"Lonely Planet readers never really experience the culture"

Title quote from "Lonely Planet readers never really experience the culture"


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Lonely planet's readers never really experience the culture

I guess I shy away from statement's like that. They are too general for me. I don't think which guide book you refer to for basic information maps out or stamps in cement the experience you will have. We often times look at several including Fodor's and Frommer's which I imagine makes most back packers cringe. Looking to multiple sources to gain knowledge and complete your research on an area is wise in our opinion. Each writer comes from a different perspective and aims for a different audience.

I think each person is individual and seeks out, views and experiences each day of travel rather uniquely. My experience will never be what yours is or was. Nor should it be. However, we can share some things in common by visiting the same town or restaurant.

For us, it is not what guidebook you have read but how open you are to the world and absorbing what comes your way.

If one was to travel to San Francisco they will have one experience if they have lunch or dinner at the Top of the Mark looking out over the city and another if they walk the city streets of Chinatown. For me, both are authentic----

Travel experiences are unique and wonderous--- to be cherish and in my opinion not necessarily compared to someone else's as better or not as good. We each get what we need from the journey.


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I have to be honest and say i havent actually looked at a lonely planet for a good 4 or 5 years but then i havent really done any 'big' travelling since having kids...maybe 2 weeks at a most and 3 locations. Lonely Planet was a fantastic reference to have in our bags when travelling around europe or america going to heaps of new places and you'd only have 3 to 5 days in each location. I thought it always tended to give a range of attactions, eateries and hotels from cheap through to posh and it often had some of the 'stranger' unexpected attractions that you might want to see as well as local foods and customs that you'd want to taste or experience. I think with the portability of the internet these days i dont really bother with actual 'books' but if you were a traveller stuck on a bus for hours i would highly recommend reading it to see if there is anything you want to bother seeing.

I tend to agree with William and i'm not really sure that seeing the poorer side of a culture is what a culture is. I guess its a interesting definition and something probably worth its own whole thread but if you look at a place like New York city there would be soooo many versions of culture it would be impossible to please everyone... from the theatre district, the art galleries, central park, immigration history, little italy,standard tourist stuff, soho, wall street, brooklyn, the ghetto etc etc. And i am sure what lonely planet touches on in its entire NYC book would be bits of it all and just in travedlling around and seeing it all you would by definition be experiencing its culture which would change depending on where you are and who you are.

So i think as long as you dont eat in a mcdonalds in every city you ever visit and always stay at the holiday inn, you will by definitly eat that country's food, see the people and start to see how they live and what they get up too.... Reply to this

These kind of statements are a bit silly really, no? How can a few bits of paper actually prevent you from 'cultural' experiences?

We had an LP (new or old) for the majority of countries we visited during our travels, but I doubt that anyone reading our blog would say we hadn't experienced the culture of those countries. The most obvious reason is that being a 'lonely planet reader' obviously isn't the same as 'only visiting things that are in the lonely planet'.

I like the language section / phrasebook, I like the introduction pages on culture, history, etiquette etc and I like knowing where in town I can find a bed at 4am after getting of a sleeless 'sleeper bus'.

There seems to be a bit of elitism in the backpacking community concerning LP, the suggestion being that you're somehow less pure if you have a guidebook. It's all rubbish, just another way for certain people to feel superior, in my opinion.

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The main thing to remember here is that everybody travels differently. I feel that this statement was said by someone that I would call a "travel snob", those traveler that feel that they travel the best and so on.

I use my LP for research for where I would like to go and so on. That way when I'm sitting around at night I can get a rough idea of what I would like to see on a tourist aspect and then I put it away during the day and find my own places to eat. Putting any guidebook away during your traveling is important because then your more open to experiences and so on.

The LP is only a suggestion, and while it does have some very good information and can double as reading material for those long layovers and flights, you don't HAVE to go to any of the places that they recommend. That's the joy of traveling, spontaneity. Reply to this

"I run into Paulas all the time. Insufferable and should be looking in the mirror as they spew generalizations about others." Ryan Ver Berkmoes

Ryan Ver Berkmoes said that? I tend to agree with him on that point, though I would likely not describe the Paulas as harshly as he did in that quote, unless I am in a very bad mood. As well as that, saying things like that to travellers won't help sell more copies of the book, especially if they post the quote on a major travel site. It might even earn him a telling off from his employer. 😉

I dont consider Lonely Planet books to be guides to culture. They are more a practical travel guide for the independent traveller. I think, using Lonely Planet books and experiencing the culture have nothing to do with each other. And, I also agree with the following point by Dympna, because I always find the culture hard to miss when I go to other countries too.

Beside there is so much that smacks you around for culture when you are in a new place that it really can't be missed.

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I wouldn't blame publisher for something that is based on behavior of people. Reply to this

The title of this thread, and whether "you agree with this? unfortunately, lacks context and somewhat deflects away from what the blog is actually ultimately about and that is "authenticity" and certain tourists perception of what that is and how it motivates them in their travels. Regardless, it seems that most people who have read the blog have picked up on the message it ultimately conveys! (The idea of an "authentic culture" is a subjective notion that is sought by the tourist based on what they themselves perceive as authentic).

In this blog Paula (who is a self-proclaimed seeker of authenticity) labels those who do not seek out authenticity (because she believes they lack the necessary skills, knowledge - and location - to perceive it) as "Lonely Planet readers".

More broadly, In the examples I have used in this particular series of blogs, beginning with Uncontacted Tribes of Noble Savages and ending with History begins with tourism, which then pollutes the world – the traits “Indigenous People” are believed to possess or more significantly “maintain” are conflated with those of the Noble Savage of lore and taken for granted as truth. In this sense The Noble Savage is the embodiment of the tourists’ notion of the authentic; the more traits Indigenous people are assumed to share with the western notion of the Noble Savage the more authentic they are deemed, and the more attractive they are to the visiting tourist.

Tourists decide what is authentic and not, based on their own criteria, oftentimes setting standards over and above those which are considered authentic locally. For example, when a guide dons what he considers traditional garb in anticipation of visiting tourists, and decides to spruce it up with a smart white Lacoste™ shirt, he is unaware that the inch-long crocodile contamination ultimately de-authenticates him – and possibly the entire experience – in the eyes of visiting tourists.

Who is able to define something as authentic, and by which standards, is ultimately a construction of the present, and is therefore influenced by master narratives of the period, and therefore negotiable.

The irony is that the tourist who seeks the ”authentic” based on these stringent definitions is in a paradoxical search which can never really be achieved. As this theory presumes an uncontaminated authentic culture; an idea which reflects the motivations of tourists who also mostly assume an original, pure, authentic culture lays out there, to be discovered and experienced “off the beaten track”. Therefore, the tourists’ quest is a failed quest as the authenticity they seek contaminates, alters and ultimately destroys the very authentic they seek.

The tourist concern with authenticity, unlike anthropological insights about the constructed nature of culture and its traditions, sees non-Western cultures as intact until they are contaminated or destroyed through Western contact and commodification.

In reality, ALL cultures are staged, invented and remade and therefore inauthentic.
ALL cultures are alive and in process like a river which is constantly moving, and that which we enter in the middle.

There is no such thing as a virginal static uncontaminated culture.

All CULTURES ARE AUTHENTIC

As the quotes below astutely attest:

"perhaps what saw IS the authentic experience." littlewing

"If one was to travel to San Francisco they will have one experience if they have lunch or dinner at the Top of the Mark looking out over the city and another if they walk the city streets of Chinatown. For me, both are authentic---- " D MJ Binkley

"I don’t really feel that the lowest level of any society is an “authentic” experience of the place I visit or representative of any group of people in that society" Sojourner1208

" i'm not really sure that seeing the poorer side of a culture is what a culture is." tamnandfamily

"In France, which on of the following three is more authentic? Dining in a three star michelin, having lunch in a brasserie, or buying you food on the local market? Guess what, all of them!" Pierre

"there is so much that smacks you around for culture when you are in a new place that it really can't be missed." Dymphna
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Travel snobbery in the age of tick-box tourism



In defence of the ‘tourist trail’
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This is certainly an interesting discussion, however, it also smacks of elitism. The fact that I can access LP and use it to help guide my travels shouldn't be looked down upon. I also read blogs, read novels, read newspapers, watch docos and engage in conversation with other travelers. They all contribute to what I see, do and eat! In one Busan hostel, I swapped my daughter's Harry Potter for a Korean LP and had three wonderful hours talking with people that I otherwise wouldn't have if I was too high and mighty to take that LP. The section on Korean manners was VERY useful.
When you visit a city and stay with people who live there - are you stuck in the burbs 50kms out (like an outer Melbournian) or are you living the groovy café life in an inner suburb (where most people in Melbourne DON'T live!)?
I don't think there's a definitive answer as to what's authentic or not in any particular city/country. Depending on where you live, your economic situation, education, likes, dislikes, political persuasion etc....the LP can be very handy at times... Reply to this