End of The Trip Musings

At the end of my second trip for the illustrious travel guide known as Let's Go, I've had a few realizations about what it takes to be out in the field for a travel guide company.

1. You are never really a tourist. You can't be. One eye is turned toward the critical, and your other constantly aware of the clock as you've got six restaurants, three museums, and four more hostels to check out before your day is up. You come barging in, through hell and high water, and demand (with the very nicest of reporter-like professionalism) to know the address, telephone number, website, credit card information, hours of operation, and a slew of other tidbits from some poor young person working the ticket booth, who probably just wants these questions to be over with so that they can deal with the family of eight behind you. You're never going to be relaxed as you do your work.

2. You are never really a local. This isn't your town, you're not from here. No matter how quickly you orient yourself and get a feel for the place, you're not going to look, talk, act, or seem like a local for the simple fact that you aren't. You're a stranger, visiting a new place. So, while you may say, "Oh, Hostel X, yeah, I checked that out, they take both Visa and Mastercard in addition to having 24hr. reception," you're not going to know what it was like last month, last year. You'll know nothing of it except the time that you spent in it. 

3. You've got a job, and this means making some sacrifices. Telling your hostel friends you've got to leave the great pub they've found ("Dude, C'mon! The Grateful Dead and the Beatles are having a reunion concert, together, here in 5 minutes!"). But you reply with, "Sorry, gotta go. Have to see a few more places before the night is up. This is hard work, and nobody makes it look easy.*"

4. It's a great job, and I've been grateful to have it for these past two years. I write with pride, and do my damndest to make sure that the information and pictures I present of a place—whether it's a 5-star hotel in the heart of Dublin or a few ramshackle beach huts on the coast of Nicaragua's Corn Islands—is the most accurate, and the most true to the time and experience that I had there that I can possibly produce. 

But that's just it. At the end of the day, a travel guide is written by people. We can't know everything (though I'm sure some guides will tell you otherwise), and what you're getting is somebody's opinion. We all have our own preferences and biases, and then influence the creation of a book. On a personal level, I might mention that it's only by working with an intense system of editors that I've managed to keep my intense love for cafés at a minimum and make sure that there are actual restaurants in the 2011 Great Britain guide. 

So while I may make fun of other travel books (and, trust me, I do), it's never, "those guys produce awful, crappy travel books!" It's just me, with my own personal preference.  It's been my luck that my preference for the last two years has been the company for which I've been privileged to work. So it's with these words that I end my trip, along with a heartfelt thanks to everyone at Let's Go.

Sincerely,

Asa Bush

*Note: The only person in recorded history to make compiling a travel guide look easy was Ford Perfect from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series. That, my friends, is style.