Stack of Lonely Planet travel guide books on a shelf, showcasing various destinations and editions, highlighting the brand's extensive collection of travel resources.
Back in 2005, fueled by a dream to ditch the 9-to-5 and explore the unknown, I remember stepping into a bookstore. My mission? To grab a Lonely Planet Travel Guide. Southeast Asia on a Shoestring was the chosen one, perfectly aligned with my backpacking aspirations in Thailand. That purchase wasn’t just a transaction; it was a symbolic step confirming my leap into the world of travel. On the flight, flipping through its pages, I was instantly captivated. The focus on budget travel, the allure of off-the-beaten-path destinations, and the guide’s witty, engaging writing style resonated deeply. As my travel plans solidified, my desk became a tower of Lonely Planet “shoestring” guides. I was, undoubtedly, a Lonely Planet devotee. Their brand ethos mirrored my own travel philosophy, and I was completely sold on the Lonely Planet travel guide promise.
Lonely Planet, famously known as the “backpacker’s blue bible,” carved its niche by highlighting unique and budget-friendly travel experiences, becoming an essential companion for globetrotters worldwide. For better or worse, a mention in a Lonely Planet travel guide could make or break destinations, hostels, and eateries.
Sure, the guides sometimes became a symbol of mass tourism, yet for many, including myself, they were an invaluable resource. Whether on a long bus journey, a train ride, or chilling in a hostel common room, thumbing through a Lonely Planet travel guide was part of the travel ritual. I relied on their maps for navigation and their activity suggestions and transportation tips as my go-to travel planning tools.
However, in recent times, a nagging feeling has crept in – has the quality of Lonely Planet travel guides declined? My recent experiences using their website and guides have been marked by frustration and disappointment, prompting the question:
“What exactly is going wrong with Lonely Planet?”
Is the Lonely Planet travel guide still a reliable and relevant resource for today’s traveler?
While Lonely Planet remains the largest travel guidebook publisher globally, holding a significant 25% market share, it has undeniably lost its standing as the ultimate authority for budget travelers. Following its acquisition by the BBC in 2007, and subsequent sale to billionaire Brad Kelley in 2013, Lonely Planet seems to be a shadow of its former self. Kelley appointed a young photographer, Daniel Houghton, as CEO, who, as reported by Outside magazine, “[invested heavily in a digital revamp and laid off nearly one-fifth of the workforce].”
Quoting further from the Outside article, when questioned about market research backing these changes, Houghton reportedly responded, “‘I didn’t really look at it,’ [Houghton] says, lowering his voice conspiratorially. ‘I don’t really go with market research. I kinda go with my gut.’”
And therein, perhaps, lies a significant part of the problem.
The Real Market Sentiment
To get a broader perspective, I turned to social media, asking my followers about their current views on Lonely Planet travel guides. The responses largely echoed my own observations and what I’ve been hearing from fellow travelers on the road. While many still use Lonely Planet travel guides for initial trip planning, there’s a widespread consensus: the guides feel increasingly outdated, the writing has lost its distinctive voice, the focus has shifted towards more upscale travel, moving away from budget and offbeat adventures, the website is cumbersome to navigate, and often, travel blogs provide more current and useful information. These sentiments are consistently voiced by travelers worldwide.
Over the years, countless conversations with travelers have revolved around the same lament – the unique charm, the je ne sais quoi of Lonely Planet travel guides, is simply gone. It’s become a shared point of commiseration among seasoned travelers.
Clearly, traveler sentiment diverges significantly from the direction Lonely Planet’s management has taken. People still use travel guides, indicating the format isn’t obsolete.
The issue, it seems, is with Lonely Planet itself.
In a recent interview with Amuse, Lonely Planet’s CEO described the company’s evolution towards becoming an uncurated travel content platform: “We’ve never looked at Lonely Planet just as a book company, or a guidebook publisher — in fact my first interaction with Lonely Planet actually was on our website, probably when I was in college — we’ve always looked at it as a content company.”
However, the essence of a Lonely Planet travel guide was never about being just another content mill. It was about providing curated, expert-driven resources. Travelers chose them precisely because they sought a trusted voice to filter the overwhelming noise of generic travel information sources like TripAdvisor. Whether in print, e-book, or app format, consumers expect a reliable source of expertly curated information. If Lonely Planet is transforming into just another generic content platform, prioritizing ad revenue and listing everything, what distinguishes it? Is it merely becoming a larger, less focused version of Condé Nast Traveler or Afar?
It’s undeniable that Lonely Planet faced challenges even before the current management. Founders Tony and Maureen Wheeler openly acknowledge their struggles in adapting to the digital age, a key factor in their decision to sell to the BBC. However, the BBC era was marked by its own set of issues, including neglect of Thorn Tree, Lonely Planet’s once-vibrant forum – a crucial community asset that suffered mismanagement and decline.
While past missteps existed, the current decline in Lonely Planet travel guide quality and relevance is largely attributable to the present leadership. Their strategic shift towards becoming a generic “content company” appears fundamentally misaligned with what travelers actually value and seek from a Lonely Planet travel guide.
The Steep Decline in Quality
The decision to disregard market research and rely on “gut feeling” provides significant insight into the decline in quality and the current state of Lonely Planet travel guides. The acquisition triggered a major overhaul, with experienced executives replaced by a management team seemingly lacking deep industry understanding.
Multiple sources, including former and current contributors, have shared their experiences with Lonely Planet post-buyout. Common complaints include a lack of communication, disregard for expert input, and policy changes that effectively alienated experienced travel writers. The sentiment communicated to contributing experts seemed to be, “your expertise is no longer valued.”
These issues have been whispered within the travel writing community for years. Many travel writers, including personal acquaintances, have contributed to Lonely Planet travel guides, and the recurring theme is a decline in writer satisfaction and guide quality.
Rumors of recycled content and “desk updates” – information compiled from online sources rather than on-the-ground research – have long circulated, and these concerns are reportedly corroborated by current employees. It’s been suggested that Lonely Planet travel guide contributors are now sometimes instructed to use platforms like Google and TripAdvisor for content creation.
Lonely Planet’s content management system, designed for expert research submission and guidebook creation, has reportedly been repurposed. Now, it’s alleged that after writers submit their research, individuals with limited or no firsthand destination knowledge assemble the final guidebook. This process can result in disorganized and factually inaccurate Lonely Planet travel guides.
These changes have seemingly fostered a sense of disillusionment among writers, leading to a “just good enough” approach. Low pay, tighter deadlines, and a diminished sense of belonging to the company further contribute to this decline in content quality.
While some of these accounts might be perceived as “sour grapes,” the consistency and volume of these complaints over several years, from numerous sources, lend credence to the concerns about the quality of Lonely Planet travel guides. Treating content creators poorly inevitably leads to compromised content quality, and this seems to be reflected in the current state of Lonely Planet’s offerings.
The Problematic Website Experience
The decline in quality is also strikingly evident in the Lonely Planet website. The website’s redesign following Houghton’s leadership initially presented a confusing and user-unfriendly interface.
The initial design, with its grid of small squares, was visually cluttered and difficult to navigate. Finding specific information felt like a chore, often leading users to abandon the site in favor of blogs or other resources.
While the current iteration of the Lonely Planet website boasts larger images and fonts, improving visual appeal, the content organization and overall navigation remain problematic. Searching for information, even for a major city like Lyon, involves endless scrolling through exhaustive lists. The website now seems to list every possible point of interest – every church, attraction, park, and restaurant – for each destination. Instead of curated recommendations, users are presented with overwhelming, unprioritized lists. Travelers seek expert guidance to filter information, not just endless data dumps. If comprehensive, uncurated lists are desired, platforms like TripAdvisor or Yelp already serve that purpose.
Moreover, essential information is often buried within layers of content, making it difficult to locate. Comparing archived versions of Lonely Planet’s destination pages highlights this shift.
The older versions presented key information concisely and accessibly, with essential details readily available “above the fold.” Navigation was intuitive, and the focus was on delivering essential facts. In contrast, the current website structure prioritizes extensive, often uncurated content, requiring excessive scrolling and making it challenging to find specific information quickly.
This issue extends beyond destination pages. Lonely Planet’s “top lists” for cities like Paris are now seemingly endless, lacking the curated, expert-driven recommendations that once defined the brand. Even attraction, restaurant, and bar descriptions often fall short of the detail and insight offered by platforms like Google or Yelp. The example provided in the original article, a description of the Prescription Cocktail Club in Paris, illustrates this point. The generic, factually inaccurate description pales in comparison to user reviews found on other platforms, which offer richer detail and more reliable information.
Personal experiences searching for information on Lyon further reinforce the website’s shortcomings. The difficulty in finding basic, curated recommendations led to abandoning the Lonely Planet website in favor of Yelp and travel blogs, which proved to be more organized, curated, and informative resources.
What’s Really Wrong with Lonely Planet?
Lonely Planet’s apparent ambition to become a broad “content company” is reflected in several website changes: the proliferation of articles seemingly designed solely to generate page views, sponsored content from reviewed establishments, the redirection of users from content to booking platforms, TripAdvisor-style listings of everything (aimed at boosting page views), and the increased presence of intrusive advertising. Furthermore, the strong emphasis on selling tours seems to contradict the independent travel ethos that was foundational to the Lonely Planet travel guide brand. The shift in online content focus clearly indicates a fundamental change in the company’s direction.
Travelers turn to travel blogs and Lonely Planet travel guides seeking expert curation. They want trusted sources to filter information and provide insightful recommendations, saving them the burden of sifting through endless data. This is why travelers traditionally chose Lonely Planet travel guides over general travel magazines like Condé Nast Traveler or Outside. While magazines offer inspiration, guidebooks provide practical, on-the-ground information.
By losing this curated focus, attempting to appeal to a broader audience, and trying to compete with platforms like TripAdvisor and travel blogs, Lonely Planet has arguably sacrificed its unique selling proposition.
Focusing on a singular core mission is often key to success. As Andrew Carnegie famously said, “ ‘Don’t put all your eggs in one basket’ is all wrong. I tell you, ‘Put all your eggs in one basket, and then watch that basket.’ ”
Lonely Planet’s core strength was, and should remain, being a travel guidebook company. This doesn’t necessitate solely focusing on physical books, but it does mean prioritizing expert-curated travel information. The shift from this focused mission to becoming a generic “digital content hub” has eroded its uniqueness. And in a crowded digital landscape, lacking a distinct identity makes it difficult to maintain customer loyalty. As Simon Sinek aptly stated, “People don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it.”
In the past, the Lonely Planet travel guide brand stood for something clear and defined. Now, the company’s core identity and values are increasingly ambiguous.
Lonely Planet’s continued market dominance is largely due to its sheer size and legacy. It’s become the Microsoft of the travel guidebook industry – ubiquitous, but perhaps no longer beloved. Many users continue to purchase Lonely Planet travel guides simply because they are often the only available option for certain destinations. However, brand loyalty seems to have significantly diminished.
As a long-time Lonely Planet travel guide user since 2005, with their guides prominently featured on my website and still purchased for my travels, I find myself increasingly uncertain about their future relevance. While not entirely abandoning them yet, I’m increasingly leaning towards seeking alternative travel resources. Witnessing the transformation of a once-iconic brand into something…forgettable is disheartening.
So, what’s wrong with Lonely Planet?
In short, almost everything.
Update: Daniel Houghton stepped down from his CEO role at Lonely Planet in late 2018. The long-term impact of his tenure and the future direction of Lonely Planet travel guides remain to be seen.
Planning Your Next Trip? Consider These Resources
While the future of Lonely Planet travel guides is uncertain, planning your adventures remains exciting. Here are some resources to help you get started:
Find Affordable Flights: Skyscanner is my preferred flight search engine. It compares prices across numerous airlines and websites globally, ensuring you find the best deals.
Accommodation Booking: For hostels, Hostelworld is a reliable platform. If you prefer hotels or guesthouses, Booking.com consistently offers competitive rates.
Travel Insurance: Protect yourself from unexpected events with travel insurance. It’s essential for peace of mind. [mention specific recommended companies – to be added based on original content if applicable]
Explore Activities and Tours: Get Your Guide offers a vast marketplace for walking tours, excursions, and attraction tickets worldwide.
Car Rentals: Discover Cars is a budget-friendly platform for international car rentals, ensuring you find affordable options wherever you travel.
Further Travel Planning Resources: Visit my resource page for a comprehensive list of recommended travel companies and tools that I personally use.
