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>Wasn't the Lonely Planet era basically about hordes of Western backpackers going off the beaten path, while Lonely Planet carefully documented all the good thi
by dontbenebby 4y ago
>Wasn't the Lonely Planet era basically about hordes of Western backpackers going off the beaten path, while Lonely Planet carefully documented all the good things the backpackers found?
It was about first generation international travelers showing up with thousands of dollars in electronics in places with much less tolerance for wealth inequality, feeling entitled to selectively decide when to follow local customs.
I got the sense it's meant to give you a sanitized experience, so that locals can have their own places, but you don't feel excluded.
(I visited Paris and London pre-Instagram, doing about 3 days in each, turning my phone off as much as possible and trying to stick to paper maps)
- jltsiren 4y agoI think you are talking about a later era. For me, the Lonely Planet era was after the overland routes to India closed but before smartphones became popular. Flying started becoming affordable, and infrastructure in the form of backpacker hostels and printed guidebooks largely replaced the word of mouth as a way of sharing information. It became increasingly likely that if you discovered something nice off the beaten path, other backpackers had already been there and documented the place in a guidebook.
- dontbenebby 4y ago> I think you are talking about a later era. Probably right, I didn't leave North America until the twenty aughts. Things changed very rapidly in a short time between that first trip and just a few years later.
- Bhurn00985 4y agoThe first Lonely Planet book, Across Asia on the cheap, was published in 1973 afaik, so there weren't many electronics around back then. So it has little to do with the type of traveler you discuss, not that these didn't show up in more recent decades. You can find the original one on archive.org if you'd like.