Eco-Travel Discussion: Good Magazine compares guidebooks

For our recent trip to LA to celebrate my husband's birthday, I knew I didn't need a guidebook. I had my friend Linda. Linda grew up in LA, worked in the film industry in LA, became a catering chef in LA, had two babies in LA, and (for some reason we still don't understand but are grateful for nonetheless), decided to leave LA to come to work at our fab day job location in the Midwest. (At night while I'm blogging, Linda is blogging AND writing screenplays -- she just sold her second! Congrats, my friend!)

Linda prepped me with a thorough list. Thanks to her, my food-critical hubby ate at restaurants he actually enjoyed the entire weekend. But we don't always have a Linda, a reliable local who is willing to spend hours tutoring you on where to go. Fortunately, as Good Magazine proclaims, we now have City Secrets, a travel guide series written by serious local experts ("the world's foremost artists, writers, architects, curators"). In a comparison with four other guidebook series, Good puts City Secrets on top:

It may not be great for hotels, but City Secrets is the future of guidebooks, because it's all written by the people who know the city best.

Now for the bad news: So far, City Secrets only covers New York, Rome, London, and "the towns of Italy," including Florence and Venice. (City Secrets, call Linda when you get ready to roll out your LA edition.)

Where Good gives a concise (and playfully snarky) review, Laura and Terry, full-time travel and guidebook writers blogging at Cool Travel Guide, have been writing thoughtful and thorough posts about the guidebook industry for quite a while now. Check out their stuff for a more in-depth discussion.

As eco-travel connoisseurs, what kind of information are you looking for in a guidebook?

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Comments

[linda]

wow, thanks for the shout out. i feel like such a star and that, perhaps, others will read how great your experiences were in my native city (which i hold so dear to my heart) and will stop seeing it as just "hollywood" and give it a chance to show off its treasures.

[laradunston]

Thank you so much for the shout-out - much appreciated! Really.

I'll have to check out the guides you mention.

Where guidebooks are handy is when people don't have resources (friends!) like Linda. But even Linda can't know everything I guess. If she does, then she should be a guidebook writer. Although I'm confident she's making a lot more money from writing film scripts - and yet is probably spending the same amount of time locked away in a room at her computer as a guidebook writer. Having said that, and having written scripts and made movies before - and as much as I love filmmaking - I know which job I prefer. :)

But if only every traveller could have their 'Linda's'! Maybe Linda should write her own guide to LA???