Do Travel Writers Go to Hell?: A Swashbuckling Tale of High Adventures, Questionable Ethics, & Professional Hedonism

A great read, I wanted it to go on and on. It isn't an expose' of the tarnished travel book biz, it's a "Dharma Bums" for our modern age. I loved the "new ethics", the nods to the changing culture, vastly insightful inner dialogs, I mean it's all there. If you feel out of touch with this generation, you need to read this book. I think this would make a far more interesting and funny movie than "Drink, Play, F@#k" by Gottlieb, which just got signed to MGM or something. The two books are somewhat similar in that the protagonist sets out on a life changing journey, but "Do Travel Writers Go To Hell" actually makes you feel that you are there. I am hoping there will be a part II. (Didn't the Dharma Bums have a sequel?).

The truth is people are not perfect. Good people do bad things. Some of the smartest people I know have made some of the most foolish and detrimental mistakes. This is what makes life interesting and what makes Do Travel Writers Go to Hell? a travel classic. It is Kohnstamm faults that make the book so fantastic. He is human. You sympathize with his realization that his dream job was only an illusion. His adventures across Brazil are as educational as they are inspiring. Full of sex, drugs and adventure, this book has it all. If more people wrote books like Do Travel Writers Go to Hell? more people would read. Great entertainment! The travel writing industry is full of overly serious travel writers who think they are God's gift to the writing profession. They are so very earnest, faultless and their writing suffers for it. Give me Kohnstamm any day, warts and all!!!

F-ing hilarious book. If you've ever backpacked with a LP guide and especially if you've lived abroad, you'll see yourself in the pages of the this book. I laughed out loud reading it. To be offended by the author's integrity is to miss the point. It's about making a living abroad by your wit and all this brings along with it -- lurid encounters, the runs and seedy hotels. It's all there.

Well-written, fun read. I'd say it was Lonely Planet committing fraud, rather than the author, for paying their authors so little and yet claiming that their authors go everywhere and do everything they say they do. I've known a couple of LP writers and they have a very tough job. Once you tote up all the hours they travel, organise notes and write, the pay is peanuts. Apparently in the company's 'good old days' - the 80s and 90s - authors were paid a decent wage, with some even earning a share of the profits. Yes Thomas is a bit of a cad, but at least he's honest enough to confess all. Ultimately the book is the travel writer's version of Kitchen Confidential.

First off, if I would have believed all of the online chatter about this book before I bought it, I might have made the mistake of not purchasing it. Thank God I did not believe the hype!! Kohnstamm weaves a fun, entertaining, hilarious, and informative tale about his first experience writing for Lonely Planet on their Brazil travel guide. He tells of all of the crazy experiences he had as a young guy jetting off to Brazil to travel across a large swath of the country with little experience and practically no guidance from his editors. Kohnstamm did what many of us have only dreamed of doing, he left a comfortable, secure 9-to-5 job to pursue his dream of becoming a travel writer. From the very beginning, he learned that the lifestyle demanded someone with no strings attached (the self-inflicted implosion of his relationship with his girlfriend is laden with dark humor), and someone who was willing and able to learn a very challenging job on the fly. In the process, we learn of a guy with the best intentions who just wanted to do the best job possible in order to secure more work with Lonely Planet (apparently he did a good enough job that he ended up being paid to work on over a dozen titles). But in the process, he learns that the system, while not necessarily set up for writers to fail, definitely makes it very difficult for them to do the job they are hired to do. I read this entire book through in one sitting. As a traveler, a dreamer, and someone who has always thought of just quitting my job and setting out to make my living traveling the world, I identified with Kohnstamm. He brings us a story that made me laugh out loud, dream right along with him, and in the process taught me a lot about the travel guide industry. I will definitely continue to use Lonely Planet books, but I think Kohnstamm has given me insight into my own travel habits and given me the courage to take more risks on my next trip. I sincerely hope this book is well received, because I am dying to hear about his adventures on the next twelve guide books!!!