In this Episode Nicole adds Lonely Planet to the List

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When I was living in Ottawa my roommates each had one big corporation or organization that they hated irrationally. The items on this list ranged from Oc Transpo (the public transit system of Ottawa) to the Dairy Farmers of Canada. From time to time I would add the anti-seal hunt lobby to this list - mostly when some celebrity would troop to Newfoundland for a photo shoot with the furry white phoques without stopping to talk to any of the locals about why they still hunt seals - but I never hated them consistently enough or irrationally enough for them to be my permanent line item. This weekend I have decided that I am adding Lonely Planet to the list. I have become annoyed enough with my Lonely Planet Philippines edition that I am taking it off my book shelf permanently, I am thinking instead that I will put it under the short leg of our kitchen table. I am in fact annoyed enough to refer to them as a racket and to start calling them down publicaly to anyone who will listen.

I bought the Lonely Planet Philippines edition before leaving Canada because of the publishing company's high reputation with all other travels I have met. I have cracked the book open from time to time since arriving to look up good restaurants in Manila or to check out the Baguio City map, but I have not had the time or the need to really pore over its pages. I browsed through the index excitedly on Wednesday night in preparation for my first tourist experience in the Philippines - my Holy Week excursion to Segada. I was finally going to be on vacation in a tropical country and so would finally need to know more about the Philippines then its bad human rights record. I was severly disappointed when I flipped through the short entry on Segada and found out that unless I liked cheap weed and mountain climbing Segada wasn't worth the bus ride up the mountain. And yet thousands of Filipinos flock to Segada every year. Hmmmm,apparently you are missing something Lonely Planet.

I was under the impression that Lonely Planet was suppose to be the tourist guide for people who really want to experience the place they are visiting. The entry, with its indication of which guest houses have hot water and where to eat “inexpensive” 150 peso meals, made me feel like a middle class tourist before I could even put on my sarong dress and impractical but attractive sandals. I wanted it to tell me that the absolute best views of rice and vegetable terraces are from the windows of the overcrowded, non-air conditioned, creeps along precariously beside thin guard rails that are protecting us from steep ravines, takes 6 hours because we have to travel 30 km/hour on intermittently paved roads, bus from Baguio to Segada. That because Holy Week is the only high season in Segada tourism that I have to be at the bus station by 6am to get in line for the bus that leaves at 9. That I will need an extra bag to bring home all of the cheap, locally grown and processed coffee, tea, peanut butter and blueberry/guava/rice homemade wine that I will buy while I am in Segada. That there is an underground cafe carved out of a cave at one end of town and a cafe that sells only 20 peso slices of pie at the other. Those seem to me like pretty important highlights of this “boring” mountain town.

I would of course hate to sound like an extremist, but me and Lonely Planet are done. As far as I am concerned they are a group of yuppies traveling on their .com money, and I will not hesitate to blame them for every strange global phenomenon and possible conspiracy I encounter from now on.

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Comments

[Marc]

Seriously..who reads Lonely Planet?
Don't believe in everything you read, especially from Lonely Planet. Nice pictures, by the way. And hope you enjoyed your trip to Sagada.

[Lisa]

Promise... no Lonely Planet... EVER!!!!
Hey, You totally convinced me. I swear no more Lonely planet entries, books, or anything else to do with them will ever become a deciding factor in anyplace I travel. As a matter of fact, I won't even put it on the short list of emergency reads for information before I go somewhere. It's funny I read your blog when I did actually. I've been looking into going overseas to teach and was looking at some lonely planet entries about different countries so I could refine my search and pick a place I'd like to go. I found many entries and a lot of them were fairly negative. I was getting disenheartened about the adventures I wanted have in these places. Now I can just write off these entries as an example of some yuppy, psuedo bourgeoise, snobbery and decide they just weren't enlightened enough to appreciated the beauty and unique culture of these places. LOVE the idea of having a list of corporations to hate! I think I definitely need to start one of those!!!! Luv ya and miss ya chica!!!! Glad your having such a great time!