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 enlarge | Author: Thomas Kohnstamm
Publisher: Three Rivers Press
Category: Book
List Price: $13.95
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Rating:  40 reviews
Sales Rank: 29187
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
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| Customer Reviews:
 Perhaps this author will September 9, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
This book was profiled on National Public Radio and positioned there as an expose on the travel industry: how travel writers would review locales without ever going there, would use expense account money for living the high-life, and potentially show other borderline tricks of the trade. Once read, the book is really more of a memoir of a young, raunchy, travel-addled seeker escaping from the cubicle world of post-college career to a job 'on the wild side'. Unfortunately, the author brings himself on the trip. Before the author ever makes it to Northern Brazil, his first travel-writing assignment, he is involved in what apparently a regular occurrence of drunken fighting, seduction, drugs and general bad manners. The author tries to glamorize breaking up with his girlfriend, while actually misses the chance and adds no flourish to his rarely done and everyone-must-fantasize-about quitting his difficult boss and onerous job. Cue the necessary step back into his childhood, growing up, traveling experience and skill, and current emotions about work, marriage, lifestyle, etc. When we finally make it overseas, the author is persuasive in making the reader feel overwhelmed at the sheer number of towns, cities, and beaches he has to cover to even come close to not spending thousands of his own money (which he does not have) to accurately write his travel guide for this remote area. Later forays into multiple potential female 'partners', renting apartments vs. hotels, hoteliers, and throw in the odd Israeli ex-Mossad itinerant, and you have yourself a rockin' living-on-the-edge good time. Unfortunately, the book is only moderately well written and is much more an Augusten Burroughs saga of a troubled heterosexual trying to suck up as much alcohol and women as his thin budget permits.
 An awesome ride... Essential reading for anyone who uses travel guidebooks August 29, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
A young American, tired of life on Wall Street, takes a job as a travel writer for Lonely Planet. He arrives in Brazil and, amidst the temptations of beautiful women and the all-night partying of Copacabana beach, soon realises that he has been given a task of unimaginable proportions and an equally small stipend with which to fund it.
Eight hundred miles of Brazilian coastline. Sixty towns. Countless villages. Our hero is sent to review and collect the names, locations, phone numbers and email addresses of all relevant hotels, restaurants, bus routes, laundrettes, bars and nightclubs across the whole region. And write something meaningful about them. All in sixty days with virtually no money. And he can't accept freebies (rooms, meals, etc.)
As his financial situation grows increasingly bleak, he struggles with whether to accept such perks of the Lonely Planet name. He also struggles with the fact that what he writes is likely to help rob some of the places he visits of their innocence and independence by contributing to American-style commercial tourism there. His wry analysis of how foreigners behave abroad is both enlightening and hilarious. And his insight into the greater meaning of what he is doing shows us yet another ugly side to (American) commercialism, this time in the tourism industry, and more specifically the guidebook industry.
Does he tell a great story along the way? Definitely. There are healthy measures of sex, drugs, drinking and general debauchery. On the other hand, our hero also encounters police brutality, sustains multiple injuries, fends off insolvency (in the most desperate and creative of ways), and meets a host of colourful characters along the way. (My favourite is Otto, the Israeli ex-commando.)
Overall this is an awesome ride. Great for holiday reading and particularly if you use guidebooks, in which case it's a definite 'must read'. Buy it now!
Do Travel Writers Go to Hell?: A Swashbuckling Tale of High Adventures, Questionable Ethics, and Professional Hedonism
Hilarious insight into the world of travel writing. August 7, 2008
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
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
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
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.
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