Sometimes I think Robert Young Pelton, the
writer who has been to all of the world’s most dangerous places, is a poseur. His ego looms like a zeppelin and
sometimes his descriptions of the danger he has faced screams hyperbole. There are times when I think he ought to be
arrested for aggravated self-promotion. That said…he does occasionally pen a nice article on the travails of travel,
and on occasion he will call a spade a spade. He does so this month
in his article for National Geographic,
where he dispels some of the myths about travel guides…or at least directly points out where they fall short. One of my
favorites from his top five list is number four:
4) THEY KILL WHAT THEY LOVE
Isn’t that the truth? A travel guide tells you about some lovely place that’s supposedly “untouched” or “rarely
visited by man” and once it graces the pages of the guidebook (often with a really crappy map) the essence of the place
is gone. I have encountered that problem so often I sometimes wonder if guidebooks should be prohibited from mentioning
the “untouched” places…although there are so few of them left, it may just be too late.