Whatever happened to old-fashioned ethics? Have pretending and exaggerating begun to permeate the entire writing world? I’ve written here before about pretense in writing: memoirs that aren’t memoirs, but instead are fictional (see “Fact, Fiction, and Book Scandals,” http://egenerations.com/article-1299-6-fact-fiction-and-book-scandals. Now I’ve discovered that some travel writers fake it too.

The May 13 Tempo section of the Chicago Tribune includes a Columbia News Service article by Erin Schultz entitled “The destination becoming road less traveled by guide writers.”

“The fact that travel writers tend to paint a prettier world than the average person’s reality is nothing new, but their techniques and the ethics of the industry itself are now under heavy fire—by travel writers themselves.”

Thomas Kohnstamm, freelance author of about a dozen Lonely Planet travel guides, wrote a tell-all book, Do Travel Writers Go to Hell?, revealing that he wrote about Columbia without going there. “I got information from a chick I was dating,” he admitted. Why? As usual, money or the lack thereof is involved. He says that his advance from Lonely Planet was less than the cost of a plane ticket to Columbia.

Another travel writer, Chuck Thompson, reveals, “It’s now like a game of telephone. You crib off of previously published material, updating each year, and pretty soon your source information is now eight years old.”

Of course advertisers influence travel publications, especially magazines and newspapers. “Few editors will take a story on the negative side of travel,” said travel writer Steenie Harvey. They don’t want to publish stories about “impoverished locals [using] the ‘sparkling azure sea’ as a toilet or a hotel bar crawling with hookers.”

Travel writers want to sell their stories. Magazines and newspapers want to increase their circulations and their incomes. Airlines, hotels, and travel companies want to promote trips and the use of their facilities.

Is it unethical to emphasize the positive side? Probably not, but there’s a warning here for prospective travelers. Read travel guides and other information if you are interested, but don’t assume that travel writers tell the whole true story of any place.

When tourists come into the Chicago Cultural Center looking for the old broadcast museum, I see the disappointed looks on their faces after I tell them that it closed a few years ago. The popular museum encountered financial difficulties in building a new facility, and still has not reopened. For the tourists, the problem is outdated or unrevised tour guide books. I’ve seen them.

I don’t have a solution for these problems. I still believe that any written material should be complete, truthful, and informative, but apparently economic forces and a decline in honesty have contributed to a society that doesn’t notice or doesn’t care. Are we creating a society where we seldom can believe what we read?

Check the dates of any travel guide you consult, including the dates of the included photographs. Travel writers have plenty of economic reasons to distort the truth, and little remains the same forever.

Veteran traveler Lukasz Kowolik hopes that “local flavor will translate into the traditional guidebook industry . . . and get the average traveler a little closer to the truth.” He suggests depending on local residents for information. “The locals know.” That sounds like very sensible advice, but we need honesty in travel writing as well.