Lately we’ve been checking into some gorgeous grand old piles – with varying states of upkeep. While we love those old radios that they sometimes have above the headboard, the other anonymous switches that old hotels have drive us crazy. If these butler buttons haven’t worked since 1965, it might be time to rip them out of the walls, unless a butler from 1965 turned up every time you pressed it. At least a butler from 1965 would agree with you that the button is stupid, it should be ripped out of the wall, and he’d have the contacts to make it happen on a Sunday afternoon. But don’t get us started on modern hotels that overdo the gadgetry. Those PDA-style touch screens that close the drapes, change the TV channel, adjust the air-conditioning, turn on the Jacuzzi, and could probably make you an espresso, generally turn out to be useless. I’m sure that Apple’s Steve Jobs has probably hurtled a few across a hotel suite out of sheer frustration. Here’s a tip to hoteliers thinking of implementing these systems. When it takes the guy or gal who shows you to the room fifteen minutes to explain how the interface works on the stupid thing, that’s a sign of technology making life harder rather than easier. And it’s wasting your staff’s time and making your guests aggravated.
Last month we experienced Villa Crespi (pictured) a magical old Moorish-style hotel on Italy's Lake Orta that puts the history and grandeur of the hotel first and keeps things simple for guests, so we asked Francesca Blench, Marketing Manager for Villa Crespi to respond: “Technology seems to be a godsend to many hotel guests, especially those staying in city hotels for business reasons. They are habitual travellers who need certain things and usually get them, Internet connection in particular. As an old hotel that offers hospitality to both business and leisure travellers we try to strike a happy balance between services and amenities for both types of travellers. We provide electricity at all times (!) and offer satellite TV, but that is pretty much it really, even Internet access is only available at reception. We feel that the environment needs looking after as much as our guests, so we adhere to many means of saving energy. We don’t even have key card activation for the doors and electricity. And there’s no need for our receptionists to make long explanations to guests checking in, because all they really wish for is good solid rest and a fine meal. We welcome our guests to a restful, experiential stay, far from the frustration of electromagnetic smog fears! And we always trust our guests will return a second time."
Well, we certainly intend returning, but next time it will be for a holiday rather than work.

I'm not a fan of Lonely Planet's Thorn Tree community, but I'll tell you why another day. Today, I stumbled across the LP website and noticed something that I simply wanted to share with you, the Lonely Planet Community 'Thread of the Day'. Posted by 'geekgal', which makes me wonder if it isn't one of Lonely Planet's own '"web kids" (their name, not mine), it's titled: "I've travelled. Now What?" and then ponders: "Travel can be a rush, but what happens when the magic dies? When you're too exhausted, or occupied with other things in life?"
Some of the responses are:
"Then you stay home :-)"
"Then you start earning money to travel again."
"Travel again (repeat until death)."
"If someone does know what comes next... Please let me know!"
"You look at yourself and what you've learned on your travels and try to integrate these into your life so you become more of an aware person." "No such thing as 'I've travelled'. We are always travelling, if not physically, then mentally."
"Go again. I've only been back for 2 months, and I've already booked to go travelling for another 3 months next summer."
"Go where your spirit guides you."
"You'll go again, trust me."

So, what would your answer be?

Yesterday I provided some tips on how to choose a guidebook, my advice being don't judge a guidebook by its cover, judge it by its author, just as you would any other book. The way I see it, if you're buying a novel (compelling story aside) you're buying the book based on the author's talent, skills, reputation and body of work. You're not buying the book based on the publisher. You don't think: "Ooohhh, HarperCollins published that book, I just have to read it!" Because HarperCollins or Picador or Random House or whatever probably publish an equal amount of successes as they do flops (by the way, that's a random statement to prove a point. I haven't checked that, so don't quote me on it). So when I was answering Eric Daams' excellent question about identifying good guidebooks, in response to our Brilliant Minds post, it never occurred to me to mention the brand. And yet the brand plays a role in your purchasing decisions. Right? Mark of Travel Wonders of the World wrote: "If you want to decide on a travel guide book, go down to the local library and select a few... Decide which matches your views/tastes/ideas/values and you have a good chance of choosing a brand which most suits your travelling style. As Lara points out, guidebooks do vary a little in quality by author, but in general they write in a similar style and are typically targetted to a specific audience (backpackers, well-heeled, adventurous, inexperienced, etc). I have my couple of favourite brands like most people that most suit my approach to travel."

But let's say I suggested that you decide on your guidebook 'brand' first (then the author), you need to decide which brand you identify with. Are you a Lonely Planet, DK, Rough Guides or Footprint reader? And what does that mean? The way I used to look at it when I was younger, Lonely Planet was for 20-something backpackers on frugal budgets; Rough Guides were for slightly older (30-something), more educated (explained by the 'Contexts' chapter) independent travellers; DK was for more discerning travellers with more money; and Footprint were for more adventurous and more intrepid folk. But is that really how things are? The more I travelled and the more involved I became in guidebook publishing, the more complex I realized things were. Older travellers also carried Lonely Planets. Younger travellers also carried DK. And once we started working for publishers, another layer of complexity was added. Our Lonely Planet editors made it clear their audience was much wider than we'd thought. My DK editors said their readers were interested in quality budget places as much as top end options. So if the audiences for these books was wide in terms of age and spending power, how was a brand's readers' classified? Was it, as Mark suggests, more to do with views, tastes, ideas and values? Well, views and tastes were never a topic of conversation with our editors. Yet ideas and values were. Lonely Planet sees its readers, just for starters, as humanists, as environmentally conscious, and politically aware. But then so do Rough Guides. (Just take a look at their Contexts chapters). And DK? Well, they're owned by the same company as Rough Guides. And Footprints? I'd say they're the same. So if the audiences for these books have similar values and ideas - according to each of their publishers - what about their tastes? But hang on a minute, taste is reflected in the choices made as to what to include in the book. Which restaurants and hotels to put in and which to leave out, which shops to add and which should stay out. These decisions are made by the author, not by the editors or company staff. So, what does taste have to do with the brand? Once again, it boils down to the content of the book. And the producer of the content is the author. Not the brand. What do you think? I think it's time for a poll.

Last week we wrote the posts Brilliant minds think alike, or, Why so many guidebooks share the same listings: part 1 and part 2, in which Terry and I tried to explain why guidebook reviews don't always resemble the places they're written about, and why reviews of a certain place across a number of books might be similar. As if they're written from the same press release or website, perhaps? We think so. Eric Daams from Travel Blogs asked: "If buying a guidebook is such a lottery, how can the average consumer, who has never been somewhere before, pick up a book that is actually based in reality, not press release fantasy?" Well, here's our advice:
1) Never and we mean NEVER judge a guidebook by the cover: just because the photo is fantastic doesn't mean the contents are. Think about it. The authors, who have everything to do with the content, have nothing to do with cover. The quality of the cover is no reflection of what's inside. No matter how cute that baby gorilla looks.
2) DO judge a book by its author: do as much research as you can online about the author before going to the bookstore. Seriously. You're about to put this person in charge of showing you a good time. You need to make sure they're qualified, but also make sure you share the same tastes, opinions, likes and dislikes. Read the author's bio on the publisher's website or the author's own website/blog and consider a few things:
* the author's qualifications: does the author have a degree in journalism, communications, writing, media studies, international studies, history, politics and economics, archaeology, social sciences, tourism and hospitality, food and wine, or any other field that has allowed them to develop a) research, writing and analytical skills, and b) relevant knowledge to what they're writing about?
* the author's local knowledge and connection to the destination: does the author live in the destination, has s/he travelled there frequently, or do they have some special connection to the place? Why? Because the more intimately the author knows the destination - and the destination knows the author! - the less likely they are to be 'inspired' by press releases or website blurbs. If they live in the destination they're going to possess an immense knowledge of the place. But their book is also going be judged by their family, friends, neighbors, colleagues, local travel, tourism and hospitality industry, and the local media, in addition to their publishers and readers, so there's a high chance their book about their hometown is going to be their best.
* the author's body of work: has the author written on this destination before for the same publisher or others? Look for this info in the author's bios or google the person. Look not only other books on that destination by the author, but also magazine and newspaper articles. If the author has written a book on Paris, a book on France, and a handful of stories on the place, chances are she/he knows it well. Their book bio might not list work they've written for other publishers, so cast your net wide. The more an author has published on a particular place, the less likely they are to resort to press releases and other propaganda: their credibility (and further work opportunities) depend on this destination expertise: getting it right is everything.
* the author's lack of local knowledge: was the author's guidebook research trip the first trip they ever did to the place? Most authors would never admit this but very occasionally they do. NEVER buy a book written by an author who had never been to the place before researching the book. Think about it. Would you invite your blogger pal from (Insert country) to (insert your hometown), a place they'd never been, and ask them to show you around and give you hotel, shopping, restaurant, and bar recommendations?
3) DO judge the book by its content: spend 10 minutes reading the book. Start with the introduction, skim a bit of the politics and culture sections, consider the book/music/film lists, read a few hotel and restaurant reviews. So, what are you looking for? Is the writing intelligent, honest, critical, and opinionated? Does the author express a high level of competence in their understanding and knowledge of the place? Are there small insights, details, and observations that could only have been written by someone who'd been to that destination and experienced those places? Or is the writing bland, boring, overly-objective, and banal? OR, is it superficial, silly, gushy, and always super-positive? If it's the latter two then you have every reason to be suspicious. Lastly,
4) If you have been to the destination before, look for a review of a hotel or restaurant you know. Is it in there? Good. Does the review make it sound remotely like the place you know? Even better. If it doesn’t list it or it describes it in a way you don't recognize, leave the book on the shelf and take a look at another.

What do you think? Have I left anything out? How do you go about choosing your travel guidebooks?

By Terry Carter*
From our series of posts 10 things that annoy us about hotels, you might think we have a love-hate relationship with technology. We don’t. It’s just the misuse or poor implementation of technology in hotels that drives us crazy. We couldn’t do what we do without technology. Technology allows us to work from anywhere in the world and we love it! For instance, we’ve gone from researching on the road in Europe in the summer to settling down to write from quaint Eaglehawk, Australia, with a raging fire going, a good Aussie red wine breathing, cats purring, the Olympics on, and lashings of powder snow at the ski fields a tempting couple of hours away. From here we’ll be writing the European books, editing thousands of photos (20,000 from Italy alone), and sending off stories and photos to publishers around the world, all on our beloved Apple laptops. We’ll be getting paid via funds electronically transferred into our accounts and we’ll communicate with publishers and editors we work with around the planet via email and Skype. There are Wi-Fi routers, Ethernet cables and hard drives everywhere, so we’re certainly not techno-phobic. But we hate technology applied for technology’s sake, or so a hotel sales manager can add a bullet point to their power point presentation on what makes their hotel ‘cool’. Which brings me to Microsoft’s Surface tabletops being installed at a Sheraton lobby near you. Take a look at this story and its hilarious accompanying video. The best bit? There’s nothing here that couldn’t be done better on an iPhone – except annoy everyone in the lobby!

The first ‘application’ demonstrated is basically a bunch of photos of Sheraton properties you can ‘toss’ around the screen. These ‘Sheraton Snapshots’ appear impressive in that you can resize them and place them around the table. Until the Microsoft Surface Group Marketing Manager calls it a “simultaneous collaborative social experience” and the interviewer asks: “Is it just pictures or are there more details about the properties?” The sheepish reply: “Right now, it’s just pictures…”. You can’t even book a hotel from this thing, let alone see info about the properties!

The second ‘application’ is an iTunes-style music jukebox. The fact that most people sitting in a Sheraton lobby probably own an iTunes music jukebox in the form of an iPod (no, not a Microsoft Zune), appears to have escaped the great minds at Microsoft. The guy demonstrating the tool puts on Johnny Cash’s Walk The Line and the interviewer asks incredulously: “So is that playing over the general PA system in the lobby?” It turns out it isn’t - it’s coming out of the table speakers - but there are actually three of these things in the lobby. So much for the hotel foyer setting the ambiance for the property! Can you imagine the aural chaos that will ensue once a few bored teenagers start fooling with these things?

The last ‘application’ is a virtual ‘concierge’ featuring restaurants, bars and clubs in the area. Great idea, but nothing you can’t get on an iPhone that fits in your pocket. The guy demonstrates that you can zoom in on a map of your chosen restaurant and get directions to it. Great. Does it make a booking? No. Okay, but at least it enables you to transfer the restaurant directions from ‘Surface’ onto another device so you can actually use the directions to get to the restaurant? No. They can at least be printed off, right? “You can write them down,” says the Microsoft genius. Seriously. From Microsoft I was at least expecting a dot-matrix printer hidden under the table.

I’m sure there’ll be some decent applications developed for this table-sized paperweight sometime in the future, but at the moment it would be more useful if they turned it into a Microsoft Ouija Board. At least you could ask: ‘Is there a table free at this restaurant tonight?’ and enjoy a “simultaneous collaborative social experience” when it spells out ‘YES’, before you pull out your iPhone to Google Map the address…

*Terry Carter is my husband, co-author and occasional blogger for Cool Travel Guide

Often we have trouble facing the hotel breakfast buffet. After a month on the road we’re avoiding the bain-marie and its barely edible scrambled eggs and burnt-to-bits bacon. While some hotels really do take the trouble to do fresh eggs, often the cook doing the eggs is there as punishment for assorted kitchen crimes and it shows in the food. One of the problems is that the hotel is generally cooking for the expectations of foreign tourists and businesspeople-in-a-hurry, rather than locals and adventurous leisure travellers looking to try local food. Hence the generic bland scrambled eggs and burnt bacon, rather than a well-thought-out breakfast based on what's eaten locally. If you’re in Italy, why not just have an espresso and a coronet (croissant) and skip the stodge? In Germany, have some wonderful rye breads, cheese, and cold meats? In Greece? Then honey and yoghurt is the way to go. If everyone starts leaving the bain-marie alone, the hotels can put the resources to better use… and give travellers a better experience of local culture and a better start to the day.
The InterContinental Hotel Dubai Festival City does some of the best five-star hotel breakfasts we’ve ever experienced (including a delicious Arabic breakfast with piping hot flat bread made to order, as well as a range of breakfast treats from around the globe), so we asked the hotel's Executive Chef Geoff Haviland to respond: “Today’s world travelers are much more savvy and demanding than those of years past. A hotel’s breakfast experience can be a deciding factor in whether a guest returns to that hotel or not. We try to give our guests an 'In The Know' experience, which means they can sample cuisines from around the globe, and have them prepared live in front of them. Absolutely no stodgy scramblies to be found on our buffet! The concept of a live interactive buffet shows the guest we care about their needs, and want them to start their day with a WOW. The challenge in Dubai is that we have guests from every conceivable culture, so our kitchens really need to keep a close eye on our in-house guests and their tastes and preferences, to ensure our buffet features items they would find appealing.”
Unfortunately we were much too busy enjoying the InterCont’s breakfast last time we stayed to remember to take a photo! Pictured? The deliciously fresh fruit served for breakfast at Villa Rosmarino, Camogli, Italy.

I forget everyone's birthdays. Even my own. So it's not surprising that I forgot (only by a few days) the first birthday of my Cool Travel Guide. It was a year ago that I started this blog, and you can read about my initial motivations on my first post Aleppo: No Practicalities. The blog grew partly out of a sense of frustration with certain aspects of guidebook writing, one being the fact that when we wrote for Lonely Planet we couldn't include a POI (Point of Interest) if it didn't have practicalities, i.e. a phone number and street address. We'd not long finished research in Syria for our recently-released Syria and Lebanon guidebook and I remember being frustrated at not being able to include wonderful places I'd wanted to, such as the cane shop (featured in the first post) and a coffee stand in Aleppo Souq. I wanted (and I still want) to create a new style of guidebook that allows us to write about these places, and write about destinations in a way that hadn't been done before, but in a way that inspires people to travel. And it's still a dream of mine to develop that guidebook one day. But then there were so many other things I wanted to reflect upon and think about, from places my husband and co-author Terry and I had travelled to and loved, to the very nature of travelling itself. I wanted to write about this stuff in a form that was unrestricted, that didn't fit into the format of the books or stories we normally get paid to write. I also found myself wanting to comment on travel writing, the travel media, travel trends, travel publishing, and the travel industry. And to share my feelings, develop my ideas, and vent my frustrations over certain aspects, annoyances, issues and problems related to the profession, such as the Lonely Planet scandal that became known as the 'Thomas Kohnstamm Affair'. From time to time I also felt a need to deconstruct lazy or bad travel writing (and Terry also joins me in this exercise), and then soon after I began to get questions from other writers (established and aspiring) about how we made a decent living out of being travel writers, and so I started sharing tips and advice. But one of my original objectives in starting the Cool Travel Guide was very basic. I wanted simply to write about the things I found cool about travel, the sights that stopped us dead in our tracks, the experiences that made us catch our breath, the things about travel that delighted us so much, and excited us enough to motivate us to travel again, that is the things that inspired us about travel, and the things that inspired us to travel. One year on, I ask myself if I've made any in-roads... but then I have to remind myself that one of the coolest things about travel is the journey itself, not necessarily the destination. And, look, let's face it - everything is cool about travel. I'm still enjoying the ride. Are you?