W(h)ither the Travel Guide?
Careful, Jodi-reading your evocative description of the Maxwell Street
Market, I could sense your inner travel writer clamoring to run free. But the
guidebook might be extinct before you have a chance to bring your gifts to the
tourist masses. Accurate contact information (Web sites, phone numbers), it
seems, is only a stopgap measure in the battle against obsolescence. If you've
got to get online anyway, what's to stop the reader from eliminating the middle
man by using an online content site? Very little, when you're visiting an
American metropolis.
Even if the city guide is endangered, I have high hopes for the real wonder
of the species, the regional guide. A book that can point you from the bus
station to a reliable place to eat and sleep in a remote Indian village, day
after day, is amazing. And the sympathetic voice of a paperback travel
companion, even one as chatty as Frommer's, can be quite a balm on those lonely
train rides when no one else in your compartment speaks your language.
But which guides do I like specifically? I find myself agreeing with the
Access Guide most often. And I love their "celebrity" picks: Frommer's may be
the Cronkite of travel guides, but only Access has Walter himself telling you
where to nosh on the Upper West Side (Zabar's). Fodor's solidity and
unapologetic stodginess warm my heart, but its Compass American book can't make
up in literary savvy what it lacks in maps and practical information. The
Lonely Planet earns its keep, particularly with its clear, compact maps. It's
also let me in on some secret, out-of-the-way neighborhoods that other guides
neglect-the borough of Brooklyn, for example.
But without a large, unwieldy fold-out map, the Lonely Planet will likely be
overlooked by the new "tourist chic" elite. I love that the drive for
tourist-free fun is coming full circle, pushing hipsters back on the beaten
path. In these retro-crazed times, even the loathed Ugly American is getting
another chance to be hot. Solitude is all well and good, but no one comes to
New York to get off the beaten path. Besides, tourists are fun-even more likely
than New Yorkers to say something shocking, enlightening, or both. And you may
as well learn to love them. No matter when you visit, it's impossible to
separate the Sistine Chapel or the Statue of Liberty from their attendant
tourist hordes, unless you have friends in the Vatican (or on the masthead of
Talk magazine).
You're spot-on, by the way, about the thrill of putting one over on the
"experts," as I'm sure any of the regular contributors to
Slate's
Fray would
happily tell you. Still, I find your architectural critique unduly harsh. The
question of 19 or 14 pages of guidebook coverage is splitting hairs-passing off
either as a comprehensive guide to Loop architecture is sacrilege. Ideally, a
guidebook should give you just enough information to get you in the door, and
then suggest a good text on Chicago architecture if you're still
interested.
But not even recommendations are sacred anymore. Another pet peeve of mine
is the blatant self- and cross-promotion that plague these sections. Most
guides contain a list of "recommended" films and books, including travel
guides. Brands like Frommer's and Fodor's, who produce multiple New York
titles, invariably recommend several or all of their other guides. Credibility
is the bread and butter of a travel guide; why would one sabotage it with such
naked self-interest? It's corporate "synergy" at its ugliest: Only a sap gives
away an honest opinion when there's a buck to be made passing someone on to a
corporate partner.
On a lighter note, do you have any favorite travel writing banalities yet?
Given what little I'd seen and heard about New York on TV and in magazines,
newspapers, and movies before I came, I expected a bland expanse of people and
places largely indistinguishable from one other. Imagine my surprise when
Citytripping , a locally produced guide to New York youth culture,
informed me that I was entering "a city of contrasts." Access refined this to
"a city of dynamic contrasts." Then Fodor's floored me with the revelation that
New York wasn't a city at all, but a "mosaic of grand contradictions." And you,
Jodi? Are you taking care to "rub elbows with locals and tourists alike?" And
what percentage of your guidebooks warn you that Chicago, despite its abundant
contrasts, just might be "your kinda town?"
