Lonely Planet Magazine

yes andy, what about the LP caribbean recommending 1000 dollar a night rooms in some of the islands.. they are sell outs and i brought this up in the thorn tree but had replies along the lines of.. "i like how LP has matured with me as i can't take those budget rooms anymore"..

i won't buy no more, i belive free wifi,googlemaps, travel forums and hostel booking websites (that i use for a guide) and obviously hobo hideout, is sufficent to replace the 'guidebook'

Well i've not seen this magazine around nor seen it advertised here in the UK, but my primary encounters with advertising are posters, so maybe it's been on TV. I'll have a look for it over the next few days, and if I find it I shall read it and review for you.

I heard the BBC were buying Lonely Planet, and my initial response was posative- the BBC have the resources and connections to make these books much more globally available. I don't know when LP brought this in, but when I went to Switzerland in November (I went as a city vacation, but I am cheap) I found you can download books and chapters of books from the website for a small fee.

This seems like a great step forward to me. Firstly, you can get the relevant parts of the book and don't have to carry around the whole heavy thing, and secondly you can store it forever, which is probably useful to someone like you who has had to re-purchase country guides multiple times.

The downside is, if you want to print a section, you probably don't carry a printer.

I suspect they will release an e-zine version soon enough, as this would be sensible for travelers, and even most non-travel magazines offer this facility: I have an Economist subscription, and they give me free access to an online version of the magazine too.

I wonder if there's a parallel with National Geographic here? A group that was initially founded for a small group of pioneers (scientific explorers in their case) going 'mainstream' with magazines, a TV channel etc.

Hopefully they will maintain their cheap-man niche.

Thanks Ash, it is hard to suss out this type of information when there isn't an English bookstore within a few countries.

Kris, very good, you can see my eyes on a niche this is wide open, and I plan on HoboHideOut.com filling this niche.

We will give people ways to select their hotels in a shopping cart manner and download by PDF or send to their email box.

HoboHideOut.com

I agree with Kris. Its not a matter of LP going upscale, they already went that direction over the last decade. They decided to mature with their audience rather than reaching out to a new generation of travelers. Don't know if that is good or bad; do know that I don't like it. Let's Go though much maligned is honestly pretty good for budget recommendations. Hobohideout and other internet sites have excellent promise though mostly unrealized. Most the hotels on hideout are midrange. Seems the challenge is going to be getting the rock bottom budget places to submit listings. Probably not the most internet saavy group on the planet. Until then I'm relying more and more on homestays and couchsurfing.