Inspired Travels

I’m only two days from my trip to Vietnam. It’s the first time I’ve gone overseas since my big holiday in 2007, so I’m really looking forward to it.

In preparation, I wanted to do a little research before I went. Normally, I would purchase a guidebook from the book store. The typical Lonely Planet or Rough Guides, etc…

However, I noticed a few years ago you can actually purchase chapters of Lonely Planet books that you require in electronic format. I’ve never been a big fan of electronic book purchases but I actually wanted to give it a try because:

1) I only needed the section on Saigon not the entire book on Vietnam

2) It was much cheaper to buy the sections that I needed

3) I’d be saving the world from another tree

4) Portable as I could have it in the cloud in email, google docs, and on my phone.

So I went ahead and bought 4 chapters on:

• Saigon
• Areas around Saigon
• Mekong Delta River
• History, culture, food of Vietnam

All up , it cost me about $19 AUD which is half of what the book would have cost me. Each chapter costs about $3-10, on average about $5.When you buy a few chapters there seems to be a bulk discount applied.

You receive a link to download a PDF version which you can download up to 5 times, in case your internet cuts out. You can also distribute it and put it onto any device. The Lonely Planet team trusts that you are not going to post it up online to give away (since you’ve shelled up the hard cash for it). However, I have been advised by my brother that it is possible to get off BitTorrent.

Pick and Mix Chapters

I tried porting it onto my Android phone, however the Android has poor PDF readers and some of which are online readers or you have to pay for like Docs2Go. So I’ve ditched that option and ended up printing it out. It will be handy for reading on the plane and also on the go.

Digital Travel Guides

I’ve got my digital marketing hat on now and I believe that this type of distribution is going to be the future. Buy chapters / sections that you need online. Pick and mix. Port it to a device or download straight to a device like iphone, any mobile device, Kindle , etc… and take it with you. No books required. You can already buy Lonely Planet guides for iphone – its about $15AUD.

Right now, the travel guides I’ve bought seem to be the actual guides resized to PDF one page versions. In the future, I assume its going to be a lot more organic with the ability to be updated constantly rather than a new edition every few years. I imagine it to be a more like WikiTravel or TripAdvisor which is updated by the users, with an editor overseeing it. The other advantage is that if your buying an online version, it is likely to be the latest version as well.

A word on Travel Guides

I like using travel guides but I’ve learnt to not overuse them.  I like them because it gives you a quick rundown of the place, good restaurants to check out, different accommodation options to suit your budget, advice on the surrounding attractions, a sense of the history of the place and more. Someone has already done a lot of the legwork for you.

However, whilst travelling in Kyoto, Japan I was talking to an American traveller about this. Sometimes you just need to ditch the travel guide and take the path less travelled. Because if you follow the travel guide, you’ll end up having the same experience as everyone else. It’s nice to discover a hole in the wall bar, or stumble across a restaurant or area which isn’t listed in a travel guide.  Put some adventure back into your travels – like how our parents or ancestors would have done before travel guides were around!

Now we’re armed to the teeth with travel guides, mobile GPS so we’ll never get lost, and everyone speaks English. At times, it is good to go somewhere and wander around and explore the place freely without turning to your Lonely Planet.

I’m out like travel guides,

Matt