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When Lonely Planet guides were popular, there was a trend of investors buying popular hostels/attractions from the guide and running them into the ground before
by tppiotrowski 4y ago
When Lonely Planet guides were popular, there was a trend of investors buying popular hostels/attractions from the guide and running them into the ground before the next Lonely Planet was published and warned of the demise. I haven't seen this as much lately (maybe due to rise of online reviews), but cross-referencing Lonely Planet with TripAdvisor is the sweet-spot.
- Turing_Machine 4y agoYou have to take TripAdvisor and similar sites with a very large grain of salt. I recall a low-star "review" of a nearby (and excellent) bird sanctuary where the text said something like "It would be okay if you like birds, I guess". Left unstated was why someone who didn't like birds would go to a bird sanctuary in the first place. Now, in that case, the poor quality of the review was apparent, but it's not always that obvious. Others from the local region: A (very good) seafood restaurant got panned because "the tilapia was frozen, not fresh". Given that this is Alaska and the closest place to get really fresh tilapia is, like, Louisiana, that's not overly surprising, is it? Why the hell did you order tilapia in Alaska? Have you heard of salmon? Halibut? King crab? An (excellent) old-school dive hamburger joint (in business since 1964) got slammed for not having a "vegan option". Yes, and? And so on.
- tppiotrowski 4y agoAh yes, there are many bargains to be had on Amazon if you just read the reviews in depth. Like you mentioned, a lot of bad reviews because the manual is confusing, etc even though the product is great!