Rick Steves on being a guidebook writer

by Aaron Hotfelder on

After 30 years producing guidebooks, Rick Steves could easily throw his suitcase into a closet and spend all his time swimming through his piles of money a la Scrooge McDuck. But the man continues to plug away, meticulously researching various European locales for his eponymous guidebooks. And more power to him.

To many of us, Rick Steves has the dream job– earning money to travel around the world, to think, write, and talk about travel. But in a recent article, he explained the process of researching a guidebook, and how it differs from what most people might imagine (as some Gadling contributors already know).

Rick says that while on location, guidebook writers’ entire days are spent conducting research, and he offers his secrets for how to get the best information about restaurants, hotels, activities, and more. For example, “Checking hotels before 10 a.m. is bad news — — people haven’t checked out yet — and the staff is still busy with breakfast. It’s hard to see a room. Checking late in the afternoon is also bad — everyone’s checked in for the day and places are reluctant to show rooms. Prime hotel-checking time is 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.”

Rick also answers a question I’ve always had about guidebook writers– how do they eat at all those places? Turns out, sometimes they don’t. “Restaurants are a big priority for any guidebook researcher…. I can’t eat everywhere, but I can talk to customers in each place. My reward — just before the kitchens close — is to eat at my favorite place.”

Personally, Rick’s guidebooks have never really fit my travel needs, but I’ll give the guy points for appearing to be one hell of a nice guy. And if you’re so inclined, you can give him points for this as well.

Last year, Neil Woodburn “hated” on Rick Steves here.

Rediscovering the long walk with Will Self

by Aaron Hotfelder on

Over at World Hum, Frank Bures has an interesting interview with Will Self, a British novelist, journalist, and ardent defender of the long, meandering walk. Last year, on a journey from London to New York, Self walked the 26 miles from his home in south London to Heathrow Airport, then walked 20 miles from JFK in New York to his hotel in Manhattan.

For this peripatetic author, the urban hikes are about more than fitness; indeed, Self is often seeking puffing on a cigarette during his walks. Self is a student of psychogeography, a very smart-sounding term that is actually relatively simple– it’s about removing city dwellers from their hermetically-sealed modes of transportation– cars, subways, buses– and finding a way for them to really experience the urban landscape.

“People don’t know where they are anymore, ” he said last year in a story about his lengthy airport walks. “In the post-industrial age, this is the only form of real exploration left. Anyone can go and see the Ituri pygmy, but how many people have walked all the way from the airport to the city?”

In the World Hum interview, Self compares his practice of psychogeography to another of his passions, writing. “Like writing-which is low start-up, all you need is a pen and a piece of paper-psychogeography is bare-bones. You just get out there and experience. It doesn’t require the hypermediated world, it is more akin to a meditational practice.”

Check out Self’s new book Psychogeography right here.

One for the Road: Smiling at the World

by Kelly Amabile on

Here’s a feel-good travel memoir for the day after Christmas. Keep the good-tidings alive by curling up with Joyce Major’s memoir of her inspiring volunteer travels around the world. Maybe Smiling at the World will inspire you to plan some do-good travel in the coming year?

Major’s memoir recounts her year-long voluntourism adventures in South Africa, Thailand, China, Greece, Ireland, Italy, England, Argentina, Australia and New Zealand. She volunteered for over ten different organizations, dealing with issues of restoration, sustainability, education and conservation. Brian Mullis, director of Sustainable Travel International calls Joyce a “conscientious traveler” who shares insight and ideas on how “responsible travel” can change and transform lives.

Joyce will be appearing at Distant Lands bookstore in Pasadena, CA on Monday, January 7, sharing stories and a slideshow from her travels.

Taking a look at McSweeney’s

by Aaron Hotfelder on

For the uninitiated, Timothy McSweeney’s Internet Tendency (just called “McSweeney’s” on the street) is a literature and humor website started several years ago by author Dave Eggers. The site never fails to be entertaining, in its own quirky, ultra-hip way, and it succeeds in its mission to be different from just about everything else out there. (check out a New York Times assessment of the McSweeney’s quarterly here.)

There are dozens of different categories of content, many of interest to the traveler. There are dispatches from a writer who lives in Lisbon, Portugal, travel narratives-slash-recommendations from Kevin Dolgin, who takes a look at everywhere from A to Zagreb, and dispatches from one of the dirtiest rivers in the United States.

The Lists are, in my opinion, the most amusing part of the site. Here are some samples:

Common Illnesses at the Vatican (Hymnorrhoids; Ave Malaria; Exorcysts)

Vacation Slogans for Lower-Tier Towns (A Reasonable Place to Visit; Town in Mirror is Smaller than it Appears; A Place to Gas Up)

Actual Examples of Model Conversational Phrases that the Travel Guide Les Etats-Unis Dans Votre Poche: Edition Bilingue Felt Were So Central to the Experiences Likely to be Undergone by French Visitors to America that it Included Them on its Companion Study Cassette Tape (Yeah! I’ll bet if you laid those burgers end-to-end they would reach to the moon. Let’s go try one, shall we?; Where’s the fine democratic American melting pot?; I’m never lucky at these kinds of luck things.)

Forsake your family this Christmas day and spend a few hours browsing around the site. When they get mad, don’t mention my name.

Borat make new book

by Neil Woodburn on

We all laughed at Borat in the theaters, but does his humor translate onto the written page?

The answer is a definitive, sort of.

Our favorite Kazakh journalist has left the big screen behind and has recently released his first foray into the world of literature: Borat: Touristic Guidings to Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan; Touristic Guidings to Minor Nation of U.S. And A.

Pretty much all one needs to know about this book can be discerned from the title. The atrocious grammar and throttling of the English language that makes Borat so endearing in person is wholeheartedly carried over to the printed word. And so, we find words that sound funny onscreen, such as anoos, and struggle over them when they appear in the book.

Yes, the words lose some of their humor on the way to the printer, but are not entirely stripped bare. The book remains quite funny and equally disturbing in a demented sort of way, providing a slew of yucks on nearly every page. Some of the humor is subtle, such as an oversized Kazakhstan on a world map or the corresponding legend where X’s located near nuclear power plants, indicate “Regions of much retardation and ‘Strange Ones.”‘
A good part of the humor focuses on Onion-style absurdity. “It take me 7 week to qualify a doctor.” Borat comments in a section dealing with his education. “One of first operation I perform was to remove a demon that live inside the head of my brother Bilo. I do everything correct – I chisel hole exact size of kestrel egg and place dry fish inside Bilo’s head to scare the demon but unfortunate demon become angry with us and make Bilo a retard.” Okay, so you get the idea.

The rest of the humor borders on the more graphic–I’ve never owned a book with so many photos of penises. And barnyard animals. Ugh.

Nonetheless, Borat’s freshman remains an entertaining read best enjoyed in snippets when you’re looking for a little laugh to brighten up the day–but be careful because you’re just as likely to be freaked out or disgusted. But, I guess some people like that.

I suppose my only complaint, outside of the penises, of course, is the production overkill. The actual layout of the book is intended to appear as though it was produced in a third world nation that can’t afford all the same font, non-pixilated photographs, or even a ruler to ensure everything is aligned. Frankly, it’s a bit bothersome and the joke becomes worn-out very quickly. Just a few of these planned mistakes would have provided far more humor.

But I laughed, nonetheless, and that’s the whole idea of the book, isn’t it?