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By: Christopher Currie
Date: 1st May 08
Format: Book
Motivation: Good with a whiskey in the bath
What:
Do Travel Writers Go to Hell?
Where:
Folio Books, 80 Albert St, Brisbane
How much:
$29.95
Related links:
A good article about the book in The Huffington Post
Have you heard of Thomas Kohnstamm? That’s ok, most people haven’t. But get this, he gave up a successful Wall Street career and stable relationship for his dream job: travelling to Brazil to write a Lonely Planet guide. His dream, however, quickly turned to nightmare. After spending half his meagre wage on a plane ticket, he had only six weeks to write about 59 towns spread over some 1000 miles of coastline.
He wrote the book—Do Travel Writers Go to Hell?: A Swashbuckling Tale of High Adventures, Questionable Ethics and Professional Hedonism – but it isn’t published by Lonely Planet. No, they rejected it. The controversy over this very entertaining travel narrative is Kohnstamm's revelation that he readily accepted gratuities, dealt drugs and just plain made up large sections of the book just to get it finished in time. Lonely Planet got in a tizzy and issued a statement rebutting much of the author's claims. Hey, doesn’t the adage go something like, ‘When faced with the choice of printing the truth and the myth, always print the myth'? Whatever the truth, this gonzo adventure is just so fun to read.