Trusted Sources for Travel Wusses

by Jools Stone
on October 15th, 2010
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'I don't care how good the band are, someone on Thorntree said it's not safe!' Picture by Steve Rhodes

The death of the guidebook?

There has been a lot of chatter recently on the death of the guidebook. Sales continue to falter and the role of our old paper pal is on the wane given the constant proliferation of neat new web tools and mobile apps to connect and inform travellers on the go. Coachsurfing is almost becoming passe and since Twitchhiker has managed to thumb himself halfway around the world relying solely on the generosity of strangers he found on twitter, more travellers who have started using the site as an everyday part of their trip planning regime.

And in the past year or so, the advent of foursquare on smart phones and the ipad has upped the ante even more, giving those wired up and savvy even more opportunities to leave the tomes behind and search for the specific info they need, when they need it.

In the Good Books

But not all visitors will be as clued up and a generation gap is likely to figure into things. Many will still embrace the reliable comfort of flicking through their Rough Guide to whats-it-called-again? or Lonely Planet to where-have-you while they ignore the safety announcement on their outbound flight.

Guidebooks have a place in very narrow travel niches too. Apparently Bradt have reported good sales for their guides to destinations seriously off the beaten tourist track, such as North Korea and Northern Iraq. Presumably those taking the step of exploring such uncharted territories need the extra reassurance that can only be found in a volume of several hundred pages.

Destinations and Reputations

Crowdsourcing has its merits but you only have to look at the recent legal furore around TripAdvisor to see how conflicted and unreliable everyday opinion can be. Guidebooks retain a sense of authority, partly because of the rigorous production process you know they have been though and also because their authors are established travel writers and journalists who have researched their destinations and can be held accountable for their work. (Even if a few infamous cases of worst practice in recent years have brought the business into disrepute.) Guidebooks carry weight and not just in your case.

So while it may seem a little defensive when Glasgow tourist chiefs were up in arms about negative comments in a recent Thomas Cook guide to the city, you can see their reasoning. The guide warned visitors about marauding gangs of rival football fans fueled by decades of sectarian strife, binge drinking, urban deprivation and high cholesterol food, as if the whole city was one great Rab C Nesbitt Funpark. It seemed a trifle unfair to me. I can’t say I’ve witnessed much evidence of this myself and few tourists will venture into the city’s less salubrious hinterlands anyway.

Warnings and Dangers

Whichever way I source information on a first time visit, I’ve noticed an alarming tendency in me to get obsessed with any negative stuff I read. I’m addicted to that little section called warnings and dangers. I know that every city worth visiting has these, and that the basic laws of common sense generally prevail to protect you wherever you are, but still I’ll happily lose hours of my life ploughing with grim fascination through page after page of them on VirtualTourist on TripAdvisor.

One trip to Riga was nearly ruined by swathes of bad press I’d managed to find a few nights before I left. Never mind the fact that nearly all the horror stories I read were clearly the result of obnoxious stag parties staggering rowdily down seedy little back alleys and strip clubs, I was convinced that we’d meet a sticky end. As we sat in the Latvian equivalent to Burger King late on our first Saturday night we convinced ourselves that every Slavic utterance was an evil plot to rob, rape and ruin us before we had a chance to finish our Hesburger on Rye.

Local Heroes

So if you’re an anxious traveller like me and you can’t trust everything you read, who can you turn to? You need to meet some real people in the places you’re travelling to. Coachsurfing’s one option of course, but it’s not for everyone and there are plenty of options for those who prefer to arrange their own accommodation but still call on the insider knowledge of residents on the ground.

The Global Greeters network is one example. This completely free service hooks you up with enthusiastic locals in one of 30 cities worldwide who volunteer to give you a meet and greet tour of their town.

You can take things to another level by using a service like Tripbod. They offer a network of local experts – ’your friend at the other end’ - giving fully customised tours based on your interests and can even assemble a day by day itinerary informed by these before your visit.

While I can’t resist the dizzying array of handy sites out there and will no doubt throw myself headlong into the finger tapping fun of Foursquare and co once I finally get around to upgrading my dumbphone for a smart one, I’m going to keep hold of my guidebooks too. But I can’t promise I’ll ever shake that perverse urge to scare myself witless before I go anywhere new!

What about you? Who do you trust with your travel plans?