asia, aren’t updated frequently because the small number of people who visit can’t offset the cost of updating the guide and provide the same kind of profits as a guide to Europe or Southeast Asia. Of course, Lonely Planet is the only guidebook publisher that I know of offering a “Central Asia” guidebook so most travelers are stuck with an out of date book. Still, something is better than nothing and LP’s Central Asia is coveted by travelers in the region—I refused to lend it out on numerous occasions for fear of never seeing it again.

After traveling around Central Asia for two months I met a supposed Lonely Planet author in Osh, Kyrgyzstan. I was happy to help him better the next edition of the book, after being so disappointed with the current one. Despite being a region with a complex and fascinating history and infinite tourist potential it measured in at about fifth the size of the Thailand book, despite covering six countries. When I met the author, on his first assignment for LP, he was arranging a private taxi tour around Southern Kyrgyzstan accompanied by the owner of our guesthouse as a guide. I can understand the difficulties of traveling in the region without speaking Russian but am disappointed with the way he chose to research the book. He also brushed off any attempts for my help or information and asked for the Western men sitting on either side of me for their email in case he thought of any more questions. He had no interest whatsoever in a woman’s perspective regarding travel in the region. How could this man, around my age and also a graphic designer, have any more insight that I do? It was obvious that he hadn’t done any research before arriving (he didn’t know about the Chinese border closing/October holiday) and skipped border crossings and regions that didn’t fit into his hurried schedule. In talking to him it was clear that more important information would be left out of the next edition.

Ultimately, Lonely Planet has forsaken quality for profit to it’s own detriment. It’s writers are barely paid enough to cover their own travel and rewarded for doing less in-depth research by LP’s lump sum payment method. Writers can only make a profit by quickly skimming the surface, replacing personal investigation with unreliable sources. I understand the need for profit in business but at some point the scales tip and you lose customers. Lonely Planet has recently been bought by BBC Worldwide and if anything, changes seem to be leading toward more profit and a more upscale readership. It’s doubtful that the writer’s admissions will have much affect on Lonely Planet’s bottom line, but will surely help promote the writer’s new book.