While I was very pleased to see some of my favourite spots on the authors lists, I was just as pleased to see some of my favourite spots left off the lists, directing the tourist hordes elsewhere. However, to some extent the Lonely Planet itself defines (defies?) the beaten track, and I’m quite happy that the authors have overlooked several of my own favourite haunts.įrom a local perspective, this is important, as the post-Olympics tourist boom of the past decade has meant that favourite local spots are increasingly busy, not only with international tourists but also with domestic tourists from elsewhere in Canada and British Columbia.
I’m sure these additions are designed to maintain Lonely Planet’s brand as one that appeals to those who want to go off the beaten track. While this edition contains all the standard lists of accommodations, eateries, and attractions, the authors have also included a nice touch in their inclusion of “local knowledge” boxes that typically highlight overlooked local gems. Photo by Brendan Sainsbury, February 2021 Co-author John Lee As guidebooks go, this new one - published in February 2020 - provides a decent introduction to the sights and culture of Vancouver and Victoria on the eve of the pandemic. Now a married, middle-aged mother of two, I am not the carefree country-hopping backpacker that I was in the aughts. Lonely Planet guides are written for a certain type of traveller, and I am afraid I am no longer it. Since that time, I have travelled, worked in tourism, and also studied tourism as a cultural practice from the ivory tower of academia. Most of the destinations were chosen from the careful scanning of various Lonely Planet lists of top destinations. I distinctly remember my best friend and I in Grade 11, stuck indoors in our dull social studies classroom in what was to us the most mundane of landscapes, the snowy suburbs of west Edmonton (under the shadow of that behemoth of consumerism, West Edmonton Mall), making a list of the 99 countries we would visit before we were 99.
#IAN WRIGHT LONELY PLANET INDIA SERIES#
I came of age at the time nearly twenty years ago when the Lonely Planet brand was arguably at its zenith, with both a popular TV Series called Globe Trekker (I had a teenage crush on Ian Wright), and the early Lonely Planet website providing one of the first platforms for a forum-based exchange of travel tips before the ascendence of TripAdvisor.Īs a travel-hungry teen I could afford more Lonely Planet books than plane tickets, and I read guidebooks cover to cover for places like Namibia and Bali that I have yet to visit.
Lonely Planet Vancouver and Victoria (8th edition)Įvery time I open the familiar blue cover of a Lonely Planet book, I feel a wave of warm nostalgia.
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