Story here. Ye Gods! Is nothing sacred? 
Excerpt: “A Lonely Planet author says he plagiarized or made up portions of the popular travel guidebooks and dealt drugs to supplement poor pay … Thomas Kohnstamm, who has written a book on his misadventures, also said he didn’t travel to Colombia to write the guidebook on the country because ‘they didn’t pay me enough’.”
I’m sure it’s a complete coincidence that this revelation comes just as he’s launching his new book about being a travel writer.
I smell shameless self-promotion. And it appears that the media is playing right along.
UPDATE: Lonely Planet stands by the accuracy of their books despite Kohnstamm’s claims. They say they’ve been reviewing his books and found nothing inaccurate. Followup story here.
Well, as a guidebook writer that was plagarized by Lonely Planet, it doesn’t surprise me. Well, to be more accurate, have you ever noticed the gazillion thank you pages in 4 typeface at the end of Lonely Planet books (not sure if they still do this, it’s been a while)? that’s every fucking bozo under the sun that threw in their 2 cents worth into the book.
Most guidebook writers are underpaid. Seriously. And what they do is blow into town, hang out in the hostel, usually cage free beers from people that are easily impressed, ask leading questions about all the tourist sites, write down every unfounded rumor/bartalk/hearsay/bullshit and combine that with a little hands on research and call it a book.
There are some exceptions of writers that go everywhere themselves. Really lucky writers get a book that goes big, have a % of the royalties, and can at least pay for the travel they love to keep it updated.
I co-authored Southwest China Off the Beaten Track, published by Odessy/The Guidebook company/China Guides. The first book China Off the Beaten Track was plagarized much more than mine was. Myself or my co-author physically went to about 95% of the places in the book. Yet a lot of my book found it’s way into the Lonely Planet Guide - whether from direct plagarism or via some traveller bar talk. altogether I received less than $10k for about 1 & 1/2 years of travel and writing (and no expenses). BTW, trying to prove the plagarism would be waaaay too time consuming and expensive versus any kind of real result.
that said, Tony Wheeler, the founder of Lonely Planet, and author of several of the first few books, was a cool dude. I met him once and he wrote great guidebooks - but that was more than 20 years ago and I haven’t kept up. a bunch of his writers, like the guys that wrote the China books in the 1980’s were fucking racist, plagarizing shitheads.
My friend went to college with the author of that book. I read the book a couple of months ago, and it was pretty entertaining. If you have any questions for the author, I might be able to relay them to him.
Rick Steves definitely glosses over the practical aspects of many things, in his books.
I’ve heard that their Thailand guide is their biggest seller. That could help explain many inaccuracies in it, especially prices, because once a place gets mentioned in LP, travelers flock to it and and drive prices up.
Joe Cummings was the sole author for years and years, but the last couple of editions or so he’s been farming out at least some sections. Lives in Chiang Mai. I’ve not met him, but we have mutual acquaintances, and I hear he’s something of an oddball. He’s certainly made a career out of his rep as the LP Thailand writer; no matter what else he makes it into the news for – I believe he has a band – his LP writing gets a prominent mention.
Looking at the current edition, I see he’s not even a contributor this time around!
The part about him dealing drugs sure does get short shrift in that story, doesn’t it?
Dealers, take note: If you get busted, just claim that you are also a plagiarist. You might never see the inside of a jail cell, although you may have to endure a serious finger-wagging from Oprah Winfrey.
Hmm … maybe jail would be the smart choice after all.
When backpacking given the choice I always use Rough Guides.
When I’m in a third world slum I want to know the dangers there,not the P.C. BS that LP seemed to dish up.