In print and online

It's been a busy period for Terry and I, as you've gathered from the dearth of blog posts these last months. And we've got a lot of work being published to prove it, from a small 'Up Next' piece on Abu Dhabi in the September edition of National Geographic Traveler to half a dozen eco-experiences I wrote about in Rough Guide's Clean Breaks book. I saw our first edition Travellers Northern Italy guidebook for the first time in a bookshop in Dubai the other day too and got exhausted just looking at it - that was a tough trip. Although I know you don't believe me. We've always written for in-flight magazines, but we've been doing a lot more writing for them these past few months. If you're wondering why, it's because it's fun, the editors are lovely, easy to work with and respond to emails, it's nice to submit a story and see it in print a month or two later, and they pay on time. In September's Storytelling issue of Gulf Air's in-flight magazine Gulf Life, we have features on Abu Shady, Syria's last hakawati or professional storyteller and a review on the Sheraton Aleppo; while in the October issue, we have articles on Syrian sculptor Mustafa Ali; a new Damascus jazz duo comprised of opera star Rasha Razk and pianist Ghazwan Zerkli; and funky Zen bar in Damascus with its fabulous views. All feature Terry's gorgeous photos of course, as does a story on Doha Tribeca Film Festival director - he shot the stunning portrait of Amanda Palmer in the lobby of Doha's W hotel. We've got a bunch of stories in this month's issue of Jazeera's in-flight J Mag too, and in MPI's One Plus magazine a profile on Emirati Ali Al Saloom who is changing the way visitors to Abu Dhabi experience the UAE.

Envying a donkey his pace - the frenetic tempo of travel writing, part 2

So how, as travel writers, do we get ourselves into the situation I described in the last post? And is it possible to be a travel writer and avoid this frenzied pace of life? To answer the second question first, I don't think it is possible if you want to make more than a decent living out of this profession. To answer the first, the way we work now is that we go on a trip with a number of commissions up our sleeves, and then while we're on the ground we follow up more leads for stories and pitch new ideas to editors from that destination. But that doesn't mean that other requests for stories stop coming in. As wonderful as they are, most of the time they're not even related to the destination we're in, which of course complicates things. While we're on the road, an editor might email and ask "Where are you at the moment?" which usually means he/she has a hotel they want reviewed or lead they'd like us to pursue. We'd be crazy to say no. At the same time, the longer we stay in a place and the more people we meet, the more story ideas we develop. Although we worked on a dozen stories in Damascus this trip, I left with twice as many ideas that I'd love to pursue next time. Do we prefer working this way, on multiple commissions, to focusing on a guidebook and a story or two? Absolutely. For one, it pays a hell of a lot more for less work. Secondly, we're meeting way more people doing stories than we did on books because we're no longer pounding the pavements all day every day putting dots on maps and checking transport timetables. But more on that another time. One of the downsides to this frantic pace is that it leaves little time for blogging. But blogging doesn't pay the bills. And for now, I kind of like it that way. I'll tell you why another time. Now, I have a story (or three) to write.

Envying a donkey his pace - the frenetic tempo of travel writing, part 1

Our recent trip around the Middle East (see this post) wasn't meant to be that kind of trip. There was no guidebook to write. No insane photography commission for Terry to undertake. Just lots of stories and hotel reviews to research and a couple of meetings about a book we're developing. However, somehow a trip that was meant to be fairly straightforward and one we'd hoped would trundle along at a slower pace than normal - a donkey's pace was what I desired - turned into the usual frenzied adventure where we find ourselves running from one appointment to another, and working long days that extend well into the night, every day and night. And now we're frantically writing up those stories and Terry's editing and prepping images for the stories (hence the lack of time for blogging), at the same time as we're pitching more stories, doing more reviews, going on photo shoots, and prepping for the next trip - every day and night, well into the night. So how as travel writers do we get ourselves into this situation? And is it possible to avoid this frenzied life?

Desk update from Abu Dhabi: month #45 on the road but whose counting?

We're back in the UAE and after a couple of days in Dubai (pictured*), we're chained to desks once again in Abu Dhabi - not our desks, but our friends', at their colossal home in the new part of the capital, off the island. The closest thing to a 'home' for us still being in storage in Dubai. A 'desk update' in publishing-speak suggests a guidebook update by phone and email. It's what publishers commission authors or in-house staff to do when they're not inclined to spend the money to send writers on the road. From what we're hearing, it's happening increasingly of late. But we won't have that. Aside from the fact that we still don't have a 'home' to speak of - this week marks our 45th month living out of our suitcases! - travelling is why we do what we do. Why on earth a travel writer would want to write something from a desk without having been to a place we'll never know. We've well and truly researched the stories and reviews we're currently writing up, having spent the last six weeks on the road travelling around Syria, Qatar and Kuwait. But we're paying for it now. We're tired. Chronically tired. My feet are wrecked. We've both been fighting off the flu for a couple of weeks although poor Terry has finally lost his battle. As we write, we're talking to publishers and potential sponsors about future projects - in Thailand, Syria, and the Arabian Peninsula - and in the interim we're considering trips to Lebanon, Jordan, Yemen, Iran, and possibly Kathmandu. We're also contemplating an opportunity that could keep us on the road even longer if it comes off, but more on that in the near future... for now, deadlines await. So what have you been up to and where are you going next?

* the pic is of the view from our room at Jumeirah Emirates Towers where we stayed recently; Terry had photographed the hotel and we'd done site inspections so many times over the years, but never checked in. Now we've stayed, we know why it consistently wins awards for being Dubai's best business hotel. While the rooms are a bit dated in terms of their style, they're impressively appointed, the lobby has always been one of the city's buzziest, and the towers and adjoining Boulevard are home to some of my favorite restaurants and bars, including Vu's, Noodle House and The Agency.

Postcript: blogging and Blogspot in Syria

Another postscript to my posts of a couple of weeks ago on blogging and Blogspot in Syria (see my last post and the postscript before it): after uploading the posts below, I received loads of emails and tweets from around the world, from Syrians asking everything from why I couldn't go to an internet cafe where it's often possible to access Blogspot (sorry, we were working 16-hour days so the only time I had to email was early morning or late at night at our hotels) to foreign and local censorship/IT experts wanting me to provide them with a list of every hotel we stayed at and the hotel's proxy info (apologies again, but one of the things we were doing in Syria was reviewing hotels, so we were moving hotels every second day, and I had enough to do as it was). Based on my recent experience ('recent', because I've never had time to blog on previous trips to Syria), my advice to you is if you're planning to travel to Syria and blog regularly, do your research first but research widely: there are plenty of experts eager to share their opinions (indeed, some rather aggressively) and there is a lot of contradictory advice around (even among the self-proclaimed "experts") about blogging and Blogspot in Syria, from people both outside and within Syria. I found that rarely did opinions align and every expert was able to cite a wealth of research on the subject. Once again, I apologise for not having time to test out your theories and suggestions, but I'm a travel writer who also blogs, rather than a travel blogger who also publishes - and that's likely to stay that way until someone pays me as much to blog as I earn writing. The paid work - which one charming "expert" referred to as "travel fluff" (rest assured, I took her as seriously as she took me) has to take priority, I'm afraid. So, back to work... or writing nonsense?

Blogging and Blogspot in Syria

A number of people have contacted me via the comments to my post below and on Twitter in response to my appeal for advice after my blog was momentarily blocked in Syria. Shukran jazeelan to everyone for their tips - much appreciated! Unfortunately (or fortunately), I'm a busy travel writer with a lot to do here in Syria at the moment - boutique hotels to review, restaurants to try out, artists and musicians to interview - and blogging is not high on my list of priorities at the moment sadly, so I don't have time to test out all your suggestions now. In addition to my lack of time, the intermittent and excruciatingly slow internet access at a lot of the hotels we're staying at means I simply can't get on the net when it's convenient nor wait for photos to upload at the usual size I post them. And I don't have time to keep running back to the Four Seasons, which must have the fastest internet access in town. Quite a few people have written to me about blogspot being banned here and forwarded links supporting this (sorry, but I don't have time to respond to everyone), however, just for your info, I can access a large number of blogspot blogs that I usually read from other parts of the world from Syria (and I was able to access them on previous trips here too), including many listed on my own blogroll, and Syrian-based blogspot blogs that I don't normally read but have discovered on this trip. People are asking me what ISPs I am using and am I using proxies. As I am reviewing hotels, I am moving hotels every couple of days so I'm using whatever ISP the hotel is using and whether the hotel has a proxy or not, I'm sorry but I don't have time to investigate, and would rather be talking to a singer such as the wonderful Rasha Rizk than an IT guy. Hoping you understand.

Access momentarily denied

My harmless little blog Cool Travel Guide has been blocked in Syria for a whole 24 hours - I was confronted with the dreaded "Access Denied" sign when I tried to update it yesterday. But, there's been a miracle, or someone came to their senses, and now I can access it. I realize my mistake - my Syrian advisors tell me it's because I used the 'I' word, which I'm not about to use again, so guess all you like. So, how did it get unblocked? Did the censors actually read the content and realise I was a 'friend' of Syria's? Just a travel writer who writes about places she loves and stays clear of politics? Or was it that the Minister for Information and her staff, who were staying at the same hotel as us last night, overheard my loud complaints to the general manager this morning? Either way, I can post for the moment, but if you don't hear from me again, you'll know why. Come and follow me on Twitter instead.

Post-script: this post and my tweets on Twitter generated scores of responses via email and Twitter about blogging in Syria. Most were friendly messages from Syrian bloggers, IT experts and officials, with tips on how to get around proxies, using Blogger/Blogspot and other blogging software in Syria, and advice on what's acceptable and what's not regarding blog content. I'm sorry I didn't have time to follow everyone's suggestions - it was an incredibly busy trip with little time for blogging unfortunately - but a huge thanks to everyone who got in touch.

Aleppo's labyrinthine souqs

Aleppo's labyrinthine medieval souq - or rather souqs within a souq - has long been one of our favorites in the Middle East, mainly because it has remained relatively untouched by tourism up until recent years - especially compared to Istanbul's Grand Bazzar and Cairo's Khan el Khalili. It's a place where locals shop for anything from women's underwear to camel meat, as much as backpackers haggle for hookah pipes and harem pants. Great buys include olive soap (buy the soap the locals buy, not the soap packaged for tourists), Syria's famous silk brocades and other textiles, and gutras (men's checked headscarves). These days you'll also find stores and stalls with their eyes on the growing tourist market selling jewellery, carpets, and brass and copperware, and spruikers on corners hustling for sales. But we prefer wandering the back-alleys, where the locals shop for their cheap plastic shoes, spangly fabrics, and children's clothes, offering a far more authentic experience.

Aleppo and our room with a view

Aleppo is Syria's most atmospheric city after Damascus and it's our next favorite destination after the capital, the highlights for us being the medieval souq, the labyrinthine old quarters dotted around the inner-city, and the complex cuisine, arguably the most interesting in the Middle East. The new town with its stylish cafes - currently full of hip young Syrian expat kids home for the summer holidays - is pretty appealing too. We're here to do hotel reviews and a feature on Aleppo's oldest restaurant dynasty, as well as gather content for other stories, so we've been at the Aleppo Sheraton for a few days. While it can't compare in terms of atmosphere to Aleppo's myriad boutique hotels in restored old houses, the hotel's location, slapbang in the centre of Aleppo, mid-way between Al Jdeida and the souqs, is unbeatable. As is the comfort and space of our room, the big desk, and internet access - things that become more important to a writer and photographer on deadline than sleeping under an Ottoman-era ceiling, I'm afraid. Oh, and the views, pictured, are pretty special too.

Abu Shady, the last of Syria's traditional storytellers still tells his tales

One of our many reasons for coming to Syria this time was to interview Abu Shady, the last of the hakawati, or traditional storytellers. We last interviewed him almost two and half years ago when we were here to update our Lonely Planet Syria and Lebanon guidebook - that's the 'current' edition every Western traveller is clutching in their hands here now. (We're not using it ourselves - nor are we using any other guidebook - there's no need obviously after so many trips here, but it's interesting to see how many people have a guidebook *and* a guide - very different to last time when there were far more independent travellers around. Why people need help ordering a meal, I'll never know, but it's something I'm going to ponder in another post.) When we last spoke to Abu Shady he was conscious of his age, depressed that numbers of people attending his performances at Al Nawfara cafe in Damascus' Old City were dwindling, his biggest competition being cinema, TV and the internet, and was grooming his son to take over after he died. Ironically, now his nightly performances are packed (people even phone to book tables) and storytelling is more popular than ever (in line with a resurgence of interest by Syrians in everything old), yet he no longer wants his son to take over. Why? Because the pay is lousy. I guess there's a point artists reach when they're no longer prepared to go hungry (or allow their family to go hungry) for their art. I'll pop up the link to our story soon.

Damascus is Buzzing

The atmosphere in Damascus is electric now, and the streets of the Old City more alive than we've seen them before - and we've been regular visitors since 1998. Summer traditionally sees Syrian expats from around the world returning home to spend time with their families while Damascus has long attracted Gulf Arab tourists escaping the sweltering summer temperatures of the Arabian Peninsula - while it's warm here now (low to mid 30s Celcius), the Gulf is scorching (average mid 40s Celcius), so Syria is a cool escape in comparison. But we're seeing travellers from all over the globe getting lost in the Old City's labyrinthine streets at the moment, including Europeans, Australians and Americans. By the look of their travelling gear - harem pants and hippy attire dominate backpacker wardrobes here - they were expecting a cheap destination. But Damascus now boasts an array of beautiful boutique hotels, an ever-growing number of fine restaurants, a handful of hip bars and stylish cafes, a lively arts and cultural scene, and an increasingly chic shopping area in the new city. We're reporting on all of these for magazines over the next week or two, so I'll try and share a few of our discoveries with you as we go.

Pictured? That's Naranj, a relatively 'new' restaurant by Damascene standards, which was very good - the buzzy atmosphere indicative of that found in the whole city at the moment. Although Naranj is not the best, and don't listen to anyone who tells you otherwise - that's a title reserved for Al Halabi at The Four Seasons Hotel, and I'll tell you why in detail very soon.

Damascus' Best Boutique Hotel

Damascus boasts some of the Middle East's most beautiful boutique hotels, which I've written about before on Cool Travel Guide. Mostly they're enchanting old courtyard houses in the labyrinthine Old Town that have been exquisitely renovated with pretty fountains, cushioned sofas and the all-pervading scent of jasmine dripping from their walls. But Ghiath Machnock's Art House is something very different indeed. For one, it's set in a splendid old mill, which the architect spent years restoring, it has a stunning rooftop pool and terrace cafe, another atmospheric cafe-cum breakfast room inside, and rooms themed by Middle East artists and furnished with antique Syrian art deco furniture. Secondly, it's as much a cultural centre and art gallery as it is a hotel, with regular exhibitions of art, music recitals and cultural festivals; an opening night at one of these is not to be missed! Thirdly, it's not in the Old Town, it's on a hill overlooking Damascus, on the edge of the modern part of town. It's an area that few tourists get to, but one that's ideally located for the city's arty types and music students, for whom Ghiath has an open door policy. It's also handy for Beirut's creative set heading into town for the weekend - Lebanese pop musicians have been known to transfer their music studio here for a week's recording, so it's become a bit of an artist's retreat. In the year or so since it opened Art House has very quickly become a vital part of the city's cultural scene. You can read more about it here in Art of the Matter, a story we wrote for Jazeera Airline's funky in-flight magazine.

Making connections: traditions and rituals of love and devotion, or, When you wish upon a heart

I found another photo that's similar to the one I showed you earlier of the ribbons and pieces of cloth tied at an Islamic shrine in Syria. I took this photo in the lovely garden of a gold onion domed Russian Orthodox church in the Bulgarian countryside, where the branches of a tree were tied with hundreds of strings, many bearing tiny trinkets such as hearts. The universal symbol for love, no? So once again I'm reminded of that 1970s song 'Tie a yellow ribbon round the ole Oak tree...' One theory, from the USA, has the tradition of ribbon-tying dating back to the 19th century when women wore yellow ribbons to show their devotion to their 'sweethearts serving in the US Cavalry (yellow being the official Cavalry colour), and then sees it widening throughout society in the 1970s to signify remembrance of a loved one away in the military or in prison. During the ongoing Iraq War, families of US soldiers have been wrapping large yellow ribbons around their porches. The American Folklore Centre researched the origins of the tradition, finding connections to the Civil War, a prison legend cited in a 1959 book, and even to Shakespeare's Othello. Having travelled all over the world, and seen ribbons and strings (like the locks) in many different countries, I find it baffling that a researcher would only look at Western references and that their research didn't cross more borders, cultures and religions. This academic paper I found on 'Religious practices in the Turco-Iranian world: continuity and change' by Martin van Bruinessen, a scholar from Utrecht University, looks at the long list of 'superstitious' (and therefore anti-Islamic) rituals of Muslim pilgrims in Turkey, who treat visits to shrines as cheap family outings and behave like ordinary tourists; they tie pieces of cloth to the gate of the shrine and ribbons and strings to trees, in addition to lighting candles, placing 'wishing stones' on the tombs, and circling the courtyard trees seven times. The Russian (and Greek) Orthodox Christians do the same thing. I remember participating in the act with my Russian grandparents every Easter, walking around the Church at midnight, holding candles. And I expect they do the same thing in Bulgaria.

Making connections: tokens of love and devotion, or, Tie a (yellow) ribbon 'round the...

Looking through some photos from our trip to Syria last year (I was motivated to reminisce after skimming through our just-released Syria and Lebanon guidebook), I came across these ribbons tied to the tomb of an important Islamic figure. If you travel around the Muslim world and visit mosques and shrines, you'll soon start to notice these ribbons tied to the gate that protects the tombs venerated by worshippers. The ribbons are mostly green, which is the colour of Islam, yet, just like in my photo here, you'll see all sorts of colors used, and sometimes you'll even see pieces of headscarves, bandages, and even tissues and toilet paper - whatever people can get their hands on, really. Some believe it's a sign of respect and deference, of devotion and love, and of remembrance. Others leave a ribbon after asking for something, for help, for answers, so they leave a bit of themselves. It seems to be a Shi'a custom, as Sunnis don't believe in shrines, their graves are very simple, they believe in acting as if the deceased person were still alive, so some Sunnis find the act objectionable. One Muslim friend told me the ribbon is a sign of something that comes from within as much as it is a demonstration of an action for others to witness. The photo of the ribbons reminded me of the locks of love we've been seeing all over Europe, and Italy in particular over the past few months, a sign of love and affection. But it also reminded me of a song from the 1970s, which was a huge hit when I was a child, 'Tie a yellow ribbon 'round the ole Oak tree (if you still love me)'. In this case the ribbon was also a token of remembrance and devotion.

Our Lonely Planet Syria and Lebanon guidebook: the challenges of guidebook research and other considerations

Our research last year for the Syria chapter of our recently released Lonely Planet Syria and Lebanon guidebook required that we visit everything already in the book, along with many more sights that weren't in the guide. And while we loved visiting all of those "out of the way castles and ruins", when making decisions as to what to include and exclude in the manuscript we have to think about how much other readers might enjoy what may appear to be merely a pile of rubble to anyone but the most avid archaeological enthusiast. In some cases, the ruins of a castle may be rather spectacular (like the one pictured) and may well be worth the effort to get to. But most readers, who are staying in Syria for an average of five days, might not want to spend a long day travelling (or indeed several days) to get to the site, especially if the journey involves long waits between buses in the middle of nowhere and perhaps even a spot of hitchhiking to get there.

The other consideration we have is word count. We can't just keep adding sights to books, and therefore adding paragraphs and pages. In fact, for almost every book we ever worked on for Lonely Planet we were required to reduce rather than add new text. So, in order to add a few paragraphs to include some of those off-the-beaten-track places some readers would love us to include, we'd have to remove sights elsewhere. When it comes to making those decisions we have to ask ourselves whether we should cut a popular site that might be visited by thousands of travellers to include an out of the way castle that may get visited by only a few hundred people? And with a country like Syria (and, now, under the current political climate, also Lebanon), we have to give this serious thought. How many people are actually using our book and visiting these places? When we did our six week road trip around Syria we only bumped into around 20 other travellers. We were alone at most major sights.

It would be heavenly to write a book with an endless number of pages and complete freedom to include everything we wanted to. But it would also have to have a fee to match. And that's another interesting consideration. How many publishers are going to pay us to go to all those out-of-the-way sights that might only ever get visited by a few hundred travellers at most? Not Lonely Planet that's for sure. And probably not many other publishers either...

Our Lonely Planet Syria and Lebanon guidebook has hit the shelves!

We've just received our author copies of our recently released Lonely Planet Syria and Lebanon guidebook and I'm rather excited to see it in print as we put a lot of hard work into it. Admittedly, seeing a book for the first time is not as thrilling these days as it once was, especially as we've now written, contributed to and updated around 35 guidebooks. And it's even less exciting when Lonely Planet sends you a few mangled, well-thumbed copies, rather than issues that are hot off the presses and smell freshly printed! The fact that we researched it over a year ago, from April to June 2007, also takes a bit of the edge off it. Just thinking that some of it is already out of date makes me cringe. But such is the nature of publishing - books take forever to get from research through writing to manuscript submission, then through editing and author queries until they finally go to print...

I went online to see if there were any reviews of the book yet but unfortunately all I could find were a few Amazon.com reader reviews which, while attached to this edition, are actually for the last edition. Some were written 8 years ago and so apply to an ancient edition while one 2007 review applied to an edition we wrote that was already 4 years old, so obviously some content was out of date when the reader used it. Interestingly though, we used that edition when we were on the road last year and it was in pretty good shape. The way we research is to methodically check everything in the current book as we're travelling from town to town, retaining anything that's still open and is worthwhile, deleting or downgrading anything that's closed or is not as good as it once was, and then looking for places to replace any deletions. One reader writes of that edition: "It only gives you the most popular sites and then a few it claims are "off-the-beaten-track" but really aren't. It misses some of Syria's best out of the way castles and ruins." What he fails to consider is that we all travel differently. Some of us are more intrepid than others, and what might be a well-trodden sight for one reader might be well and truly "off-the-beaten-track" for other less adventurous travellers. And let's face it, Lonely Planet guides are mainstream books aimed to appeal to a wide cross-section of people. As someone who has been to Syria many times, when I next visit I won't be using a Lonely Planet or any other guidebook. My own well-thumbed and rather ragged version of Ross Burns' Monuments of Syria will be enough to guide me.

Pictured? My co-author/husband Terry at one of those out-of-the-way sights that may not be off-the-beaten-track enough for everyone. The first person who can identify the site gets the most mangled copy of the new guides that Lonely Planet sent me! How's that for incentive?

Dead Cities: reading the signs

In case you needed further evidence as to why you need to visit the spooky Dead Cities in Syria alone and not in the company of a guide (see my Doing it alone at the Dead Cities post), it's because it could take you some time to read the signs at the site. And the task will require all your concentration. Or you could skip the signs and follow my earlier suggestion to just take in the atmosphere instead. Who needs guides when you have great signage like this?

Doing it alone at the Dead Cities

If there's one destination above all else in the world where you want to explore alone, and don't want to be tagging along behind a blathering guide – or want a guide trailing along behind you (read this post for an explanation) – it's the Dead Cities of Syria. Serjilla, Al Bara, Jerada, and Ruweiha for starters, but there are more - up to 700 sites in total. The ruins of these ghost towns are sprawled about barren rocky hills not far from Aleppo. And they are spooky. We've visited them three times over ten years and the first time it was winter and they were especially eerie shrouded in mist. While many of the buildings have crumbled away – at first glance you’ll easily mistake their grey bricks for the natural limestone rocks that peek through the low grass – many are intact, which is what makes the place so mysterious. And it’s the fact that you can wander through these towns and villages, scattered over craggy moors, among olive groves, and set among fruit orchards, that makes the experience so moving. (Note that the cherries and apricots grown here are especially delicious.) It’s a bit like visiting Pompeii. As you clamber over the rocks and overgrown paths, wander between simple houses and grand villas, around barns, mills, grape and olive presses, taverns and hammams, it’s easy to imagine people going about their business and leisure, working in the fields, squashing their grapes, and having an ale of some kind in the tavern after work. While the ruins are intriguing and their history compelling – they are Byzantine villages which flourished especially during the 4th, 5th and 6th centuries, and they were part of the hinterland of the great city of Antioch – I don’t need a guide to tell me that as I wander around the site. I can read up on the history in a book on my way, sit on a rock and read about it while I’m there, and, with my curiosity sparked by the visit, I can do some more research later. But while I’m there I just want to take in the atmosphere, use my imagination, and connect with the place. Don't you find a guide gets in the way of that?

Death of the (guidebook) author?

If you've been following the Lonely Planet author fraud scandal or the Thomas Kohnstamm Affair as some of us like to call it, and you've read the comments following online articles and visited Lonely Planet's travellers' forum Thorn Tree, then you may well think this spells the end for guidebook authors. Or at the very least you've now formed a bad impression of travel writers, that they plagiarize, treat the job as a paid vacation, don't visit every place they should, and trade freebies for positive reviews. The Thorn Tree posts have been especially unkind, even ugly, and often untrue (but then that forum is a monster), with criticism leveled at many LP books and accusations such as "I know xx xx (insert authors name) didn't even go to xxxx!" When in fact xx xx lives there, xx xx has a portfolio overflowing with published work on the place, and xxxx is the author's home! The impression seems to be guidebook publishers pay a pittance (when in fact, not all do), fees don't cover expenses (and some don't), and all authors are inexperienced 20 year-old hacks doing the job to travel for free. That's where I disagree. While there are a lot of hacks and a lot of 20-somethings partying around South America 'updating' guides (Let's Go writers are young), there are writers who are a whole lot older (some even ancient), who've been doing this work forever, consider it their profession, are married, have mortgages, have babies, grown-up children, even grandchildren (and whatever else communicates that not all writers make out on restaurant tables with waitresses in exchange for reviews). Thorn Tree members seem to think the industry should start with a clean slate and that they're just the ones to replace us, that travellers can get sufficient reliable travel information from Thorn Tree or Trip Advisor. Well, go for it, I say, because if there's no Lonely Planet, then there'll be no Thorn Tree. While some travellers might be happy to take advice from someone who knows their home town intimately but has never left it, or travellers who go on holidays twice a year and think that qualifies them to review hotels, I'm going to stick to recommendations by professional writers with travel expertise, who travel for a living. And I bet there are a lot of travellers out there who'll do the same. This isn't the end of the guidebook author at all, just a timely re-appraisal and re-appreciation of the role.

The image? A 'holiday' snap taken in Syria last year during 'research' for the Lonely Planet Syria and Lebanon guide. Just in case anyone needs proof that we were even there. Do you want to see my passport stamps too?

Places You Must Go This Spring: part 2

Here are three more fragrant, flower- filled places you should spend some time in this spring. See my previous post for three more heady destination ideas and the post before that for my criteria for selecting these aromatic spots:
3) SYRIA – in the mountains behind the seaside town of Tartus, on the way to delightful Safita (itself a village of twisting lanes and cobblestone alleys dominated by a splendid Crusader keep) and Mishtayeh (with its handsome stone buildings), you’ll find quintessentially Mediterranean scenery of olive groves and citrus orchards, woods of pine trees, ramshackle stone houses with terraces shaded with grape vines and gardens grown wild with tangles of bouganvillea, jasmine, oleander, and cactus.
4) SICILY – in spring the interior of the island is blanketed with wildflowers, especially in the wild Madonie mountains near Cefalu where you can inhale the aromatic air as you walk old shepherd’s routes. As you drive through the picturesque landscapes around Siracusa and between the hill towns of Ragusa and Noto, with their beautiful baroque architecture, you’ll see an abundance of flowers by the roadside.
5) CYPRUS – the whole countryside is stunning, covered with fields of yellow mustard flowers in spring, but you’ll see kaleidoscopic colours in the more remote, pristine Karpaz peninsula (in Northern Cyprus), home to bucolic farmland and windswept sandy beaches, and the beautiful Arkamas peninsula (in the Republic of Cyprus) with its pine-covered hills and rocky coastline.