Can we trust Lonely Planet information?

There was a post on here yesterday about this that appears to have been deleted.

I guess that shows what Lonely Planet has to say. As for the Colombian book, it is without a doubt the worst guidebook I've ever seen.

I think if it was more widespread than that we would hear a lot about it - it's hard to keep down information in this day and age. Look at this forum - how often have you read of someone's experience with a place or hotel that completely flew in the face of a LP recommendation?

I agree with this and the next topic, that mods should let it stay here, on South Am forum, for the simple reason that author of now very dubious reputation wrote about South Am countries.

The guide book aside, I wonder what kind of favour Thomas Kohnstamm is doing to himself, or his publishers.
I don't think, I'd want him in my team, knowing what he is capable of, both as a writer and co-worker.
If you ask me, the guy should be already thinking of changing career. (unless he's decided to be a "baddie" in his career field).

I was just reading that BBC article and wasn't surprised to find it already posted here.

I've heard about the quality the Colombia book, and not just confined to one edition. I see this guy also wrote the Venezuela chapter of S.A. on a Shoestring. Does anyone have a first hand account on the accuracy of the information in that particular chapter?

From the article:
"He says that after having sex with a waitress on a table after hours, he reviewed the restaurant with the words 'the table service is friendly'."

It will be hard for this imformation not to affect the way I interpret the reviews in the sections he wrote!

I read the story today in the colombian newspaper 'EL TIEMPO'. Here are two links to their articles:

http://www.eltiempo.com/tiempoimpreso/edicionimpresa/internacional/2008-04-14/ARTICULO-WEB-NOTA_INTERIOR-4097127.html
http://www.eltiempo.com/internacional/otrasregiones/noticias/ARTICULO-WEB-NOTA_INTERIOR-4097619.html

I agree that LP Colombia is the worst guidebook I've ever used.

i think its important to know even though the lonely planet guidebook is crap that this guy was not even supposed to come to colombia, in fact Lonely Planet recommended he did not. He was only writing background/ history info on the country. The last Colombian guidebook was written by Michael Kohn and another guy. I can tell you this because he visited my hostel, even though it did not make it in the book. Of course travel writers get freebies.. If someone is writing a guidebook and turns up at my hostel id give them a free bed. So while it is true that the Lonely Planet guide book to Colombia is crap, it is also true that the writers of that book that reviewed the restaurants, hotels, hostels, buses etc were actually in the country.. ask any Colombian hostel owner...
Kelvin, Blacksheep

Hi guys,

For the latest news, discussion and debate on this issue, go here, to the special forum branch we created to help disseminate info to all. Any posts about this from the last couple of days have been moved into that forum.

And if you haven't read it yet, here is Lonely Planet's statement in response to this author's claims of fraud.

OK if you´ve seen my other posts I had a problem with a moderator from lonely planet which fortunately lonely planet sorted out so they are good at sorting things out.

I saw a clip that is runnning over and over on cnn from tony wheeler (if i remember right) who is the aus owner of lonely planet. He says "go into business because you are passionate about something not just to make money" maybe that has something to do with it-or the lack of that idea in practise? Maybe hippies don´t make good businesspeople (this is a comment from a midnight toker)

Edited by: hydrowizard

well maybe the information in the lonely planet is correct, it is just a very thin book. What we found about it was that it did not contain the information we wanted/needed to have once we were in colombia. It's just shortcoming on a lot of topics, regions (that you can travel, although not in 'the book'), ... wel in general, and now we know why!