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Welcome to guidebookwriters.com MEDIA NEWS BULLETIN June 2004 guidebookwriters.com offers you the world's best travel writers, offering online travel consultations, feature travel articles, and editorial resources for websites and publications. All are established guideboook writers, and all are here, under one roof. guidebookwriters.com exists to promote the work of its members to the trade through direct contact with public relations companies, tourist boards, editors, publishers and consultants, and through media news bulletins. If you don't want to receive these bulletins, don't get irate, just drop an 'Unsubscribe' message to terrymarsh@wpu.org.uk, and I'll delete you from our e-list. On the other hand, if you know others who would benefit from making contact with us, please send me there details. Access to www.guidebookwriters.com is free and unrestricted. In recent months, the website has changed hands, and has undergone redevelopment; it is still being developed, but this is a slow process, as we want the site to be as useful and meaningful as possible. If you have any comments, please contact me. With good wishes SO, WHAT HAS EVERYONE BEEN UP TO? OFF TO THE EMERALD ISLE (AGAIN AND AGAIN) PATRICIA TUNISON PRESTON is off to Ireland in mid-July, leading a group tour and promoting her new book, Take a Break in Ireland. This book (Pat's 11th on Ireland), was published (April 2004) by O'Brien Press of Dublin - it is Pat's first book from an Irish publisher and it is designed for use by both visitors and natives. Pat's web site, www.IrelandExpert.com, has recently had its 250,000th visitor, and continues to draw participants from all over the U.S. for Pat's tours. She is also leading groups to Ireland in October and November. Her next project is a craft and shopping guide to Ireland. Contact: TheIrelandExpert@aol.com PICTURES JUST ABOUT EVERYWHERE LEE FOSTER's website (www.fostertravel.com) continues to flourish. Lee has Google Adsense ads on the 200 worldwide coverages, with photos, that he presents on the website to consumers and to editorial content buyers. Lee’s partnership with Lonely Planet Images (www.lonelyplanetimages.com) is proceeding well. Lee now has photos in more than 225 Lonely Planet books and reports that the agency is getting an ever larger number of third-party clients. Globe Pequot has just done a new printing of Lee’s book Northern California History Weekends, which won a Lowell Thomas award. Contact: lee@fostertravel.com WRITING PERU After eight months of travel through Peru, and another four months of writing, husband-and-wife team ROSS WEHNER and Renee del Gaudio have put the final touches on Moon Handbooks: Peru, due out this September. The couple searched high and low for new adventures, from sea kayaking on Lake Titicaca to searching for fossilized shark teeth in the Ica Desert. "Peru is unbelievably vast and varied," Wehner concluded. "Travelers who stay on the beaten path only scratch the surface." In July, Ross will be on a writing assignment in the Canadian Rockies, where he also plans to cross the Columbia Icefield in his other vocation as mountain guide. Up next: an adventure guidebook to Colorado, where he and Renee have settled, for the time being. Contact: rosswehner@hotmail.com FLOWERS, ANTIQUES, BIRDS AND BACKROADS Hang the high gasoline prices, MARITA ADAIR, a specialist on Mexico, spent spring and summer so far driving the Texas Hill Country, the region just north of San Antonio where she lives. In April and May she couldn’t resist devouring the region’s exceptional visual wildflower feast. Roadsides and country fields awash in a palette of blue, purple, yellow, white, orange and red "seemed more like imaginary scenes embellished by a painters’ brush than something real," she says. Then she hit the backroads again, following the heavenly scent of lavender where fields of it dot backroads around Blanco and Fredericksburg culminating in the Texas Lavender Festival in May. Canyon of the Eagles Lodge, a secluded and preserved ecological retreat on gorgeous Lake Buchanan, captured her for a long weekend. The birding highlight? Seeing a painted bunting for the first time. With a friend, in June she once again sallied forth by car on a fruitful antiques and dining mission focusing on nearby German heritage villages. Now that she's finished driving for a few weeks, gasoline prices have fallen by 20 cents a gallon. Contact: marita@maritaadair.com A LONG WAY TO GET A GUINNESS If you thought DAVID ATKINSON was missing in action -- he was. Until now, that is. After a six-month stint based in La Paz, Bolivia, and following a slew of bone-shaking bus journeys across the Andes in pursuit of dispatches from the front line of Latin American tourism, he is now back at his home base of London's tropical Islington. You can relive some of the highlights from the journey at www.intrepidtravel.com/atkinson. Meanwhile he is easing back into freelance life, catching up on six months worth of post and rediscovering the joy that is Guinness Extra Cold. Contact: atkinson.david@virgin.net THE FACE WHO LAUNCHED A THOUSAND GUIDEBOOKS Following in the sandalprints of Brad Pitt, our hunky hero PAUL MURPHY continues his one-man crusade to turn Malta from wooden horse to thoroughbred stallion with forthcoming pieces in the Times, Independent on Sunday and Interval World. Aside from recent trips to Cologne, Sri Lanka and, of course, Malta - providing articles for Bella and Take A Break magazine - Paul has been working like a Trojan updating his own guidebooks on Malta (AA Spiral series), Malta (InsideOut guide) and London (AA/Fodors Exploring series). He is currently tracking down the Seven Wonders of the West for South West Trains e-motion magazine and has Pembrokeshire, Cornwall, French family campsites and Greek islands in his sights. Paul is also currently working on a very unusual type of guidebook (if you think that sounds like c**p read the Times travel news section June 5) and is looking for contributions from fearless travel hacks with a sense of humour who have been to hell and back. Rumour has it he may even pay for the privilege! Contact: paulw.murphy@tiscali.co.uk HOME (NOT QUITE) ALONE After spending the southern summer in Argentine and Chilean Patagonia, and the Falklands Islands, WAYNE BERNHARDSON is spending the northern summer in California writing it all up for his forthcoming Moon Handbooks Patagonia. Moon Handbooks Argentina is due out in September or October, after which he will head south again to update his Moon Handbooks to Chile and to Buenos Aires, where he owns an apartment near Palermo's botanical gardens and the Porteños of the city are constantly stopping him to ask directions. When not in southern South America, he resides in Oakland, California with his wife María Laura Massolo, their daughter Clio Bernhardson-Massolo, their Alaskan malamute Gardel, named for the famous Argentine tango singer (Gardel barks better every day!), and their Japanese Akita Sandro (named for a contemporary Argentine pop singer). He often gives slide lectures on destinations he covers in his books. Wayne can be reached directly by email at southerncone@mac.com or through www.guidebookwriters.com. THE PENNY PINCHER'S PASSPORT TO LUXURY TRAVEL The first edition of JOEL L. WIDZER's The Penny Pincher's Passport to Luxury Travel was hugely successful with readers who wanted to experience the joys of traveling in luxury on a budget. This completely revised second edition is full of new material and little-known secrets to help even the average person travel like the rich and famous - without being either. The Penny Pincher's Passport to Luxury Travel: The Art of Cultivating Preferred Customer Status (2nd Edition) provides a unique approach to travel that steers travelers away from no-frills journeys and points them toward the wonders of first-class accommodations and preferential treatment. The book explains, step-by-step, how to build relationships with airlines, hotels, and car rental agencies and turn these relationships into travel currency, discounts, and upgrades. Reading this book can result in a superior travel experience: exceptional service and amenities, hotel and airline upgrades, and the sense of empowerment and freedom that comes from avoiding inhospitable employees and the annoying hassles regularly inflicted on the masses. Readers of The Penny Pincher's Passport to Luxury Travel will become experts in navigating the confusing and often contradictory world of the tourism industry and gain the knowledge to turn their journeys into dream trips. Contact: jwidzer@cox.net COFFEE TABLE CARS CHRISTOPHER P BAKER's coffee-table book Cuba Classics: A Celebration of Vintage American Automobiles (ISBN 1-56656-546-4 USA / ISBN 1-4050-1335-4 UK) has been released in hardback by Interlink Publishing (www.interlinkbooks.com), and in the United Kingdom by Macmillan Caribbean (www.macmillan-caribbean.com). In this 190-page pictorial essay featuring more than 150 images, Baker pays homage to Cuba's astonishing wealth of antique cars, revealing the time-worn splendor of classic American automobiles spanning eight decades. From Model-T Fords and '40s-era Buick Roadmasters to late '50s Edsel Citations and Chevrolet Impalas with fins sharp enough to draw blood, Cuba Classics evokes the nostalgic and seductive world of Cuba's car culture. Robert Holmes, twice SATW's Photographer of the Year, wrote the Foreword, concluding with the words: "Whether your interest is old cars, Cuba, or good photography per se, this exquisite coffee-table book will not disappoint. For a writer of Baker's ability to demonstrate equal talent as a photographer is an enviable accomplishment. Cuba Classics will become a classic in its own right." Review comments have been equally glowing. Martin Cruz Smith (author of Gorky Park and Havana Bay) wrote: "This is the most beautiful, most sympathetic book about Cuba I have seen for years. It's terrific!" Contact: cpbaker@earthlink.net SPANISH SUCCESS Spanish expert TONY KELLY has been spending the last few months updating his best-selling AA Essential guides to Mallorca, Menorca and Costa Brava, as well as researching and writing the forthcoming AA Key Guide to Mallorca. The Key Guide series was recently launched in the UK and Tony has also contributed to the new titles on Spain and Barcelona. Recent trips to Mallorca have focussed on agrotourism, wine, modern art and design hotels and Tony can provide informative and entertaining copy on any of these or on any other aspect of the island, from staying in monasteries to family beach holidays. In April, Tony was named travel writer of the year by the Spanish Tourist Office in London for an article on the Jerez horse fair in Living Spain magazine. The prize is a week for two in a Spanish parador so he will shortly be returning to Spain to celebrate his success. He is also increasingly writing about family travel, with recent trips to Morocco, Egypt and Jordan accompanied by his eight-year-old son. Camel rides, desert treks, pyramids and souks are all guaranteed to excite the imagination of a young child so anyone looking for copy on the Middle East as a safe, family-friendly destination need look no further than Tony. For something completely different, he is off to the German city of Kempen in July for a weekend music festival at which he will be Morris dancing with the Devil's Dyke Morris Men from East Anglia, England. Watch this space... Contact: tony@tonykellytravelwriter.co.uk SAN DIEGO: IT'S SUMMERTIME AND THE LIVIN' IS EASY ELIZABETH HANSEN reports that "visitor envy" is on the rise in her hometown. "This annual malady strikes us when we realize that about 5 million people are on vacation in our city. Don't get me wrong, San Diegans don't dislike out-of-towners, we just wish we had the time to join them. It's more than a little frustrating to live in the capital of summertime fun while working a 40-hour week (or mowing the lawn or taking the dog to the vet)." "On the other hand, it's fun to see folks enjoying all that San Diego has to offer, so I'm writing articles that help travelers avoid our city's touristy pitfalls and enjoy this place the way the locals do." It's not surprising that the readers of Travel & Leisure just voted San Diego "the best place to visit in the summer." "Our beaches are wonderful, and we have great open-air theaters, excellent restaurants and lively farmers markets." You can see clips of Elizabeth's published articles at www.ElizabethHansen.net and contact her at ehansen298@aol.com. RAMBLING IN WILD PLACES ANDREW DEAN NYSTROM was quite happy to return to the relative calm - what airport security? - of the San Francisco Bay Area after ten months of rambling in Mexico and South America during 2003. A specialist in wild places, he cruised the Falkland Islands and Antarctic Peninsula (down to 66º South) as the ice melted and spring sprang. A frosty dip in the geothermal seeps at Deception Island has inspired an ongoing quest to find the world's highest soakable hot springs. King penguins, nesting albatross, breeching whales and receiving special dispensation from the Chilean navy to enter the no-go zone around a surprisingly calm Cape Horn were a few of the highlights of the two-week voyage. Upon landing in Tierra del Fuego, Andrew regained his land legs while trekking around national parks like Torres del Paine and the Fitz Roy Range in Chilean and Argentine Patagonia. The journey was capped off by five months of research in the far-flung, wildlife-rich corners of Paraguay and Bolivia, while updating two guidebooks for Lonely Planet. He decided to call it quits when he was turned back en route to Machu Pichu by roadblocks and train track blockades orchestrated by 375,000 striking Peruvian civil servants. Andrew's forthcoming Lonely Planet titles include Mexico (Around Mexico City + North Central Highlands chapters), USA & Canada on a Shoestring (Coastal California, the Southwest + Rocky Mountains chapters), The Career Break Book (USA chapters) and an essay about 'Dawg Leg Travel' in an Experimental Travel anthology. Projects in the works include a best-of hiking guide to Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks, and a proposal for a Seasonal Guide to the San Francisco Bay Area Natural Year. Email: adean@alum.berkeley.edu LEWIS AND CLARK (AND FANSELOW) JULIE FANSELOW figured that once the Lewis and Clark Bicentennial got fully under way this spring, she'd be less in demand for writing about history's dynamic duo. But no: In June, the author of Traveling the Lewis and Clark Trail and the www.lewisandclarktravel.info website is off to Oregon to write about the new L&C Explorer train excursion between Portland and Astoria. Other upcoming gigs for Julie include articles on her home state of Idaho for Sunset and Western Journey and a Wyoming travelogue for American Heritage. Julie recently relocated from international BASE jumping destination Twin Falls on the Snake River Canyon to Idaho's state capital (and one of the American West's fastest-growing cities), Boise. Email remains the best way to reach her about potential assignments, and the address has not changed: julie@juliefanselow.com. WE ARE SAILING... ...but not very competently. Rookie sailor ALF ALDERSON has been press ganged into crewing on a small yacht sailing along Spain's Mediterranean coast in June - threats of keelhauling and splicing the mainbrace (or was that splicing the cabin boy?) have alreay been issuing from the capn's lips. However, it should stand him in good stead for a commission to the Maldives in August when he'll be spending two weeks sailing around offshore atolls in search of perfect, isolated reef breaks on which to surf. "I see it as the surfing equivalent of heliskiing" says Alf. "And I may never come back". In between he's off to the remote NE corner of Sri Lanka to report for the Independent on Sunday on the first ever professional surf contest to be held at the legendary break of Arugam Bay, until recently all but out of bounds to travellers due to the recent civil war in the country. Contact: alf@alfalderson.co.uk DOES WHAT IT SAYS ON THE BOX GWC Paris and Tunisia expert MIKE GERRARD is currently working on projects about... well, Paris and Tunisia. He is Editorial Consultant on the forthcoming Eyewitness Guide to Tunisia for Dorling Kindersley, and about to write the text for a coffee-table photographic book about Paris, for another major publisher (don't you just love those confidentiality agreements?) Recent newspaper and magazine commissions have included Cumbria, Winchester, Egypt's Red Sea Riviera and the Dad's Army Trail in Norfolk (England, not Virginia). In June he's off to the Killarney Summerfest and its International Busking Competition, and in November to the Travel Media Showcase in Tucson, where he's also about to buy a house. Meanwhile, his agent is clamouring for the final draft of his thriller set in the seedy world of London strippers. Contact: mail@mikegerrard.com CHARGING ABOUT LIKE A HEADLESS CHICKEN GWC administrator TERRY MARSH is in danger of meeting himself coming back from places he hasn't been to yet. After a genteel start to the year crewing a Tall Ship around the Canary Islands, a few days lying down in the snow beside his skis in Norway, seven weeks refusing to come home from Australia until he ran out of money, a modest trip to East Germany and another to France, it looked like being a quiet year. But, he spoke too soon: contracts for a new guidebook to walks and cycle rides in the UK, and a revision of another guidebook soon arrived. The imminent experience looms of his first Isle of Man Walking Festival, which he organises, followed eight hours later by an extended trip in Picardy (France) to do a major feature. Then there's more of France, picking olives, searching out bull fights, and truffle hunting. Apart from that, it's fairly quiet.... Contact: terrymarsh@wpu.org.uk |