Sydney beyond the cliches and hidden gems - not!

A travel story 'Sydney Beyond the cliches: Hidden Gems' is so not full of 'hidden gems' and is so completely full of cliches that I couldn't resist that little nod to American 80's humor (I just love that scene in the satirical mockumentary Borat where he's mislearning how to be funny). But what else would we expect from The Sydney Morning Herald Travel section which has only itself to blame for destroying the fine reputation it once had by publishing stories that seem to either have been penned by teenagers for school newspapers (read this gushy teen diary-style entry about learning to surf: am I wrong to think that the SMH's readers are mostly over the age of 15?) or poorly written pieces without narratives or angles. Take this one on Sydney, which, for want of a better angle, they lazily pass off as a 'going local'/'insider' take on the city. The amusing thing is that to a Sydneysider (I was born and bred there) none of these things are 'hidden' (but then the writer was a guest of Tourism NSW which leads me to believe she doesn't live in the city), certainly not Campbell Parade North Bondi (every backpacker in the world makes a beeline for Bondi Beach around the corner), definitely not Nielsen Park and Shark Beach, Vaucluse (which even Tourism NSW's site says is a popular family picnic spot; I hazily recall a night skinny dipping there some 16 years or so ago), probably not the 'swanky hotel' she doesn't name, and obviously NOT the Hilton hotel's Zeta Bar. It's the Hilton. That alone should preclude it from being a 'hidden' gem, especially as it's on the front page of the hotel website. The bar looks very stylish - it's designed by Tony Chi after all (which oddly enough she doesn't mention) - but don't call it a hidden gem. What's worse is the 'writer' goes as far as to provide a long list of the many celebrities (which alone can't make it a hidden gem) who have been there from the bar's website:

From the story: "You never know who you might spot, the bar has played host to lots of celebrities, including Jessica Simpson, James Blunt, Snoop Dogg, Nicole Ritchie, Hugh Jackman, The Veronicas, Perez Hilton, DJ Samantha Ronson and Jimmy Barnes".

From the website: "Zeta Bar is fast becoming a Sydney icon with visiting international celebs. Jessica Simpson, Kimberley Stewart, James Blunt, Nicky Hilton, Snoop Dogg and Nicole Ritchie have all partied there... And Aussie A-listers Jennifer Hawkins, Hugh Jackman, Ian Thorpe, and Megan Gale often stop by for a beverage..."

Now that's really lazy. Hang on, let's give her some kudos for some research - it appears she asked the PR people for a couple of extra celeb names to drop. If these 'insider' secrets and the writer's local knowledge and travel savvy haven't impressed you enough already, read these priceless last sentences about the bar's cocktail list: "The extensive menu features everything from the classics, a pina colada in a pineapple topped with cream and a sparkler (p-lease! Was this the first time this writer ever looked at a cocktail list - or had even been to a bar?!), to a cool martini, and the more unusual. If you're really brave, try the bacon-infused cocktail. Tipped to be the next big trend in cocktails, it comes with a rasher on a swizzle stick and a maraschino cherry. It's odd. But it's interesting." What I find odd (but less interesting) is how these 'writers' actually get published. Could an editor have read this story and actually thought this is a good insightful piece of travel writing? I'd be asking for a re-write or an ending at least. What's happened to the Herald? Read Terry's more thorough analysis here: Sydney's odd unfinished weekend. Yep, this one's really had us scratching our heads this week - along with Heston Blumenthal's Fat Duck food poisoning scandal and the even more scandalous media coverage of course.

Pictured? Not a hidden gem but definitely a local favorite, and it does do interesting cocktails: Tamanya Terrace at the Radisson SAS Dubai Media City.

Offbeat: to be unconventional, original, quirky and weird - and tell a story

So for something to be 'off·beat' it has to be original, unusual, quirky or kitsch, something that doesn't conform to conventions or expectations - but as Kim Wildman argues in relation to sights, "it is the story behind them, how did they get there? who created them and why? that makes them so fascinating..." Take a read of Kim's comments to yesterday's post More reflections on offbeat travel: when the mainstream starts to have kitsch appeal and also the comments to my post before that What does it mean to be 'offbeat' in an age where everyone is so 'switched on'?). Kim tells us how Ronnie's Sex Shop "was a failing farm store on a lonely strip of highway until one night when Ronnie's friends decided to play a drunken prank on him and added the word 'sex' to its name – sure enough it soon stopped traffic. While Ronnie’s has certainly slipped into the mainstream (it's now a pub/restaurant) it is the story of how it suddenly became a destination on the tourist map that makes it 'offbeat'." The conventional becomes offbeat before then becoming mainstream again. A bit like any fashion really. What's unconventional to some may be mainstream to others, that which is offbeat and eccentric to one person can be familiar and normal to another, and those things that might have once been 'off-the-beaten-track' are now 'known' to all travellers. With all this in mind, I find myself intrigued by a fairly new travel product which keeps popping up called Offbeat Guides. I'm eager to find out just what makes them so unusual.

The image? That's the Big Prawn at Exmouth, Western Australia. We like our seafood large-size in Australia.

More reflections on offbeat travel: when the mainstream starts to have kitsch appeal

To continue from my previous post's reflections on offbeat travel... it seems that conversely, and curiously, out-of-favour mainstream attractions can come to have kitsch-appeal to some. Now when exactly that starts to happen is something I find intriguing. Take Australia's 'big things', the Big Pineapple, Big Banana, Big Sheep, etc. And yes, please take them, Australia has hundreds of them, and we really have no need for them anymore. Once popular with Aussie families when they first opened in the 1960s and 1970s, these big old beasts have been largely forgotten by locals, lying empty and abandoned for the last couple of decades. Indeed the Big Lobster (pictured), which we drove by a couple of weeks ago in Kingston, South Australia, is even up for sale. Yet, while these colossal creatures no longer interest Australians, they're obviously fascinating to foreign travellers. They're included in all the guidebooks and writers such as Danny Wallace currently on the road in Australia scribbling for The Guardian about his 'Big Adventure' still seems to find them oddly compelling. Although the same can't be said for his travelling companion and Australian wife. I can't help but wonder how many readers have stuck with the series. And how many travellers are actually considering a trip to Oz created around visits to big things. The poor things! I can think of a lot more engaging ways to theme a road trip in Australia. But each to their own I guess. So what are your thoughts? Do you have examples from your own countries, or from your travels, of popular attractions that may have fallen out of favour with the mainstream but now have some kind of wonderous kitsch appeal?

What does it mean to be 'offbeat' in an age where everyone is so 'switched on'?

If something is 'offbeat', it's strange, quirky, eccentric, so travel to offbeat destinations means visiting weird places and seeing unusual things that the average tourist might not think (or want) to see. Right? Travel writer Kim Wildman wrote 'Offbeat South Africa: the travel guide to the whacky and wonderful' which the blurb describes as "a guide and tribute to the strange and surreal people, places and things that make this country great... an off-the-radar directory of idiosyncratic attractions for all those who have dreamt of... following the road less travelled..." which serves as a helpful definition here. I'm sure the book brilliantly directs travellers to the quirkiest and kitschiest attractions. Now these reflections aren't motivated by Kim's book (more on where I'm going with this in the next post), but what I'm wondering is... how 'offbeat' is anything in an age when travellers are so 'switched on', when they're not only researching trips through guidebooks, but also using websites, discussion forums, travel blogs and Twitter, as The Guardian's Benji Lanyado did in Paris last week. If everyone is so in touch, so up on the latest and strangest, so aware of the (once) hidden local gems, those secret and unusual places simply aren't secret or unusual anymore. The (no longer) off-the-beaten-track destinations, from the smoke-filled bo-ho cafes only those 'in the know' supposedly knew to that odd little secondhand clothes shop on a deserted backlane in some out of the way suburb that nobody ever visited but the people who live there, are no longer less-travelled or 'alternative'. They become mainstream, and therefore no longer 'offbeat'. Don't you think?

Pictured? One of the many Ettamogah Pubs (this one in Western Australia), inspired by cartoonist Ken Maynard's Ettamogah Pub that appeared in Australia's long-running (now-defunct) Australasian Post magazine. Is it kitsch? Is it offbeat? Or is it one of those examples of crass Australiana that we're no longer sure whether we should cringe over or embrace with pride? Or is it just a dumb tourist attraction? A fascinating case study I'll save for another time.