The Travel Guide I'd Like to Read

Everyone wants to travel. Everyone wants to write. Everyone wants to be a travel writer.

Travel writing is probably the most underestimated occupation in the world. Everyone and his uncle thinks he can do it better. Yours truly included.

Over the past 25 years of traveling the globe, I've lost count of how many times and how many people I have talked, brainstormed and dreamt about living off travel writing.

And yet, I have not found a good travel guide that meet my needs. They are in general, too general, trying to satisfy to many traveler's needs. Most of them cater to tourists, not travelers, and cover things that not even locals would recommend you to do. I call them guides to the Disneyland you'll never want to visit.

Who wants to be a tourist? A tourist to me is someone that is disconnected, travel in herds and wears a fanny pack. It's an ignorant observer who pays for excitement and casual insights. To be a tourist in life is a sad occupation.

I think they reason why there are no good travel guides is - as stated above - the general assumption is wrong. Travelers are no longer only foreigners, tourists or everyday sheep. A lot of people speak more than one language, have grown up, studied or worked in a 'foreign' country. The world is truly flat to them.

I'd like to experience a new city the same way as I experience my own: going to the bakery for bread, reading the newspaper at the coffee shop and grabbing dinner at a cool restaurant with great food. I don't need a travel nanny but someone that can give me directions to the things I'm interested in (music, movies, books, wine, cooking, food, bohemia, architecture et cetera).

The key is that a travel guide should be nothing less of a local guide and that's why I like the Time Out guides. They treat you, the reader, (almost) as a local. Sure, they need to attract a mass audience but all-in-all they do a pretty good job.

That said, I see a future in nisch guides that caters much more to personal interests than sights / attractions. Like Nota Bene (luxury guides) or The Other Side (guides for the clubbing aficionado).

Traveling is not about the ultimate experience but the experience that fits your desires, needs and interests. If you love food, then you want to know the good restaurants in Paris and could care less about the Mona Lisa, Eiffel Tour or Place Vendôme.

I guess that every civilization learns the things they need to know. That opens up for business opportunities.