Travel advice on a shoestring.

So when i travelled around Southeast Asia (Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos and Malaysia) i required a travel book. Firstly, for the advice that i obviously needed and secondly, because i just wouldn't feel right without one. Lonely Planet's guide was perfect because i didn't want to pay for five individual books and it covered all the above countries, a feat that itself was hard to find. However, this very fact and several of the other benefits of the guide came with massive downsides and i'm ashamed to admit it became more of a bulky burden than a saving grace.

Although the guide included all the countries i was going to, and one extra that was added on at the end, it still contained five countries i wasn't; not to mention the many cities i didn't go to within the countries i did. I carried nearly 1000 pages around with me for 2 months and 350 of them were never relevant. This is normal of travel guides, but 35% irrelevance is a massive stake.

There are many amazing cities in Southeast Asia and i would never want to be discouraged from visiting any of them, but i began to feel like the authors of the guide had no real opinions and preferences. Every city was 'the most captivating', 'most atmospheric', every beach the 'most popular back-packer stop', 'favourite back-packer idyll'. A lot of the comments in the guide were just massively generalised and offered no help at all when deciding between destinations. 'Whatever your flavour, no matter your taste, it's all here in Phnom Penh' was the silliest comment of them all because i didn't even end up liking it there.

But most annoying of all were the countless restaurants i looked for that i couldn't find. Whether the information was outdated or my navigation skills not up to scratch, it's probably better to recommend restaurants that are a little easier to get to. 

Being an avid advocate of paperbacks, and one of those people who loves the smell and feel of physical copies i really hate the fact that i spent more time on my IPad researching hotels and destinations than i did with my nose in this book. Southeast Asia didn't end up being on a shoestring, but this book certainly was; fragmentary information, outdated restaurants and yet still the heaviest thing in my backpack. 

However, this post isn't all criticism because i understand that this guide would be perfect for people with more time to explore each place, and more time to hit up every country. A great idea would be to develop a paper guide created for backpackers travelling for a few months. Removable sections (for when you know your not going to every country) and more specific information that really labels each city for a particular type of traveller, because travel writers should be honest that not every place is for every taste and flavour.