What Makes a Good Travel Guide?

by Brett Atkinson on

On October 4 the excellent British travel magazine Wanderlust will announce the winner of their annual guide awards. Named after the late Paul Morrison, one of the founders of Wanderlust, the awards recognise excellence in travel guiding. Bill Bryson and Michael Palin will select the winner from a short list of six tour guides that work in countries as diverse as Mongolia, Egypt and Romania.

In your opinion what are the qualities a great guide must possess?

In my recent trip to Oman, the wonderful Hilal came close to perfection with a winning combination of humour, energy and a profound love of his country. His skill at juggling an MP3 player and a cellphone while threading a 4WD through the maze of Omani dunes was also pretty impressive.

Weird Michigan

by Adrienne Wilson on

The weirdest state in my book is Nebraska and I say this knowing just about nothing of the land with the exception of the state capital. Omaha, right? I bet it’s where all the alien abductions and probings go down. There’s nothing anyone can do or say to change my mind about this one. Don’t even try. I won’t listen. La-la-la-la-la, there! I’ve already convinced myself so there’s no turning back now.

Anywho, the makers of Weird Guides haven’t gotten around to proving my absurd theories on Nebraska factual, but they have recently gotten around to the glorious Great Lake state of Michigan. Weird Michigan like the other Weird guides points the eccentric traveler to all the unordinary offerings and site the state can provide. Hunt for the ghost of a boy in blue pajamas in Ishpeming or look for the underwater crucifix near Petoskey. Doesn’t stop there though, it just gets weirder.

via Detroit Free Press

A Look at Travel Guides

by Erik Olsen on

A very interesting piece in Publisher’s Weekly about the history and current business of travel guides. Read this one. The piece takes a look at how travel guides have evolved due to changes in the marketplace and a morphing of people’s travel habits. It discusses how the (now quite valuable) Baedeker guides of the late 19th and early 20th centuries set the stage for travel with basic guides about mostly large, well-known popular places. This was back when travel was more of a luxury available to the rich, and long before anyone had even heard of adventure travel, let alone before there was a guide for places like Azerbaijan or Papua New Guinea. Now, with airline travel so much easier and more affordable, and a much more itinerant middle, nee leisure class, guides have evolved to cater to very specific wants, and have become guides that both discuss the best places to go as well as educate.

The list of guides mentioned here is vast. From Fodors to Lonely Planet to Let’s go and on and on, the piece offers a really interesting look at how this industry we all know, love and depend on has changed.