Budget Travel magazine, like any commercial magazine publishing enterprise, needs to please its advertisers as much as its readers, but more than most they’re willing to give us the real dirt and expose the travel industry’s worst excesses.
Their “Confessions of a…” series is especially jaw-dropping as it’s the kind of material you only expect to hear from someone sitting in an adjoining barstool, not from a print story. The latest is Confessions of a Tour Guide in Rome and it’s another winner. As an insider, I’m amazed at how many people can’t believe it when I say that TripAdvisor is easy to game. Or that everything a $10-an-hour part-time tour guide tells you is not necessarily grounded in well-researched history.
“I know of tour guides in Rome who pull facts out of thin air whenever they’re stumped by a question. Travelers seldom check, for instance, whether Vatican City has only 232 residents as their guide says. They simply nod. (In case you were wondering, Vatican City has 829 residents.) Myths and authoritative-sounding details are often more entertaining anyway. One classic ditty passed along by guides has it that the tyrannical emperor Nero played a fiddle while Rome burned in 64 A.D. But the fiddle wasn’t actually invented until centuries later.”
Sure, not all tour guides pull things out of their butt when stumped and not all tour companies (or hotels) engage in creative ballot-stuffing to pump up their positive reviews, but enough do that it matters. Trust the guidebooks as much as online user reviews (or more, especially if the book has been revised multiple times by the same author), and consider the source when hearing advice first-hand or online. (Does that person share your tastes? Does he/she travel as much as you do? Are your budgets in the same ballpark?)
We’re drowning in information, but that doesn’t mean it’s all good information. Be a healthy skeptic no matter who is talking, including your guide. Or me. But be polite: otherwise you could show up in the next “Confessions of a….” article!
