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| Do Travel Writers Go to Hell?: A Swashbuckling Tale of High Adventures, Questionable Ethics, and Professional Hedonism | 
 enlarge | Author: Thomas Kohnstamm
Publisher: Three Rivers Press
Category: Book
List Price: $13.95
Buy New: $7.25
You Save: $6.70 (48%)
New (30) Used (15) from $3.19
Avg. Customer Rating:  35 reviews
Sales Rank: 76158
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 288
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.5
Dimensions (in): 8 x 5.3 x 0.8
ISBN: 0307394654
Dewey Decimal Number: 910.4092
EAN: 9780307394651
ASIN: 0307394654
Publication Date: April 22, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: CHARITY SALE!! New book -- no shelf wear. 100% of the proceeds benefit the literacy efforts of Books For America.
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| Customer Reviews:
 Do Travel Writers Get Put On Double-Secret Probation? May 21, 2008
10 out of 12 found this review helpful
I recently read another "tell-all" book on travel writing called "Smile When You're Lying." I found it to be quite enjoyable (see my review), so when I heard about "Do Travel Writers Go To Hell?" I figured I'd give it a shot. This lurid tale of the guidebook industry was worth reading, although I preferred the other book because that author was more relatable as a person. Much more relatable.
Once upon a time, Thomas Kohnstamm was a highly educated twentysomething cubicle drone stuck in a real-life version of "The Office." One day he decided to chuck the whole thing and became a travel writer for guidebook colossus Lonely Planet. With no real writing background, he got the job and was dispatched to update an LP guidebook for Brazil. Our boy headed south and proceeded to party his way through a couple months of "travel research." He even found time to actually write here and there, although he did most of his best work close to deadline while fighting hangovers and struggling to make ends meet in less than virtuous ways.
The author has a frat-boy vibe that I found a bit hard to bear at times, due to two parts disgust and perhaps one part envy. During his assignment he drank like a fish, did various drugs, partied with eccentric locals and dodgy travelers, and fornicated his way through Brazil like an Ugly American freight train. In between debaucheries, Mr. Kohnstamm makes travel guidebook writing seem about as appealing as chugging stale bong water in a Mexican jail. He ultimately hammers Lonely Planet's policy of underpaying its writers and offering them little support in the field while literally and figuratively expecting the world of them. And it appears that LP gets what it pays for: some of the publicity surrounding this book centers on allegations that the author played fast and loose with LP guidebook subject matter.
Even though tainted by the above controversy (which the author denies, and in the end may or may not be a publicity stunt) I found Mr. Kohnstamm's take on the guidebook writing process intriguing, and his ability to deliver copy under pressure impressive. Despite limited writing experience, no real help from LP, impossible objectives, dire financial straits, and various other vacation-destroying obstacles, he managed to make deadline and satisfy Lonely Planet enough to earn a living with them. And he even got this memoir out of the deal. However, his success might be off-putting to those who are serious about writing and meticulous concerning facts. Aside from his incessant carnality, perhaps the most dismaying part of this book is the author's blase approach to the craft. Indeed, writers toiling away in obscurity might find his Bluto Blutarsky approach (he says he's "a natural") to be maddening. But he can claim the title of "author," so it's hard to argue with success.
Despite the above blemishes, I recommend "Do Travel Writers Go To Hell?" as an interesting peep show into the seamier side of travel guidebook writing, rashes and all. You may wish to leaven it with these somewhat more wholesome travel books: "Smile When You're Lying," "Honeymoon With My Brother," and "The Geography of Bliss."
 eye-opening June 9, 2008
9 out of 10 found this review helpful
Well-written, fun read. I'd say it was Lonely Planet committing fraud, rather than the author, for paying their authors so little and yet claiming that their authors go everywhere and do everything they say they do. I've known a couple of LP writers and they have a very tough job. Once you tote up all the hours they travel, organise notes and write, the pay is peanuts.
Apparently in the company's 'good old days' - the 80s and 90s - authors were paid a decent wage, with some even earning a share of the profits.
Yes Thomas is a bit of a cad, but at least he's honest enough to confess all. Ultimately the book is the travel writer's version of Kitchen Confidential.
Best new book I've read this year April 22, 2008
7 out of 11 found this review helpful
As a resident cubicle dweller, I enjoyed this book immensely. It's not just a travel book, or an expose on the world of travel writing; it gets at the heart of that temptation to flee the cubicle (where I'm sitting and typing this) and pursue a life less ordinary - but unlike most of the books that deal with this subject it's not all hearts and rainbows once the author makes his move. The book follows the trade-offs, disappointments and cold realities he experiences on the other side - experiences he lampoons hilariously the whole time.
If you like humor - wonderfully dark humor - you won't find a better read than this.
I could not recommend this book any more highly.
ONE HELL OF A BOOK April 28, 2008
6 out of 10 found this review helpful
As the title implies, this is more than just a travel book. Much more. Following the bed-hopping, bar-prowling, jungle-stalking adventures of our itinerant hero, gifted author and arch-browed travel writer Thomas Kohnstamm, readers get an up-close look at a classic societal dilemma: the conflicts that arise when the need for financial stability and peer pressure run up against the desire to pursue adventure and authenticity in an increasingly sterilized and safeguarded world. Is the book the definitive guide on how to navigate this perilous terrain effortlessly and without too much residual calamity? Absolutely not -- and that's what makes it so damn compelling. A twisted, funny and refreshingly candid ride.
--Bruce Kluger (Contributor to USA Today, National Public Radio and The Huffington Post)
loved it - and i will join the author in hell any day May 26, 2008
5 out of 7 found this review helpful
this book begins in the soul-killing cubicle of a boutique manhattan law firm where the author works as a paralegal, which is to say, as a nihilist. he escapes to work for lonely planet brazil, and tries desperately to cover too much territory with too little money and too little time. the shortcuts he takes to pound out the pages are, of course, what make this book the verbal heroin that it is, as well as the candor in revealing the absurd process by which travel guides can be written. i worked in this law firm with him, and also luckily escaped, so i came to this book with a bit of a bias. but 10 pages in, i knew that even if i didn't know thomas and had never worked on the 57th floor of __, __, and ___, i would have loved this book, which i did. it's sexy, hilarious, and hard to put down. the boy tells a good yarn, has a way with words, and keeps himself completely verbally present during all of his adventures (or at least did in hindsight), so that you simultaneously can laugh at him, sympathize with him, feel like you're in the bar with him, want to throw bricks at him, want to be him, want never to be him, want to travel with him, want never to travel like him, and basically not want the book to end. I, for one, now want to travel with thomas, as no travel is complete without self-aware hedonism, unapologetic glee in the 24-hour glow of any and all pleasures of the flesh, and a near-death or near-end-of-life-as-i-know-it experience. it is indeed swashbuckling. and as you'll see from the NYT review which praised it, you'll find it is also the most depraved travel writing of the year. and if you don't think that's a compliment, perhaps you, too, have been working too long in a cubicle.
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