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Travel writer says he made up parts of books

sparkchaser

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Travel writer says he made up parts of books

Travel writer says he made up parts of books


MELBOURNE (Reuters) - An author for the Lonely Planet travel guidebook series has claimed that he plagiarized and made up large sections of his books, an Australian newspaper reported on Sunday.

Author Thomas Kohnstamm told the Sunday Telegraph newspaper he had worked on more than a dozen books for Lonely Planet, including their titles on Brazil, Colombia, the Caribbean, South America, Venezuela and Chile.

The Lonely Planet guidebooks sell more than six million copies a year.

The Sunday Telegraph said Kohnstamm also claims in his new book "Do Travel Writers Go To Hell?" that he accepted free travel, contravening company policy.

He said in one case he had not even visited the country he wrote about.

"They didn't pay me enough to go to Colombia. I wrote the book in San Francisco. I got the information from a chick I was dating -- an intern at the Colombian consulate," the newspaper quoted Kohnstamm as saying.

Lonely Planet said it had reviewed Kohnstamm's guidebooks but had not found any inaccuracies in them, the Sunday Telegraph said.

(Reporting by Victoria Thieberger; Editing by Jerry Norton)

I can't blame him for not wanting to visit Colombia.
 
I think he is a very good lier then, being able to keep all of it as a secret for years.. Though they didn't find any mistake or inaccuracies, still he has lied all about it right and he didn't do the job he was supposed to do..
 
A shame, really. I'm sure there are plenty of people willing to take his job and do it properly. :mad:
 
Couldn't agree with Angerball more. There are plenty of quality writers willing to do the work and do it well. This shabby man needs the boot.
 
I wonder why he'd be going public with this now. I assume he knew he'd lose his job as a result, and it seems as though he's kept quiet about it for a long time.
 
I wonder why he'd be going public with this now. I assume he knew he'd lose his job as a result, and it seems as though he's kept quiet about it for a long time.

There was the same kind of story with a french guide,sort of a vengeance thing.The fact is most of the time the lonly planet is a life saver,and one of the best in the market.Their adresses are not alway accurate and hotel,specialy in ruff places,crumble very quickely.I sometime checked all there references in cities(funny visiting all hotels if you have the time)and they are good,I did Marrakech where is live,and Jaipur in India(not as accurate)few others.
The one big F...up i had was with the map book they do for India.A place was indicated a a lovely beach,and it was a huge nuclear plant(After 6h on a bike arriving at night!)
Another thing that bother me is they often work in teams of two (or more)for the guides,and i would guess that they would need receipt for expences to get some of their pay.
A guy writing articles for the lonely planet not sending them any receipt from restaurant,hotel,taxi and others would look suspicious,they surely have taxe records.
 
Dunno angerball. I'm 1/2 Colombian and even I wouldn't want to go to Colombia.

I'm sure there are some people who would. I'd always thought of 'travel writer' as one of those dream jobs. There are bound to be people who would travel anywhere, regardless of how hairy the area is.

A guy writing articles for the lonely planet not sending them any receipt from restaurant,hotel,taxi and others would look suspicious,they surely have taxe records.

Good point - that is odd. :eek: Surely he would have to claim expenses, or justify his spending if they gave him an allowance. :confused:
 
I'm sure there are some people who would. I'd always thought of 'travel writer' as one of those dream jobs. There are bound to be people who would travel anywhere, regardless of how hairy the area is.

That would be a pretty nice dream job.

Lonely Planet peeps, if you're reading this I will travel to Iceland, Greenland, Alaska, Belize, the American Southwest, the Pacific Northwest, Ireland, Spain, and Vatican City for you.
 
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