Can we trust Lonely Planet information?

Today on the BBC it was reported that Thomas Kohnstamm, one of the authors of the Lonely
Planet guide for Colombia, actually has never been there. He says he got the information from a girl he was going out with. Moreover, he says that a lot of what is written is in return for special favours (be it money or something else). Lonely Planet said that he was just one rogue writer and that the rest are not like him.
Nevertheless, I find this worrying. I've used Lonely Planet guides for a long time and most of the information is accurate. I thought they had methods of ensuring the information is not only accurate, but to a large extent unbiased.

So the question now is, to what extent should we trust the guides (and probably not just Lonely Planet, but all of them).

Here's the link to the article (it's in Spanish)http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/spanish/business/newsid_7346000/7346209.stm

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!

Strangely enough I flipped through that guidebook a year and half ago hopping to gather info on Colombia. I didn't care for it so I turned to Thorntree and it's participants in order to familiarize myself with Colombia. My instinct was correct and I have encouraged many others to do the same. I heard over and over on Thorntree to ignore the LP guide. Funny how the publisher would ignore the voice of interested travelers writing directly under their noses. Yet they pull posts so therefore they do read this site. Makes you wonder.

I've looked through some Colombia LP books, although I do not remember which editions they were. What I can remember is that they were lacking a lot of information, especially of very interesting things to do. For example they do not mention Panaca, which are huge domestic animal parks, with shows and the like. They are extremely popular with Colombians, but there's no mention in the book. I did not buy any of the books in the end, and have only used them in Europe where I guess they have to be more careful.

I guess all of this calls for tighter checks on what they print and the kind of people they hire.

the general information about colombia and places to visit in the book is OK
but dont trust the accommodation, restaurant and bar recommendations... it's better
to use other sources in the internet or just ask locals for the best and cheaper places...

anyway, colombia is an amazing country and you will get by with the lonely planet...

"As for the Colombian book, it is without a doubt the worst guidebook I've ever seen."

Indeed-it's a total POFS no matter who wrote it.

"tony wheeler (if i remember right) who is the aus owner of lonely planet"

Not any more-he sold it to the BBC and has has only a minor share in the company.

No, we cannot trust LP any more. So we shouldn't buy them anymore. But a different brand or no guide book at all from now on.

The question is if we need travel guides in 2008, when we have fellow travelers on-line that are more up to date than a book who was edited 2 years ago. In the case of backpacker places, not once I have found myself following the recommendation of "Lonely Planet" just to find out that the place has lost its reputation longtime ago.

Travel guides need to adjust to the new era, minimize their books size and be more up to date if they want to survive the travel 2.0 era.

It is actually true that the lonely planet guide for Colombia is very poor, and all the owners of the guesthouse that I have met in Colombia told me that the guy who did the lonely planet couldn't speak spanish, was stubborn an really not reliable !
Actually all the prices of this guide were outdated !

That's one of the reason why I have decided to create a website for travelers, so that they can put their own information, and share them, updated the prices...
it is there : http://outues.free.fr/travel

you can help me and write there your informations when you travel

my boyfriend is from slovakia and he says when he and his friends first read the LP guide to czech and slovakia they all fell about laughing,it was so bad!and they did actually wonder if the author had ever been to slovakia!

Note that the special branch created by Geekgal has been deleted.

Hi silvanocat, thanks for your comments. I've replied to another of your posts here. Cheers.