So many excellent points on this thread. Do I detect a stench of imperialism in some tourists' notion that they have "discovered" a "secret" hideaway in a place that is already inhabited and laden with amenities furnished by the people who "found" it first. Really, there are plenty of beautiful places where locals do not want tourists hanging around (certain parts of Montana come to mind). So what do they do? They don't build hotels, and quaint little guesthouses and gourmet restaurants. Pass through them, and you'd swear you'd stepped into "Deliverance." Guidebook authors will never be tempted to write about them.
On the other hand, I am very protective of my favorite uninhabited areas. My own favorite hideaways tend to be tiny coves, hollows, unused beaches, unblazed trails in dark forests, and so on. Some are near home, others are thousands of miles away, but each is burned deeply into memory and permanently attached to a sacred memory, and I can always retrace the way back to them, but I'll never tell anyone. It's sad to venture past the barricades, over the cliffs, and through the woods to the little cave where you took refuge as a lovesick teenager, only to find it strewn with beer cans and used condoms. The sadness for me, though, is not in the idea that crass people have intruded on "my" secret hideaway, but rather that when the magical shroud of memory is pulled back, I have to accept that it was just another place all along, that the magic was all in the moment, and that even without the cans and condoms it can be relived only in the imagination.
Advice: find a place you love, savor it, remember it fondly, let it blossom and ferment as your memory distorts it, regale your friends and readers with stories and let them find their own special place...but whatever you do, don't go back.
Into my heart an air that kills
From yon far country blows
What are those blue remembered hills,
What spires, what farms are those?
That is the land of lost content
I see it shining plain
The happy highways where I went
And cannot come again.
(AE Housman)
When travelling, I have found a place to be made up of a mix of experiences, people, weather..it can never be the same. It may sometimes be better. I have revisited places and been very sad, and others had a better experience than the first time. Places will change, people will change, we ourselves change.
Thank you for posting the poem, Batfish; that sums it up beautifully!
To go further off-topic, I tend to mark time by stopping overnight in London every time I cross the Atlantic, even if it takes me out of the way from my destination. It was the first new city that I'd ever visited alone, and despite its indifference it still preserves for me the youthful exhilaration of introducing myself to the world for the first time. Without fail, I can tell exactly where I am in life from the way I feel when I step out of the Underground and take that first whiff of the cold, dirty air. I know exactly how much I've changed every time I retrace my path from streets where I learned to enjoy being completely lost, buy a pint from the same crusty old pub where I first got publicly drunk in mid-afternoon, and slurp from the same fountain where I washed the first taste of dirty foreskin out of my mouth. Love at first sight is a losing proposition, but it's nice to have a place to grow into as you change.
How's the city of London for a secret piece of paradise? ;-)
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<hr>Yes.. but how often do you really go back to the same place.. I mean with so many places in the World to visit. By the time you get back it will have changed no matter what, especially if it was a great place. <hr></blockquote>
This is precisely why I keep telling people on Thorn Tree to leave "rural" places alone.
Nevermind that I hate "rural" places to begin with. (I'd rather suck turds out of a dead pig's ass than spend twenty-four hours in any "rural" environment, even if "rural" means an exquisitely isolated beach.)
You really can go back to the same place many times if you save up your pennies, and the people there will always be much nicer and more generous than these awful Puritanical backpackers who want to demonstrate to the world that they can get by thank-you-very-much on a dollar or less per day.
Good Lord. Spend a little money. Be generous with yourself. Stay for one night at the Oriental or the Peninsula in Bangkok. It won't kill you.
Live a little.
If you can't be generous with yourself, you'll never be generous with others.
Oi Tezza!#2 I know yor sort "cum ere in yer dirty underwear pinch our sheilas drink our P! dirty rotten pommie B**'s" won't tell us were yer lives but, Yer recked Earls court, London, and also my rugby club wiv yer Aussie Rules, an impressed our women, wiv yer fony dentistry qualifications, bought on Kaosan rd; taken over completely!! I remembers bein up the Indu Kush, in Chitral an they asked me "Do you know Thesiger" I fort e woz annuver backpacker.till I read eric Newby. Then 4yrs later that berk, Bonnington ooh climbed Everest, goes up there an films the Kalash[Kafiristan] an now, evryone an is bruvvers bin there. same, same as Gazhni in Afghanistan, I swopped an old radio for an Afghani coat, they never forgot ow I ripped em orff, now yer gose there and they slits yer throat.just blame me. An its my fault that katmandu is ruined, cos I told everyone [I erd yer ass ter even pay to go in the temples now Swayambu, Badgown, ] just me an a few French Ippies back then, an I started up this cum an see the sunrise over Everest trip. I wouldn't even wanna go back there again. Ios Sikinos and Santorini in Greece, wenn ol lenid Cohen an is bird Joni Mitchel were oled up on Siphnos, I told everyone, now its ruined, an costs almost as much as London.
Iss 'Lonely Plonkers' fault hand eld RTW's sittin in Cyber cafes,[middle of nowhere] all day, writin their memoirs, before they appens, tellin all and sundry about Their special "unspoilt place!" doin same ol rubbish ere on TT.
I've ad me gripe, nurseys cummin, so must go an take me medcine.
arry
Wish I could have got into this earlier than #47...
As a guesthouse owner myself, if some pretentious backpacker told a guidebook writer not to mention my place, I would offer them the option of buying my business or kindly keeping their traps shut.
Agree with other points, if this place well and truly requires a little effort to find a guidebook mention or two is not going to destroy it. Travelers are inherently lazy and prone to follow well established precedents for travel - note the extraordinary high numbers of tourists purchasing bus tickets on KSR to places like Siem Reap despite scores of warnings here, in guidebooks, on websites, etc not to do so.
Two bits to add:
On my first exploration of Europe (I'm American), I used Rick Steves' book. His books are written in a style that almost leads you to believe he's letting you in on "secret" destinations, complete with hand-drawn maps of tiny little towns and "insider" tips on places to go, things to do, and even the names of a few colorful characters--inkeepers and the like--you might meet. It's absolutely brilliant that he can write in this style and still sells hundreds of thousands of the same book. I knew the information I had was the same as the information that thousands of others had--how could I not, when I walked down the street of some tiny Italian village and saw three other people with their noses buried the same Rick Steves book?!--but I still liked his style and applauded him for pulling it off. Of course, the result has been that many formerly quiet little gems of destinations, places of accommodation, restaurants, etc., have quadrupled their prices and become overcrowded and unable to handle the throngs of Rick Steves fans, but I have to admit that I benefited from his advice and believe it was not wrong for him to have publicized these places as he did.
On a completely different note, if I recall, the LP books (all?) carry a caveat in their prefaces that LP intentionally does not always disclose all the gems, either because they feel place could not handle the resulting throngs or would for some other reason benefit from being left alone. (I THINK it's LP who does this--I could be mistaken--maybe it's Rough Guide!) Anyway, it's an interesting approach. The opposite of the Rick Steves approach. And their caveat has had the effect of encouraging me to talk with other travelers I met instead of relying solely on the guidebook to steer me to the best stuff. Bravo.
Gor Shar is so right.....we are human creatures of habit and inherently lazy. few of us really go off the beaten. Really..because once we beat it we go back if we liked it. And beat it over and over. there are so many places in LP that they mention aren't so great but you can go there and have a wonderful tourist-less experience. And because most 'packers' get bored without others and internet cafes they wont stay around.
Reminds me of living in Tokyo. So many people on the north east Asia board tell everyone to go elsewhere for a "real" Japanese experience. Hmm...Tokyo has had real Japanese from all over japan migrating there for hundreds of years. They say too many foreigners........not mentioning that in a city of twelve million plus....you can avoid the few popular spots and not see more than one white face a day among thousands of people. In my area about 10 westerners were known to live there..out of a few huundred thousand. Usually I was the only one to three around...(my co-workers). taking trains twenty minutes away to small communities with ABSOLUTELY NO westerners and little english made for a real experience and those great little eateries will forever be off any path. beaten or otherwise!
just curious...
how does someone go about becoming a story writer for the lonely planet. I have a lot of stories. if I got paid for it, I wouldn't mind "sharing" some of the stories for others to read.
point me the way, young man.
lo and behold! it is chicken little who approaches.
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<hr>On a completely different note, if I recall, the LP books (all?) carry a caveat in their prefaces that LP intentionally does not always disclose all the gems, either because they feel place could not handle the resulting throngs or would for some other reason benefit from being left alone.<hr></blockquote>
That is LP from memory - it only appeared in their books in the last five years or so. I always read it as a cop-out for the flack that some of their guidebooks were getting in regard to them not being "comprehensive enough", and for the removing of previously covered provinces - eg in the 2003 Thailand guide, Phayao province in the north ceased to exist!
Could be wrong though, though it does seem a bit disingenuous given some of their past coverage..
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