The Fall of Lonely Planet....
 

No young traveler to SE Asia, in the early 1980s, was without his "yellow bible," the Tony Wheeler guidebook.

What happened?

Interesting article:

https://archive.is/g8gib

It was an interesting article eks, thanks.

I was on an early business trip to Singapore in 1985. They put us up in a fancy hotel on Orchard Road. Once, waiting for the lift, thumbing through my copy of "SE Asia on a Shoestring", and the guy standing next to me asks what are you doing with that book if you are staying in this hotel? Fair question. I explained that my wife and I were about to head out for 3+ weeks in Java and Bali on our own dime. No hotel reservations just round trip flights booked, and the little yellow book led us to some great places.

Fun times. I left the book in a Thailand hotel some years later for another person to use, wish I had it now for memories sake.

Merci for this interesting article, Eks. Your travel writing career makes you the perfect person to have posted this. Would love to have seen them also having included comments from any of the original LP/Globetrekker TV presenters: Ian Wright, Megan M, Justine S et al. LOL---so that influencer had never heard of LP and seemed inordinately proud of her '30 revenue streams', as opposed to having much interest in Croatia. What a cringeworthy attitude. Travel seems lost on such a person.

As stated elsewhere, I do some of our trip research at our excellent Reference Library's travel department. My idea of a great afternoon is sitting there before a table covered with two dozen different guidebooks plus maps. At such moments, the amount of time that I devote to perusing LP guidebooks has now nose-dived--they are a borderline waste of time. Pity. Shame really.

A few trips ago, we saw a modest collection of original LP books behind a glass showcase. That gave us a wistful feeling. The Wheelers once sent me a LP writers ID card as thanks for the many times that I'd sung their brand's praises in my semi-pro travel articles ( inc. the comparison of different guidebooks) during the late '80s/early 90s. The sole time that I ever used it was to light a fire under incompetent management at a Cairo cafe. Our friends and ourselves had been waiting angrily for nearly an hour for the bill!

Gotta go, we're taking a train to visit my stepmom. Her condo building's communal library includes a mint condition collection of old LP books from thirty years ago. Guessing that they were never used abroad nor owned. Maybe they were stock never sold?

*note that LP's once-great Thorn Tree forum has been resurrected over on Reddit in a modest form by some former posters. Join us sometime.
I am done. the topic very close to my heart

PS almost forgot
The very final original song that our band recorded was a driving, heavy rocker of mine titled 'Lonely Planet'. We recorded a very rough jam version in late '89.

I’m unable to bring up the article from that link, but I will say that after depending on Lonely Planet guidebooks for years, I’ve now given up on them. They changed the format a couple of years ago and the books are now worse than useless.

I have a 2017 LP guidebook to Panama coming through the library -- hope it's more helpful than the present editions. I've relied on older editions in West Africa and Mexico, but I guess their day is done.

try this: The Long Decline of Lonely Planet, America's Coolest Travel Guide - Business Insider

Thanks, that works. I guess I’m not alone in finding the new LP format to be terrible. I bought their Kenya guidebook last year and was totally disappointed. I thought it was a fluke so I then bought their Japan guidebook to help plan our trip to Japan this past May. I realized that it wasn’t a fluke and started reading reviews of their books on Amazon. No one seemed to like the new format. LP used to have such good information, and loads of hotel and restaurant recommendations in all price ranges, from the very cheapest to extremely expensive. All of that is gone, along with the in depth information on locations and attractions.

I’m now buying Rick Steves guidebooks, Rough Guides and even Fodor’s, depending on which is the most recent publication.

Btw Eks, at first quick glance I thought that your thread was titled 'The FAIL of Lonely Planet'. LOL! Not far off the true meaning, right?
I am done. the eyeglasses

My thoughts posted last year:

https://www.fodors.com/community/mex...-17-a-1723032/

I found a copy of #17, 2021, am using it happily but know it'll be the last i ever buy.

Got my Panama guide from the library. It is not as useless as I feared, though it's a far cry from the old LP guides. Far less logistical information, and too many pictures. The overstuffing with pictures is something I started despising with the DK guides, ages ago. My favorite guidebooks sometimes have no photos at all, such as the Companion Guides, Cadogan, etc. Then of course there are travel books, often literary, which somehow need no photos to evoke a place . . .

When I was a cataloger (in what shortly after was named the best small town library in America) I reorganized the travel guide section to include travel essay as having seen what i considered the best bookstores so organized. I knew many or most users would be unaware of just how inspiring & useful they could be. I didn't want them missed!

I did the same thing in bookstores I managed!

Great minds.

At Scribner's the hardbacks were usually shelved in the "Belles-lettres" section. I wonder how many bookstores have a Belles-lettres section today.

It's no secret that book writing, publishing, selling has always been, like all arts & arts-adjacent endeavors, the realm of the seriously quirky & thank God for it. Less so lately with corporatization but the deeply individual will always be with us expressed in whatever form, including shelving choices.

Agreed with above. We've lost a few of that sort. Now they seem like emblems of a better, bygone time.

Eks, same same as LP actually happened with a local clothing line. Some of you may still own a 'Tilly' brand hat.
Mr. Tilly started that business here in Toronto. His flagship store was quite the place, huge and filled with quality (if uncheap) travel wear. The largest travel-themed gicle imagery anywhere on the planet - really.
His famed hats were truly peerless. Free cookies and coffee too!

Upon retiring, he gave that business to his daughter but she then sold it in the following year. A Brit group bought it, then in turn sold it to the Montreal-based JOE FRESH outfit, whose CEO was the one who pretended not to know about the dangerous working conditions in his supplier's warehouse, where hundreds of workers were killed when that decrepit building collapsed a decade ago in Dhaka.
Anyway, we recently visited both the Santa Barbara Tillys outlet plus the brand-new, resurrected Toronto Tilly store.
Both were pathetic and pale imitations bearing little resemblance to the original.

Mr Tilly is def rolling in his grave! *note symbolic missing period
I am done. the future shock

Wow, that "yellow bible" truly defined early SE Asian travel for decades. Sadly, the rise of digital tools, Google Maps, AI itinerary creators, social media, has eaten away at Lonely Planet’s dominance.
Couple that with constant ownership changes and a shift away from curated, expert content, and you’ve got a brand that feels watered down and a bit lost.

Muhammad,
Your description of the LP saga is well-nigh perfect!
I am done. the end

My friend Larry and I used an old edition of a Lonely Planet real book for our first trip to Cuba. Do not forget the Lonely Planet thorntree forum where I wrote about our journeys. Glad to have found the Fodors forum cuz the TA Cuba forum is a joke.

Glad to have found the Fodors forum cuz the TA Cuba forum is a joke.

The Cuba forum here averages only 2 posts per month! The Trip Advisor Cuba forum has 8 discussion thread actively going on today.