Can You Trust Your Travel Guidebook?

Steves dismisses Kohnstamm as an anomaly. He says that he, like many other travelers, finds Lonely Planet's books useful. And he feels the dust-up over freebies is silly.

"My job is to sort through all the come-ons, deceptive advertising and bogus sights and distill things down for my American readership," he said. "Ironically, a place that gives me a free room is more likely to be downgraded or dropped from my book because by actually sleeping there I'll learn about a noise problem in the wee hours, thin walls, or a horrible breakfast that I might not discover with a quick visit."

But longtime Lonely Planet writer David Stanley disagrees. Although he says the company didn't require him to travel incognito, he says he remained anonymous and took no freebies, while other guidebook writers identified themselves and were "treated like royalty." Several writers interviewed for this story said they identified themselves when interviewing travel providers on the record, but only after having done their research.

As the work has become less rewarding, some seasoned veterans say, wide-eyed novices are taking their places, a loss for guidebook companies and their readers.

Over the course of 35 years, Tom Brosnahan wrote guides for Lonely Planet and Frommer's, among others, and now maintains the Web site TurkeyTravelPlanner.com. "In the 1990s I made a very comfortable income from guidebook authorship," he says, "but I don't think that it's possible today."

Reid Bramblett, author of several Frommer's guides, concurs: "Over the past decade, just about every professional travel writer I know who once did guidebooks, either full time or as just one cog in the wheel of their freelance career, has gotten out of the game."

Bramblett said a publisher recently offered him $3,100 for a job that he estimated would cost him $9,500 in expenses. "I would [have been] spending $6,400 of my own money for the privilege of writing their guidebook."

Though many travelers today get the bulk of their travel information from the Internet, most major guidebook companies are thriving. Lonely Planet has reported double-digit growth for several years, including a 13 percent increase in book sales last year, publisher Pickard said. Rick Steves's titles are up 12 percent per year during the past several years, and Moon is up 6 percent per year, said Bill Newlin of Avalon Travel, which publishes both titles.

Legitimate Journalism

Bramblett says that while some writers cut corners, the real pros still care. "I think what keeps the good travel writers honest is constantly reminding yourself that somewhere out there will be a tourist or a family banking the success of their entire trip, a trip for which they saved up vacation time for years and on which they're probably spending thousands of hard-earned dollars, on your advice and the accuracy of your data," he says.

"You can't, as Kohnstamm claims to have done, slack off just because you're angry at the bum deal you accepted from the publisher."

So how's Kohnstamm doing? Though his book has been out less than a week, "Do Travel Writers Go to Hell?" is selling well. Kohnstamm's publicist wouldn't disclose sales figures but says the book has already been reprinted.

The writer, who lives with his Brazilian girlfriend and his dog, says his next book will be about illegitimate fatherhood.

"I thought I had a Patagonian love child," he says. "It gave me another perspective on life and the implication of one's actions."

Michael Shapiro is the author of "A Sense of Place: Great Travel Writers Talk About Their Craft, Lives, and Inspiration" (Travelers' Tales). He last wrote for Travel about online guidebooks.