Hand in the air, I worked on the original Footprint Guide to South India way back in the late 1990s. The editor and writer Bob Bradnock was my PhD supervisor, and he set me to work making notes on life in Trivandrum and Kovalam, rather than encouraging forensic academic publishing about sustainable tourism. Hey ho. I learnt how to write and more vitally, how to research. I’m still in love with India and my tours work hard to be responsible and sustainable.
Guide books are a mixed blessing. Shining a light onto the nuts and bolts of travel, you can now cross-check information with the web, which provides an extraordinary resource to confirm a train time or look at hotel bathrooms. It’s also a source of unbridled opinion, of subjective responses and emotional moments. Not that a guide book can’t lean in those directions.
Who can forget the pale yellow “Africa On the Cheap” (implying it was only about the cheap) or the thought provoking title of “India - a travel survival kit”. Those who had been on the ground were worth their weight in gold. We thought those who had drunk Tusker at the Thorn Tree cafe in Nairobi had the traveller’s upper hand, the travel insight and experience that morphed into the information flow on the 70’s overland hippie trail across Africa and Asia.
Part of the late 1960s dropping out vibe included following the hippie trail, and Crowther’s hand-drawn maps and commentary in the Africa guide books gave a sense of being on the inside, sharing the information with a like-minded fellow traveller. Never a tourist. Be aware, Instagrammers, that your annotated photographs with red arrows pointing to entrances might be used for military purposes, as (allegedly) were the Lonely Planet maps for Addis Ababa when the Ethiopian government was overthrown.
My brother had a tatty copy when we lived in Kenya from his hitchiking trip up to Egypt. I used to open it as a dreamy adolescent, reading paragraphs about hotels to avoid and buses to catch. The difficulties of travelling alone. The various illnesses I might pick up. Had the Magic Bus been functioning when I hit my early twenties, I would have been on it.
I should have done my thesis on the influence of guidebooks in shaping the political and social imaginations of the Western World. Think back to Marco Polo (possibly imagined in 1299, visits to the China and South East Asia), Ibn Battuta commenting on India in the 1400’s. The travel guide is not a new thing. And Crowther’s 1970s counter-culture influence on those travelling to the third world, through his somewhat left-wing rhetoric of the Lonely Planet publications.
Travel guides, however, only really swing into focus when you’re making a trip. The specifics of itineraries, the prompts for things to do. Tripadvisor has taken half the fun out of the planning, opening up the adventure through curated images. Expectation management is now through an Instagram shot, Jodhpur a city we expect to be blue at every turn. It’s not. Nor is the Pink City pink from here to there. The jumble of electricity wires and piles of rubbish tend not to make it into Instagram, much as the early guide books had a “Not worth a visit” code for places the writers wanted to keep to themselves. Be careful what you Instagram.
These are subjectives. The social media masses give a star rating, so we aim for a 4.9 and think it must be ok as others have rated it thus. Tourism mass experienced.
So - a brief dip into my bookshelves give me the following.
If you’re after good history, good hotel and food, and a geographers love of maps, the Footprint Guides are excellent. As are the Blue Guides, which have a tendency to being a tad heavy in kilogrammes but are superbly deep on history and architecture. The Brandts are good on photos and the big tourist attractions. The Lonely Planet is worth a look, stronger on the bigger cities, good on hotels. The Rough Guides are another take, good in broad strokes, somewhat opinionated.
Which brings me, circuitously, to Fiona Caulfield’s LoveTravelGuides. Advice for luxury vagabonds hints at the traveller rather than tourist, a decision to travel expensively.
These guides are a reminder of the old days when books were more than just books, where paper counted, and the smell of the binding transported us to libraries and maps (I’m a SOAS Geographer so have extensive map library memories).
The series is printed on handmade paper in Jaipur, with a string and tassle for marking one’s place, and what are billed as a local’s guide to what to see and where to go. I think they are well researched and interestingly presented. I am slightly irritated by my need to have them in my luggage as they are a wee bit heavy, but I do, and they are great.
Just a thought. These books are heavy and the publishers have done this pointedly, using delicious artisan paper. This feeds into my theory about heavyweight paper invites implying an upmarket social event. Paper carries weight, social and intellectual. I digress.
This is a bit of blurb I found on the internet:
“Fiona Macauley left her work as the President of a consulting firm to create the Love Travel brand and set up an artisanal publishing house. For the last decade, Fiona has worked to help clients fall in love with India, and has worked with designers to source and produce in the country. Fiona’s discerning eye for the singular experiences that set a destination apart has resulted in her completely hand-crafted books, which have become regarded as the flagship guides for travel in India”.
So there you go.
Long on illustration and thankfully short on photographs, the illustrations and text allow us to imagine, rather than present someone else’s reality. The introductions to Delhi and Rajasthan are by cultural commentators, thoughtful and researched. These are focused, detailed guides rather than a pan-Indian masala. The eating, shopping, drinking and staying tend to be focused on a combination of experience and retail therapy, researched and enjoyed by people living and regularly visiting these cities. The double edge sword of tourism writing means exposing the hidden corner is to change it. As the writers of the Lonely Planet know, once it’s in the public domain, it’s not off the radar for long.
The subjectivity of opinion is also self selecting through the price point. A hefty $79 bucks in the States or so (to match its wonderful binding) the Love Travel Guides are self selecting. These are not for backpackers or package tourists, but rather the “luxury vagabond” with resource and time. And unlike the early Lonely Planets, have less of the ‘stay here if you can afford it’ and more of the £££ categories. Which we love. These books resoundingly know their market.
If you can find a current version outside India, and are planning a trip to Goa, Bangalaru, Delhi, Mumbai or Jaipur, these are worth buying. I know the Delhi and Jaipur versions, and can vouch as someone who has lived and worked in India that these are excellent resources.
The guide book you select reflects what you’re looking for. A first trip to India might benefit from the broader brush, more catholic approach. For those of us going back regularly, the Love Jaipur or Love Delhi gives an insight much appreciated. “A flagship guide”. I think the Lonely Planet probably marks the flagship. We’re just wake trailing.
If you’d like a bespoke itinerary I offer travel designer services to navigate authentic and interesting experiences in India. Drop me a email.
Alternatively, come with me on a trip to India and discover the culinary delights of South India or the textiles of the North for yourself.
