Do Travel Writers Go to Hells of Their Own Making?

Gillian Kendall reviews Thomas Kohnstamm's "Do Travel Writers Go to Hell?"

My friend Jane couldn't stand to read past the first 70 pages of Do Travel Writers Go to Hell? The narrator struck her as not only a liar and a fraud, but also a misogynistic creep. Knowing that I am a travel writer, she sent me her copy. How could I resist?

Not long after his book appeared, Kohnstamm visited Melbourne, Australia, where I live, and the world headquarters for Lonely Planet publishing, which his book denounces. The book, in fact, is essentially a prolonged whinge about how the editors at LP pay too little and expect too much. He was going to read from—i.e., defend—his memoir at a good bookstore, and it was offering free wine and snacks.

On arriving, I was relieved to see only about 20 chairs set out for the audience. Having read from my (extremely funny, uncannily well written, strikingly sincere, and charmingly warm-hearted) travel memoir to tiny groups of listeners, I would have resented it if Kohnstamm attracted a huge crowd. I got a seat in the front and accepted a glass of white with, I thought, reasonable expectations of the evening. Then I made the mistake of perusing the travel section, which—I quickly observed—did not carry my book. Despite this crushing disappointment, I bought a John Lanchester paperback and then took my seat, hoping not to hate Kohnstamm on sight.

Actually, I didn't. Thomas walked in wearing my favorite outfit for men—a jacket worn with jeans—and although his goatee wasn't doing him any favors, he started his reading nicely. Maybe, I thought, the rumors of his cheating, lying, and squandering had been overstated. 

First he explained how he had always been a traveler, since his parents had taken him overseas early and often. Then he asserted as how most travel narratives fell into one of three categories: either the bathroom/digestion humor of the pampered American in the Third World, or the I-left-my-empty-yuppie-life-and-found-joy-in-restoring-an-old-orphanage genre, or impossible adventure stories by superhumans who survived for weeks in the desert using only their wits and some old dental floss.

Well, I reckoned he was oversimplifying. He had overlooked a lot of great travel writing, especially by women, especially by a woman sitting a few feet away from him with her arms crossed over a copy of someone else's book.

He read and made me laugh, but it wasn't a very open-hearted kind of laugh. His selections featured Kohnstamm's supercilious interactions with some wild 'n wacky drug addicts he had met in Brazil, where he was supposedly writing a travel guide. He belittled the locals whose lifestyle he was emulating, and he sneered at the travelers whose stories he was re-telling. Admittedly, he also mocks and sneers at himself, but not so earnestly.

But I did laugh out loud, and so did the others listening, and it's hard not to like a book that can make a bunch of strangers laugh. At the end of his short reading —only about 15 minutes—I would have liked to hear more.

But, presumably on heightened alert since he was in Lonely Planet territory, Kohnstamm wanted to talk about the "furor" surrounding his book. The story, as he tells it, is that grappling manfully with the impossible demands imposed by his editors, he was compelled to do some "second-hand research." He couldn't get everywhere he was supposed to go, so he took information from other people.

In describing this situation, he unfortunately used the word "plagiarize," which wasn't what he meant, not really. In chapter 9, "The Hustle," he considers the enormous effort that would be involved if he actually did check his facts, but soon relaxes: "If I'm actually enjoying myself, I should be able to write some decent introductions and establish a sense of the place …That'll have to be enough—even if I don't get all of the mundane opening hours and hotel prices right. When it comes to those details, what I can't plagiarize, I can always make up."  To Kohnstamm's chagrin, some critics took exception to the idea of his making up facts. He claims that one day the CNN news banner read something like "Paris Hilton arrested in New York...Britney Spears drunk in public...Thomas Kohnstamm admits to plagiarizing travel book." Although I don't know if that anecdote is factual or second-hand research, it made me feel sorry for him. A little bit. 

But I thought about all the travel writers I know who diligently go to every damn hotel/bar/beach/mountain/B&B/café/river we write about, and I was not impressed. I was also ticked off by his assertions of "how travel writing happens in America."

At the end, he invited questions. I'd had a glass of wine, so I asked, "What do you consider to be the difference between 'second-hand research' and 'plagiarism and fabrication'?"

Apparently surprised by my American accent, he began by bluffing: he rolled out some patronizing answer about how all travel writers make stuff up—only I interrupted and said that I am a travel writer, too, and that I didn't find it necessary to make stuff up. Backing off, he waffled that plagiarism was "stealing someone's words," whereas "second-hand research" meant talking to trusted sources about an area or a place instead of visiting it himself.

My follow-up was this: in the book, did he differentiate between the info he got firsthand and second-hand? Kohnstamm said no, in an LP travel guide you can't do that. That was a reasonable answer, and I felt bad for challenging him—a little bit.

At the end of the evening, he went to sign books. I didn't buy one, but plenty of other people did. No matter how much Kohnstamm complains about the adverse publicity, he's enjoying the outcome (not that I'm bitter).

Later, I read his book—twice. Both times, I tried to find and relate to the narrator who was struggling to do a hard job well. But instead, this is what I noticed.

1. Every reference to a girl or a woman is prefaced with information about her attractiveness and/or sexual availability. Could that be why my friend found him "misogynistic"? Or was that due to his life goal to "Sleep with at least one woman (preferably more) from each continent"? Maybe Kohnstamm came off as a bit unfeminist in the scene where he sits and watches—not entirely comfortable, but entirely passive—as a woman is beaten by her drunken husband.
2. Call it alcoholism, call him a drug dealer, call it a fondness for controlled substances as social lubricants, but barely a page goes by without reference to intoxicants, and whole nights and days are lost to "partying" with strangers. The author would have had more time for visiting those pesky hotels and restaurants if he'd spent less time on "bar research."
3. He is a manipulative sod. He tells women what they want to hear in order to get laid, and he tells fellow travelers—who have the temerity to ask about local knowledge—made-up misinformation to avoid admitting his ignorance.
4. Slackness isn't Kohnstamm's main fault: self-pity is. He moans about the trivial amount of his advance, yet conspicuously never gives a dollar figure. And anyway, no matter what amount LP gave him, much of it went up his nose and down his throat before he left home. He spends $250 for a bottle of rum (which gets broken in a fight) the night before he leaves, and then complains about having to use budget accommodation. Poor guy!

The most irritating part of his book is Kohnstamm's repeated insistence on the impossibility of fulfilling his side of the contract. In six weeks, he claims, it's not humanly possible to journey to every site listed in the last LP guidebook as well as visit new ones. Well, that may be true, but he could visit far more of them if he didn't waste so much time on drugs.

But Kohnstamm doesn't so much want to fulfill his contract as he wants to argue about why it's impossible. He says, when considering the assignment, "I…am simply trying to take my life down its own path and not have to look back or be responsible to anybody else." Boy, I'll say. Apart from walking out on his job, and breaking up with his girlfriend, and getting into two fistfights with his "best friend" while considering his own path, Kohnstamm also obviously doesn't want to "be responsible to" Lonely Planet, the company making his path possible.

Although of the opinion that he "excelled as a traveler," Kohnstamm admits to a certain reluctance to actually do any work. "Travel writing is particularly disorienting since you are expected to work in a tourist environment that is built for pleasure. You must find a way to make yourself effective in that peculiar limbo between work and play." Yes, Kohnstamm, that's why we get paid. And here's a tip: it helps with the "disorientation" if you're not drunk or high most of the time.

After about 100 pages of dicking around, Kohnstamm pays attention to the Publisher's Note, which says he's not supposed to "take freebies in exchange for positive coverage." It dawns on him that he can accept free meals and rooms so long as he doesn't guarantee rave reviews. The phenomenon of free stays for writers on assignment is universal; Kohnstamm's pretending not to have known it is disingenuous at best. After he resorts to selling ecstasy to pay his bar bills, he suddenly understands that hospitality doesn't buy coverage, and that most writers manage not to mislead readers in exchange for a bed. Accepting accommodation is not the ethical dilemma that Kohnstamm trumps it up to be.

Finally, I feel manipulated by the book's angle: instead of describing the real difficulties and the real fun of travel writing, Kohnstamm sneers his way through his assignment, shirks most of the work, and then blames his sloppy results on the people who entrusted him with a book. Next time, I hope Lonely Planet will hire me, or one of the many other travel writers willing to do the job without dragging everyone through a hell of their own making.

Editor's note: At Transitions Abroad we have long had a tradition of what we call "Point: Counterpoint." We welcome an essay(s) which offers another take on Kohnstamm's controversial book just as we welcome different perspectives on the subjects we cover in both the travel writing and the many other sections of our website.

Gillian Kendall is an American writer living in Melbourne, Australia, and open to writing assignments anywhere, from anyone. Her last book is MR DING'S CHICKEN FEET (University of Wisconsin Press) and her website is gilliankendall.com.