Yesterday I woke up and set myself a mission. I was gonna find out as much as I can about Queenstown, New Zealand, from all the different kinds of information that are available to us travellers. First of all there are the normal print media like guidebooks and their newly born siblings, downloadable pdf chapters of guidebooks, but then there is the whole internet. Forums, travel networks, travel wikis and personal travel blogs. I was wondering if I could get the information I wanted from all those sources and how they compared to each other…
Guidebooks
Nowadays it probably doesn’t matter that much which guidebook you use. It’s more a matter of personal preference than a huge difference in quality content. I decided on the latest edition of the Lonely Planet New Zealand, purely for the reason, that it’s available to me. I have some misgivings about guidebooks in general. There is far too much information in them. I would be happy with just the information about history, budget accommodation, activities, transportation and those little interesting but quite useless side stories, that are usually dotted around the guidebooks. I quite enjoy those. But I don’t need to know about flora and fauna, where I can eat or where the best shopping or internet cafes are. All of that I can find out once I get there. Also, they are usually out of date by the time they go to print and they are heavy and therefore quite impractical if you want to see more than one country on your trip.
The one good thing about them, though, is that whatever you want to know is probably in them. In my case I wanted to know where I can stay cheaply, what I can do during the day and what’s happening at night. The choice of budget accommodation isn’t that great really, just eight hostels are in there. What was surprising really was that the prices seemed to be almost up to date, ranging from 18$ to 25$. On second thought, that just means that prices have been stable over the last couple of years. As for activities, anything you want to do you can find in this Lonely Planet. There’s a good choice of paid and free activities. Prices here are definitely not correct anymore. AJ Hackets 3-bungy jump packet is posted at 300$ per person, whereas on the internet it says 425$. The info on nightlife is pretty good as well. Most of my usual haunts are in there.
Downloadable PDF Chapters
The first time I heard about the chapter download, I quite liked the idea. Get only the chapters you need for a certain country and then distribute that PDF throughout your whole circle of friends and family. So I went ahead and got myself a brand spanking new and shiny copy of the Queenstown & Wanaka chapter from the LP homepage. My first disappointment was the publishing date. September 2006. Surely, it would be far easier to update PDFs than whole books? My second disappointment came when I realized that I had just spent 2€ on an exact copy of the print version. In principle, though, I still like the idea…
Wikitravel.org
I have been on wikitravel.org a few times, when it came up in search results, but so far I had not visited it for the purpose of finding travel information. Just browsing through it, though, the first impression was very good. I like the idea of this wiki even more than the PDF chapters. I was obviously looking for the same information here than in the guidebooks and was surprised when I couldn’t find anything specific. So far only general information seems to be available. A quick look around revealed that some destinations do have some price information for accomodation and restaurants, but I wouldn’t count on it. This site does have a lot of potential, but it might need a larger user base, so more information would constantly be added and current information would be updated. Wouldn’t it be great if you could have travel information in (almost) realtime?
Travel Forum
Now this I have actually used before to get some information. I went ahead and dug around the depths of my email archive for my registration details for the Boots’n'All Message Board and applied for membership on Lonely Planets Thorn Tree. I think these are probably two of the busiest travel forums on the web, so they will do nicely. After I had signed up for the Thorn Tree I received a 20% discount voucher for my next purchase on LonelyPlanet.com. This could have saved me 40 cents. Quite annoying, really.
Anyway, I posted the same message to both forums. Here are the two discussions on Thorn Tree and Boots’n'All. I basically asked for the same information again. Accommodation, activities and nightlife in Queenstown. The wait began at 10.47 am. 40 minutes later I had the first replies on Thorn Tree. What I got was quite informative. Even though I didn’t get many prices for backpackers, I did get a link (24$ for that hostel) and lots of infos on nightlife. I basically got everything I wanted, except the prices for the bungy, in less than an hour. That’s pretty good for free advice.
Apart from starting your own discussion on these forums, you can browse through existing ones. There’s probably a wealth of information to be dug up. A search for ‘queenstown’ on Thorn Tree got me 12 pages of search results, whereas Boots’n'All produced 285 results in total.
Personal Travel Blogs
Hm, this one was a hard and fruitless search. On Googles blog search I tried any combination of travel, accommodation, activities and bungy with queenstown and came up with zilch or rather so much that it became overwhelming. I then tried several blog ranking sites, where you can find travel blogs quite easily, but then you have to search through each of those sites again, which would turn into a mission I don’t think I have the patience for…
Travel Networks
My last endeavor led me to Matador, a site where travellers can meet online, exchange information and read about each others adventures in the big wide world. For each region on earth there are a few experts, that can give advice, so I have gone ahead and sent a private message to one of the two experts on New Zealand. The other expert states in his profile that his expertise is just the north island, so that excludes him. The problem I see with this kind of advice is that the answer depends on only a handful people at the most, whereas with forums you potentially have 1.000s of little helpers, that can give advice from different points of views.
Another such site is Travellers Point, where the experts are called travel helpers. And there are heaps more than at Matador. There is also a nifty forum feature that notifies the travel helpers when you specify their country of expertise, thus combining the strengths of a forum with the knowledge of ‘experts’. Here’s the discussion I started. There is also a wiki, but from the looks of it it suffers the same limitations like it’s big brother at wikitravel.org.
Conclusions
And here I am, more than a day after I first started a discussion in a forum. A quick look showed that out of the three forums I posted in, I have now received responses in every single one. It is probably a good idea to post the same question in multiple forums. The combined responses should get you an almost complete answer to your question. Be prepared to wait some time though. Around 10 hours in the BootsnAll forum and 11 at TravellersPoint in my case.
Only one answer from TravellersPoint so far, even though they have a large amount of travel helpers who all got notified of my discussion when I posted it. This is something Matador should implement on their forums. I did get a fast reply from their expert after all, even though he couldn’t really help me. What he did was give me some general information and point me in the right direction.
So, what’s the best way to get onto the travel information highway? Well, one thing I noticed is that the good old guidebook, albeit all its limitations, isn’t dead yet. It’s alive and kicking, as it’s still the most comprehensive source out there. It might be heavy, but you always have access. It might be outdated, but it gives you a rough idea and with the introduction of the PDFs the future for guidebooks looks rosy. Just print the chapter you need and you have a lightweight version of the big cumbersome guidebook.
So is that the answer then? I know that many travellers love their guidebooks, but there is one important source missing from that list above. The human factor! All the people you meet while actually travelling. Locals, fellow backpackers, staff at hostels, expats and so on and they are the best source of knowledge you can get. Here you can get accurate up-to-date information on virtually anything. I reckon your best bet are PDFs coupled with loads of local information. At least until sites like wikitravel.org take off and more detailed information becomes available. It’s got the potential to kick the guidebooks off their throne. We’ll just have to wait and see, I guess…
What’s your take on the matter?
Tags: Forum, Guidebook, Information, Research
NomadicMatt - 4 May 2008 @ 5:02 PM
I find the web to be an excellent source of information. I especially like Matador but maybe I biased since i write for them!
Travelers Point is a great site too.
Why you heading to queenstown?
traveljunkie - 4 May 2008 @ 11:53 PM
Matt, I’m not heading to Queenstown, I’ve been there already for the past 4 months. I just used Queenstown for the sake of the article, because I know it quite well.
jennifer - 20 May 2008 @ 7:24 PM
I have a new social travel guide and trip planner for you tripwolf - easy to use format with user recommendations as well as professional content for over 200,000 points of interest. Facebook integration and PDF download feature for your favorite destinations are just some interesting features.
We are in private beta, but we launch in June to the public
Click on this link for an invite http://tinyurl.com/3wf7s3
traveljunkie - 21 May 2008 @ 12:14 AM
Jennifer, I applied and will check it out…
Nath - 25 May 2008 @ 11:47 AM
Hi Boris,
Great article - you’ve been busy with your research!
I think with so much info out there on the internet, guidebooks are just a dead weight (and a one-voiced dead weight at that).
Although you may have to work a little harder to get the info without a guidebook (ie digging around on the internet, asking people you meet, doing a bit more walking and getting things wrong from time to time) I think its so much more satisfying. You go where you want, when you want. Not just seeing the things, staying in the guesthouses and eating the food that the lonely planet recommends.
Have you ever been to one of lonely planets secret ‘next big thing - get in there before the rush’ places and found it to be anything other than a complete circus? I haven’t.
I think the age of guidebooks will soon be at an end when people start to wise up and realise just how much more fulfilling and satisfying travel can be without these so called helpful books.
Rant over. Incidentally, I’m doing this current SE Asia trip 100% guidebook free - like you Bo, as a little experiment.
cheers
nath
traveljunkie - 25 May 2008 @ 2:41 PM
The good old next big thing. What would we ever do without it :) I reckon 100% guidebook free is the way to go for the best experiences as well, Nath. It’s not for everyone, though. Many people, especially first-timers and gap-year students, would be completely lost…
Nath - 26 May 2008 @ 4:52 AM
I partly agree with what you say about first timers etc. I thinkits maybe a little more of a necessity then until they get to grips with the wandering (i remember that i wouldnt have dreamed of going away without a lonely planet on my first trip) - but i think it acts as more of a safety net: it makes the unknown a little more known, if you like.
But humans are pretty resourceful creatures and if you dropped someone into a completely alien environment and took away the guidebook, I’d bet my very last dollar that they would still get by just fine. I think the traveling without a guidebook is a kind of leap of faith - but its one with a lot less risk involved that people realise, especially if the internet is on hand. but even when it isn’t, you have to admit its still easy enough to get by. I suppose you just have to recognise the opportunities when information canbe gotten.
like guesthouse owners, the person next to you on the bus, shops, cafes. 99% of people, wherever they are in the world, will lways want help a stranger if its possible for them to do so.
Maybe if more people share their experiences of going guidebook free it’ll encourage others to do so too. I cant think of anyone that would prefer to eat in an overpriced restaurant full of ’sheep’ and with indifferent staff with backpacker fatigue as opposed to finding a little eatery where the patrons are kind, ready to help and offer real fare at a good price. Take this country for example - the lonely planet people are always talking of ’seeing the real thailand’ etc - when in reality anyone who follows this book is seeing lonely planet’s thailand according to lonely planet - chapter and verse.
again, its just my two cents though. haha, good thread! I might have to follow this up on the blog with yet another rant (and preach just like lonely planet ;) haha)
traveljunkie - 26 May 2008 @ 6:14 AM
They probably would get along just fine as well, but it might not be so enjoyable overall. I remember my first long trip and having my LP in the first few months then was comforting (my English wasn’t nearly as good then…)
I said in my article that there’s far too much information in guidebooks and people seem to follow that information to the letter. They don’t even seem to realize that there’s a lot more to a country than just what it says in the guidebooks (sad really!). But the first time you take that leap and go somewhere where (almost) nobody has gone before (and you won’t find much information in the guidebooks about those places) you actually realize you don’t necessarily need a guidebook. I think it’s a gradual development. You start out (like everybody else) with a LP, then you use it less and less until you realize that you haven’t looked at it for months and from that point on you only use it for roaches…
You’re right. Local information is basically unbeatable.
Sam I Am - 27 May 2008 @ 2:21 AM
Thanks for an insightful and well-researched piece Boris and of course for including Travellerspoint in the equation. The ‘travel helper’ feature is basically intended to give that kind of local advice that is so precious, but I’ll be the first to admit that it doesn’t always work out exactly as hoped. Although the forum tie in is smart, it doesn’t work as well as really sending a detailed request one-on-one to a travel helper for example.
I also find that asking ‘broad’ questions doesn’t really get you much help anywhere online. The best questions to answer are more detailed allowing the person answering to really go in depth. Otherwise it just becomes more general advice of the type ‘go there, see that, oh, and do this’. Whilst that is good when you aren’t sure what you want to do, if you already have destinations mapped out the questions can be adjusted to get better answers.
Personally I don’t believe guidebooks are about to die out anytime soon, but there are a lot of travellers who really don’t want to research much before travelling (I can’t remember the last time I even looked up the weather for the time of year I was visiting a place!) at all. Online research is perfect in those cases as you can get a general idea of costs, what routes are popular etc without any kind of details needed.
Could go on discussing this for hours, but one thing is clear; there’s still plenty of work to be done!! :)
Peter - 27 May 2008 @ 4:09 AM
Regarding the blog search; one place you can search through a selection of good travel blogs is at TravelBlogs.com. The search at the top right will search through all the blog featured on the site.
Worth a try, I find that it gets up some pretty good results.
traveljunkie - 27 May 2008 @ 4:11 AM
I guess this is one topic where you ask 10 travellers you might get 15 different opinions, Sam.
Priyank - 9 June 2008 @ 3:07 AM
There are so many resources on the web but it requires great amount of research. Personal stories that bloggers write appeal to me a lot since they talk about stuff that is not usually printed. Lonely planet is generally good, but some editions, India for example, are insufficient. But then I might be biased about that particular ed. Very nicely written Boris!