Travel Writers Are Reckless Like I Hoped

Thomas Kohnstamm: Going to Hell.

I started reading Thomas Kohnstamm’s “Do Travel Writers Go to Hell?” without any real expectation. Kohnstamm was a traveling journalist for the Lonely Planet. This book was advertised as the “real story” behind the writing of a guide book. The excerpt on the back depicts a scene in which Thomas impromptly has sex with a waitress, and later gives the restaurant a solid review, saying “the table service is friendly.” I should have known that the book would not tell of glorious scenery and friendly locals. (After hours of reading, I am writing in Kohnstamm’s style!) The book is self-centered, but that is fine with me. Thomas is constantly getting himself into the most depressingly hopeless situations, managing to survive on what seems to be mostly alcohol. As a result, his depictions of Brazil do not differentiate one place from another. Rio de Janeiro is the city, in which the author sleeps with the Austrian flight attendant from his flight, with whom he is sharing a hotel room. The next night, he parties till dawn, ending it by making love to a Brazilian woman he met at a bar in the bottom of a boat. Recife is not the Afro-Brazilian musical center I was expecting to read about, but the city in which Kohnstamm shared a room with a prostitute, her friend, and her friend’s boyfriend for a few weeks. In Jericoacoara, he needed money to survive, and bought 50 ecstasy pills on loan, without any plan for selling them. The alcohol-fueled memories make everyone out to be a villain, or at the very least outlandish. He does not hate the wealthy tourists, but he envies their comfort and stability. At the same time, he mocks the backpackers’ perceptions of authenticity. On the other hand, he is not wrong. If I were to use this book to influence my travel in Brazil at all, the best advice I could take away would be to refrain from purchasing a guidebook. At first, Kohnstamm places some small faith in the importance of his position as ambassador for future travelers. Then, he learns that most travel writers either fake their work or accept bribes. He certainly makes Brazil sound exciting, if you are enough of an existentialist to warrant all sorts of illicit activity. The book reads like he is ashamed of himself, but at the same time, he is daring the reader to be as adventurous. I can dig it…