Arianwen: I totally agree, and that’s what I always try to do. Guidebooks need to recommend a restaurant and hotel, say, near the best museum in town. Of course. But not *every* place to eat they recommend needs to be there. It’s absolutely in every brief for every guidebook I’ve ever written that we are to seek out what’s best, new, unusual, away from the well-trodden piazzas, whatever… the only proviso being that it be *good* and a realistic proposition for a visitor.

Mary: right. And the more times you visit somewhere, the luckier you get at finding those places…

David: I bet you’re right… most readers of most newspaper articles are either: 1. just browsing for entertainment value; or 2. planning a trip somewhere they haven’t been before. Just like most readers of most guidebooks. And I’ve never taken a brief for writing a guidebook that I’m “only to cover the touristy places”. Quite the opposite. Eds who brief me on books also want what’s new etc… as long as it’s good and makes sense as a recommendation (and, of course, it needs a touch more longevity built in). Those Florence one-pagers I mention in the piece were in fact way more “touristy” or cliched than the chapter in my most recent guidebook, I’d argue.

You’re right with a lot of those 48 hours/ 1,500 word guide pieces too. For FIRST TIME visitors, the touristy stuff that’s in the guidebooks is almost certainly what they’re after (perhaps with an unusual bar or restaurant that isn’t touristy and overpriced thrown in). On the whole, the stuff that’s in the guide books is there for a reason.

The travel media could do with a good deal of either depretencing (I just invented that word, I’m having it) or being honest and admitting that they’re largely aiming at second/ third/ fourth time visitors. But I bet the majority of the readers aren’t in that category, and admitting that your readers aren’t all that smart and savvy doesn’t appeal to ad buyers flogging expensive watches and handbags.

> Usually, the stuff they pay for isn’t the story anyway, I’m not there to write about a hotel or flight, after all, I’m there for something else and I just need the hotel or flight so I can be at the place to write the story.

100% true that.

Pam: thanks for stopping by. I didn’t really stray into hosting and funding issues… mostly because (a) it’s complicated and (b) it’s been done… to death. The issue for me here was accepting a gift and/or essentially being a paid contractor/employee/brand ambassador for a product that’s on my reporting beat. I have *major* problems with those. If I”d wanted to review this phone, I’d have requested a loaner. (Travel, eating. drinking is a little different; you really need to *consume* those to review them.)

If I’d taken the promo unit, you’d probably never have spotted the influence of that gift in my writing. But I’m pretty certain it’d be there. Writers have to be ethical enough to say no… and that’s *even more* so for independent writers. You don’t have a century or so of brand trust to draw on, as nationals, magazines, etc. do.