Do Travel Writers Go to Hell?: A Swashbuckling Tale of High Adventures, Questionable Ethics, and Professional Hedonism | 
 enlarge | Author: Thomas Kohnstamm
Publisher: Three Rivers Press
Category: Book
List Price: $13.95
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Avg. Customer Rating:  12 reviews
Sales Rank: 2261
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 (New: Last 30 Days)
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Product Description
For those who think that travel guidebooks are the gospel truth.
The waitress suggests that I come back after she closes down the restaurant, around midnight. We end up having sex in a chair and then on one of the tables in the back corner. I pen a note in my Moleskine that I will later recount in the guidebook review, saying that the restaurant “is a pleasant surprise . . . and the table service is friendly.” –Thomas Kohnstamm, professional travel writer and author of numerous Lonely Planet guidebooks
WANTED: Travel Writer for Brazil
QUALIFICATIONS REQUIRED
Decisiveness: the ability to desert your entire previous life–including well-salaried office job, attractive girlfriend, and basic sanity for less than minimum wage
Attention to detail: the skill to research northeastern Brazil, including transportation, restaurants, hotels, culture, customs, and language, while juggling sleep deprivation, nonstop nightlife, and excessive alcohol consumption
Creativity: the imagination to write about places you never actually visit
Resourcefulness: utilizing persuasion, seduction, and threats, when necessary, to secure a place to stay for the evening once your pitiable advance has been (mis)spent
Resilience: determination to overcome setbacks such as bankruptcy, disillusionment, and an ill-fated one-night stand with an Austrian flight attendant
As Kohnstamm comes to personal terms with each of these job requirements, he unveils the underside of the travel industry and its often-harrowing effect on writers, travelers, and the destinations themselves. Moreover, he invites us into his world of compromising and scandalous situations in one of the most exciting countries as he races against an impossible deadline.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 7 more reviews...
 I couldn't put it down! May 2, 2008
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
That being said, I gave it 4 stars because of the endless stories about drugs, sex and alcohol - they grew old after awhile. Although, every time I thought to myself enough was enough I kept coming back to the subtitle. The author lays it bare from the beginning - you don't even have to open the book. Despite this one little hangup that I had, I blew through the book in 2 days. If you have even a passing interest in traveling, travel writing and/or Brazil you will probably like this book. I can easily see why guide book publishers are up in arms over it's contents, but frankly I'm not a guide book publisher and all of the author's misgivings about their "contributions" to the travel industry are spot on as well as his thoughts about the general state of the travel industry as a whole. (I'm not slamming guide books, but you can't ignore the truth in what the author is saying either).
This was definitely a refreshing find in a genera that doesn't see nearly enough new additions in a given year.
Steer clear if you're the type of traveler that likes tourist traps and trinket stores!
I didn't want it to end! May 1, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
"What kind of a man spends his best years sitting in a chair?"
Kohnstamm has written a book that makes me want to get out of my chair, and toss my perpetually connected work life into the East River, which will make sense when you read this book.
There was a bit of controversy around this book before it came out having to do with Kohnstamm's work on Lonely Planet. The truth, after reading this adventure on the road, is that his writing was a gift to Lonely Planet and the charges of plagiarism were way off the mark. Kohnstamm mixes the reality of writing a travel guide with the experiences of being on the road in Brazil; a place where every day can bring another strange adventure to the open minded traveler. Kohnstamm strikes a balance between drunken hedonism and the details that make each episode ring, hilariously true. This is not only a book about travel and travel writing, it is laugh out loud funny which was a great surprise.
"Do Travel Writers Go to Hell?" made me want to get up from my chair, pack my bags and see what the road has to offer, but I have a cat, a mortgage and a wife that insists upon me working. I will have to settle for Kohnstamm's next book. I can't wait!
Great April 29, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
If i would have listened to all of the Lonely Planet people trying to protect their reputations, and all of the hype in the articles about the book, I probably would not have purchased it. It sounded to interesting though, so I did. It was worth it. The book is entertaining the entire way and filled with characters that may remind you of friends, acquaintances, and some people you hope to never meet. It is the first person story of a man that does what many wish they could do: Leave everything behind and pursue adventure and the unknown. It is an unyielding view of what a travel writer faces, good and bad. It puts what many consider a dream job into perspective.
Did He Really Do That? April 28, 2008
6 out of 6 found this review helpful
Several weeks ago, I was shocked to hear the news media reporting that Lonely Planet author Thomas Kohnstamm fabricated his research for LP's travel guides and had now written a tell-all book.
Moreover, I was flatly angry. I used the 2005 Lonely Planet Brazil guide which Kohnstamm contributed to for two trips to that country. I even followed his thoughtful (albeit a bit preachy) regimen for "responsible travel" while there.
And now all his contributions to the Lonely Planet Brazil guide were turning out to be a pack of lies? What a jerk!
Needless to say, I simply had to read Do Travel Writers Go to Hell? If nothing else, I felt compelled to read it in order to justify my anger, or perhaps redouble it.
The book wasn't what I had expected. As it turns out, Kohnstamm turns out to be an extremely conflicted guy. His standards are high, but he is disillusioned by the business of travel writing-- its deadlines and budgets in particular. He tries to build himself up as the cool guy who gets all of the women, yet his description of many of them is overwhelmingly sentimental (see the passages on ex-girlfriend Sydney in the introduction, if you doubt me).
So, did Kohnstamm fabricate some of his work? Did he take free meals and lodging? Yes, and yes, although not nearly to the extent that the media has reported. That's right: the press got it wrong!
This guy is no slouch (he has a Master's in Latin American studies from Stanford), but he does let himself become one at various points in the book. Kohnstamm takes us along for the ride, from Rio to Olinda, and various places in between.
You've got to admire Kohnstamm for putting himself out there like this in such a frank way. There's no trite moral story in this book-- just a travelogue which is part confession, part braggadocio and all well written (in Hunter S. Thompson style, no less).
After reading the book, I can't be angry. First of all, I've never laid myself bare like this. Further, how can I stay mad at a guy who puts pictures of his dog on his MySpace page, quotes Paul Theroux and is fascinated with D.B. Cooper?
I still think Thomas Kohnstamm is a jerk, mind you-- but one who I have come to admire greatly through the pages of this book.
It's good to know that travel writers are real people. If nothing else, Do Travel Writers Go to Hell? proves exactly that. Keep writing, Thomas.
ONE HELL OF A BOOK April 28, 2008
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
As the title implies, this is more than just a travel book. Much more. Following the bed-hopping, bar-prowling, jungle-stalking adventures of our itinerant hero, gifted author and arch-browed travel writer Thomas Kohnstamm, readers get an up-close look at a classic societal dilemma: the conflicts that arise when the need for financial stability and peer pressure run up against the desire to pursue adventure and authenticity in an increasingly sterilized and safeguarded world. Is the book the definitive guide on how to navigate this perilous terrain effortlessly and without too much residual calamity? Absolutely not -- and that's what makes it so damn compelling. A twisted, funny and refreshingly candid ride.
--Bruce Kluger (Contributor to USA Today, National Public Radio and The Huffington Post)
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