Interesting.

One hopes he doesn't also "write" surgery textbooks.

For two decades i produced my own European travel magazine and researched and wrote stories on literally hundreds of places

and in my research i would read all the guides available - Fodors Frommer LP Let's Go, DK, etc. and it was amazing how different takes and misinformation was in them - conflicts galore between guidebooks

Let's Go was the worst in accuracy and i attributed it to the nature of the their student reporting

But i never take anything verbatim in guides

for one many are not updated and trot out the same text often for years without checking it

this is most obvious in their coverage of European trains

but i also cherish having guidebooks and usually copy several for where i'm going to take along - and then again i'll find quite varying 'factual' data

PalenQ can you share the name of the guidebook or links if available? Just curious and I am sure it would be interesting to read some of your writings.

Not online nor available - it was a magazine the Palenque Traveler ("a journal of no-frills on-your-own European travel") that i wrote for 20 years for at most a few thousand subscribers - a labor of love) and only copies i have are some old yellowed copies. But thanks for asking. Maybe some day i'll get a site and redo them. Ten years ago was the last issue before the Internet.

Even the detested and feared Rick Steves actually GOES to the places he writes about!!!!

Detested?

Well even though i admit some of his takes, more earlier than later rub me the wrong way

i give him credit for opening a whole new type of guide - yes very prescriptive but that's what many were looking for

his guides have the good points and contain things others don't.

It's April. They've done "London is the best city in the world"/"London is a rat-infested hellhole" alternately for the last few years around this time - time for something new to get people checking out whether they agree with them or not, don't you think?

Even the detested and feared Rick Steves actually GOES to the places he writes about!!!!


Feared?

Just becuase he is there does not mean he understands it. It is like continually reading the same passage but failing the reading comprehension part of the test over and over again.

The story: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7346101.stm

The best bit: He says that after having sex with a waitress on a table after hours, he reviewed the restaurant with the words "the table service is friendly".

Padraig - great exceprt LOL

guess he had the hors d'Ouevres, main course and dessert all at once - service included.

This sotry re-surfaced again on BBC and it said the reporter not only fabricated his experiences without going to places but also accepted bribes for good review and traded good reviews, coverage, etc. for drugs, etc.

I wonder how prevalent this is in guidebooks? A great review in a book like LP could mean a great deal of course. And all the places someone like Rick Steves recommends - now i don't think he would accept bribes and not accusing him of that but maybe he gets especially low rates for his groups at accommodations he heartily recommends and i think this is not illegal but just part of the business?
Again only using Rick Steves as a hypothetical and have no knowledge that he does indeed benefit from places in this guidebooks that he raves about - just that it may take an unbelievably principalled person not to

In defense of Rick Steves, on a tour with his organization, we went to a glass blowing shop in Venice. The guide received a 'kickback' and promptly paid for an additional dinner for the entire group with it.

I have no idea whether he gets better rates for his tour groups but I feel that anyone who books (and pays for) a large number of rooms probably does.