Kate of Late

CBC interview about travel writer column

The column that follows this post antagonized some of Vancouver's travel writers. As a result, CBC Vancouver's Early Edition invited me onto the show to debate the topic with travel writer Andrew Renton. To listen to that interview, link to 

http://media.libsyn.com/media/barbecuesecrets/Early_Edition_12_Aug_08_-_Trav

el_Writers.mp3

I am unrepentent.

Will write for free minibar Toblerones

AS you set off on your summer vacation this year, there are a couple of things you need to know about travel writers. That travel guide you’ve combed like a head full of lice, marked up like a philosophy exam, and intend to consult as often as Billy Graham thumps his bible? It was probably written by a fraud.

When you bought it, you doubtless assumed it would present to you an unvarnished view of your destination, written by somebody who had dined in all the oom-pah-pah/schnitzel houses in Aha, Germany and longed to share his worldly knowledge. You supposed that the author had tested out each of the b & bs that he (or she) had liberally festooned with star ratings.

And if you’re a fan of the Lonely Planet guides, as many people are, you likely took it for granted that your cheerful on-paper host had hiked each exotic trail about which he raved, and soaked in each hot spring, and sampled each food kiosk so delectably jammed with seared snake heads.

Oh, would that it were so. But as a book called Do Travel Writers Go to Hell? makes clear, it is almost impossible for one writer to do all that stuff for the appallingly meager wages most publishers are prepared to pay. How does the author know? He once wrote the Lonely Planet guide to Brazil, much of it without venturing anywhere near the sites he depicted so lovingly.

The book, intended to be a shocking exposé of the travel writing game, largely fails in its attempt to amuse. Author Thomas Kohnstamm tries to portray himself as a kind of Hunter S. Thompson figure – 30-odd years after Thompson first did and wrote it all. As he tells it, on his travels, Kohnstamm was far keener on indulging in the drugs and booze and sex constantly presented to him than he was on completing the task at hand. (Of course, that’s if we can believe a word he’s written.) We are meant to be shaking our heads as we chortle over Kohnstamm’s youthful hijinks. Me, I kept thinking, “I would have thought the real Brazil was a lot more interesting than this.”

I should have expected pure self-indulgence from Kohnstamm – I’ve done travel writing myself. The profession, if you could call it that, is over-run with penniless hedonists. My husband Stanley could not contain his mirth at a recent event that was packed with travel writers. He knows how badly we’re paid, and how severely we’re compromised, so my colleagues’ zippy hair-dos, discount leather jackets and boasts of having ballooned over the Panama Canal didn’t impress him a bit. He understands how cheaply they sold their souls just so the owner of Panama’s Balloons’R’Us could get a little “free” editorial ink.

To an outsider, mind you, travel writing sounds like a great gig. It’s certainly a fabulous way to get the royal treatment on a scullery maid’s wages: somebody (with an agenda) invites you somewhere, usually with other members of the media, and then puts on the dog. Your digs are free, the chef makes you special meals. Of course your experience is tremendous – how can you say otherwise? And so you don’t. You probably won’t overtly lie; if something goes amiss, you just won’t mention it. (In the next few weeks, watch for features on the wonders of Beijing that mysteriously skirt the issue of air quality.)

Some travel writers work for publications that don’t allow freebies, though those are becoming harder to find in these days of dwindling newspaper fortunes and iffy newspaper ethics. The New York Times, for instance, supposedly doesn’t permit its freelancers to accept hotel rooms or meals gratis. I’m not sure how well the Times can police its writers, however. Its contributors may be accepting free rooms or meals and just not admitting it. After all, we know that even the sainted Times has occasionally hired reporters who’ve made up the news.

Other professionals, such as the pair who wrote the excellent guidebook Maui Revealed, claim they have accepted no favours and have checked out everything in the book themselves. I happen to believe them, but there’s really no way to disprove their boast.

The dilemma for newspaper and magazine travel writers is that unless the publication buying their piece pays for accommodations and meals, which few do, those expenses must either be absorbed by the host/provider or come out of the writer’s own pocket. I have no idea what the Times pays for a travel story, but Canadian newspapers pay peanuts; nor do they spring for the trip. The writer is therefore faced with the options of seeking freebies outright, accepting freebies if they’re offered, or squandering the entire fee to be received for the article, and then some, on transportation, rooms and meals. Since the journalist then spends time researching and writing the story, often taking the accompanying photos as well, that leaves him or her in the hole financially, just so the newspaper can fill up the editorial space between the travel agency and airline ads.

As a result of this problem, many travel stories appear to be written by people who were going somewhere anyway and want to be able to write off their holiday, or are accompanying a spouse on a paid-for business trip. For a few hundred bucks or less, they’ll concoct a story and get the rare experience of seeing their name in print.

But you’d catch few of these dilettantes slaving over a guidebook for the pennies it might bring in. Travel writing is surprisingly labour-intensive if, unlike Kohnstamm, you’re doing it conscientiously. It’s not enough to simply describe the joys of paddling a kayak up Indian Arm for a day. For any worthwhile guidebook entry, the exhaustive research required might include local flora, fauna and history, directions to the rental shop, hours of operation, up-to-date prices on kayak rentals, meals available in the area, disabled access information, and so on. It’s irksome, low-paying work and, as Kohnstamm’s approach proves, lazy writers cut corners.

So be skeptical of your travel guide. Cross-reference it with its competitors. Consult the online site Trip Advisor, where actual tourists, spending their own coin, weigh in. Consider the source of your information – scum of the travel-writer pond, conscientious observer, or regular Joe? Proceed with caution. And, oh, by the way, have a happy holiday.

 

 

What a relief that there’ll always be an England

GOD bless the British. That’s all I can say.

In the dog days of August, when there’s nothing doing in our own country beyond horrific news that nobody could decently ridicule, the U.K. is always there – a perfect, pear-shaped target.

The nanny state’s zealotry knows no bounds. For this week, The Telegraph reported that a painter/decorator from Llanafan, Mid Wales, was fined for smoking, by himself, in his own van. As he is self-employed as a painter and decorator, he stands accused of “smoking in the workplace.”

Smoking is currently banned in offices in Old Blighty. So when the heinous criminal set out in his vehicle to pick up a packet of tea, sucking on a cancer stick en route, council officials from Ceredigion pulled him over and slammed him with a “fixed penalty notice” for 30 pounds.

“I am dumbfounded,” said Gordon Williams, feigning innocence despite having been caught in the act. “The van is only insured for private use and to get me to and from work…. It’s not my place of work – I decorate houses not vans.

“I don’t use it for work so I can't see how they can do me for smoking in the workplace.”

Some folks simply have no shame. That’s when officials step in to make sure they get some, in a hurry.

After all, shame is the great equalizer. Just ask 68-year-old Max Mosley, the British head of the Federation Internationale de l’Automobile (FIA), auto racing’s governing body, who was asked to step down after he was caught on video having what newspapers called a “Nazi-style orgy.” He wound up taking the News of the World to court for reporting on it.

Mosley is the son of Sir Oswald Mosley, founder of the British Union of Fascists, and society beauty and author Diana Mitford, a Hitler fan. Max Mosley claimed no references were made to Nazis at the orgy – despite the participants’ use of German accents, along with uniforms that allegedly resembled those worn by officers in Nazi Germany’s SS. Mosley’s defence? “So what? I like S & M and at this sort of party, you really need a theme.” Or something along those lines.

Mosley kept his job, won his case, and the newspaper will have to pay him 120,000 pounds, but he’s been axed from the A-list of people like the crown prince of Bahrain and Monaco’s Grimaldi family. (Mind you, he now gets 50% off for life at the less popular schnitzel houses.) Honestly, though, can you blame the guy for thinking that taking the strap like a man is the very essence of British living?

It only makes sense. After all, when the macho actor Daniel Craig was announced as the new James Bond in England in 2005, he was forced to wear a lifejacket as he whizzed along the Thames in a military speedboat.

And it was in the U.K. that the British Egg Information Service was forbidden to re-run a famous 1957 ad, starring comedian Tony Hancock, in celebration of its slogan, “Go to work on an egg.” This, because the Broadcast Advertising Clearance Centre felt the ad “goes against what is now the generally accepted advice of a varied diet.”

I just saw the movie version of Brideshead Revisited. True, it’s set in pre-World War II England and not present-day, but among the things people were forced to be ashamed of then (beyond the usual no-no’s of adultery and alcoholism) were: wearing “flannels” to dinner rather than more formal attire; kissing a woman if you were a man; kissing a man if you were a man; kissing a man if you were a woman; being brought up near Paddington Station; admiring a big house; being an artist; supporting a friend rather than his mother; supporting the mother rather than his friend; being an atheist; not being a Catholic; and not being a good enough Catholic. Spit-spot, spankings all round.

Things don’t seem to have got much looser over there since. Canada’s chattering class will be frightened to hear that using a cellphone while driving is already banned in Great Britain, according to The Telegraph.

Smoking is not entirely forbidden yet, although the newspaper said changes to the Highway Code mean it is now officially considered a “distraction,” along with such nefarious activities as reading maps. Smokers in Britain can apparently be prosecuted for “driving without due care and attention” if an accident occurs while they are puffing behind the wheel. (Lest we Canadians feel too superior on this matter, many of our detox facilities, psychiatric hospitals for convicted criminals, and federal prisons are now banning smoking. Yes, that’s right, addictive personalities who’ve hit rock bottom have to not only kick crack, crystal meth or heroin, but, simultaneously, cigarettes. Cue the riots.)

I see Great Britain as a kind of testing ground for other countries who are considering imposing restrictions they suspect their citizens might not swallow. U.K. authorities seem to try out idiotic shame-inducing concepts first over there, and if they prove acceptable to the public, those ideas cross the pond. It worked with Britain’s Pop Idol TV show, which was copied around the world, so why wouldn’t it work with fining people for “smoking in the workplace,” even if they’re bicycle couriers?

Inspired, I’ve unleashed my inner nanny to come up with other things Britons should be forbidden from doing while driving. I hope they’ll soon become verboten (not to be too Max Mosley) over here. They include: picking at their “spots,” which in addition to disgusting other drivers could lead to scarring; eating fish’n’chips, because they might accidentally swallow a wedge of lemon and lose control of the vehicle while choking; measuring their “things” (see The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, Aged 13-3/4); and changing out of their pants and into a kilt while entering a roundabout.

And that’s just for starters. I’d be a perfect nanny for hire, if the British government ever wants to farm out the work. My carpet-bag’s packed, a la Mary Poppins. Just say the word, old sports.