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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 Used: $7.35
You Save: $6.60 (47%)
New (29) Used (7) from $7.35
Rating:  34 reviews
Sales Rank: 13491
Media: Paperback
Pages: 288
Number Of Items: 1
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: In great shape, may have light wear. 100% Money Back Guarantee.
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Product Description
For those who think that travel guidebooks are the gospel truth.
The waitress suggests that I come back after she closes down the restaurant, around midnight. We end up having sex in a chair and then on one of the tables in the back corner. I pen a note in my Moleskine that I will later recount in the guidebook review, saying that the restaurant “is a pleasant surprise . . . and the table service is friendly.” –Thomas Kohnstamm, professional travel writer and author of numerous Lonely Planet guidebooks
WANTED: Travel Writer for Brazil
QUALIFICATIONS REQUIRED
Decisiveness: the ability to desert your entire previous life–including well-salaried office job, attractive girlfriend, and basic sanity for less than minimum wage
Attention to detail: the skill to research northeastern Brazil, including transportation, restaurants, hotels, culture, customs, and language, while juggling sleep deprivation, nonstop nightlife, and excessive alcohol consumption
Creativity: the imagination to write about places you never actually visit
Resourcefulness: utilizing persuasion, seduction, and threats, when necessary, to secure a place to stay for the evening once your pitiable advance has been (mis)spent
Resilience: determination to overcome setbacks such as bankruptcy, disillusionment, and an ill-fated one-night stand with an Austrian flight attendant
As Kohnstamm comes to personal terms with each of these job requirements, he unveils the underside of the travel industry and its often-harrowing effect on writers, travelers, and the destinations themselves. Moreover, he invites us into his world of compromising and scandalous situations in one of the most exciting countries as he races against an impossible deadline.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 29 more reviews...
 Hilarious insight into the world of travel writing. August 7, 2008
A. Miller (Blacksburg, VA)
For one that is very interested in the subject of travel writing (travel essays, guidebooks, etc.) I found this book to be full of often hilarious insights into the mysterious world of guidebook writing. Kohnstamm succeeds in succeeds in ridding almost all of the myths that surround travel writing.
The book is worth reading simply for all of the incredible, seemingly unbelievable stories in the book. However, if you are interested in traveling at all this book is a MUST READ.
 A swashbuckling tale of the high adventures (of shallow people) July 30, 2008
A. Peled (New York, NY)
There is a self congratulatory tone in Kohnstamm's recantations of shady interactions with drug dealers, endless drunken debauchery and fleeting encounters with prostitutes and women. For me, within the first twenty or so pages he already succeeds in becoming the assassin of his own character, leading me to question whether the tales he told were a true portrait of the places he visits or simply a self fulfilling prophecy of a shallow, 'cooler than you' lifestyle he seems naturally drawn to; sex, drugs and rock and roll.
The authors myopia in this sense made it extremely hard to convince me that he took his job, or himself very seriously and he comes off as an immature man who hasn't left the college frat house far behind. I'm convinced that a more grounded, mature and thoughtful person who seeks more genuine relationships with people and his surroundings would have penned a far different tale... but that doesn't sell books.
This book does however succeed in leaving a few indelible impressions on the reader about the nature of travel writing and its inherent hypocrisies. Having backpacked around the world myself, I was drawn to the deeper philosophical dilemma's Kohnstamm presents (albeit sparingly) about the nature of the relationship between the traveler and the land that is trampled underfoot.
dont believe everything you read July 29, 2008
H. Winslow (San Francisco, CA)
including the author's claims about all the sex he supposedly had while roaming around south america. He finds himself irresistible, obviously, but -- especially in light of his high self regard--it is hard to believe that all those women he claims in the book to have bedded actually found him so. Despite recent brouhaha about made up "non-fiction" writing (including ridiculous accusations presenting as a serious "charge" the fact that David Sedaris exaggerates--puhleeez), one can be sure this book didnt get near the fact-checker. The best thing about the book is that you will forever be disabused of the reliability of tourbooks. That alone however does not justify the length of this book which cries out for an editor, since it would have been a far better book as a shorter breezier read. I did not hate it, but it is seriously flawed. I guess worthy for the traveller fantasizing about writing a tour book. According to the author, it's a terrible gig.
 Anyone who ever wanted to be a travel writer July 25, 2008
Dagmar F. Pelzer (Miami, Florida)
Funny, poignant, over-the-top, a must read for anyone who ever aspired to becoming a travel writer. I never liked guide books, have never bought one, and only occasionally glance at them at book stores. Somehow they always turned me off. This book confirms that I've been doing the right thing!!! Rather research destinations on the internet from the countries themselves, comments by other travelers, including Lonely Planet's ThornTree, and write about it yourself, and if only in travelogues to friends.
The looooong descriptions of his or his friends' sexual exploits, endless drinking and drugging detract and add at the same time. Too long sometimes, I would have liked to read what he actually wrote about the places he never visited.
The book gave me many ideas, and I will rework my own travel manuscript and finally publish. So, wannabe travel writers, read this and start writing. You can do it too!!!
A Perfect Description of a Lost Year July 20, 2008
T. gates (nyc)
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
This book feels like a record; the record that the artist says nearly killed them. The one that almost did them in, despite the critical acclaim or career advancement that it provided. Reading the beginning of Kohnstamm's escape from New York is like the second a paper cut hits - there's no pain, but you know it is i coming and you know it is going to gush. One expensive bottle of alcohol and a fistfight into it, you're on your way through Kohnstamm's journey through travel hell. It's exactly as you'd want it to be; a bit scandalous, a bit egregious, a bit tell-all. Nothing here really shocked me but it did give me a greater appreciation of what it is All About. I'd daydreamed about what a Lonely Planet author would have to go through on a daily basis - it turns out that my daydreams were on point. If you like travel, writing and sordid tales.....I'd recommend this book. I read it from cover-to-cover in one flight across America.
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