Review Of The Bluelist 2007

At a first glance this glossy, magazine style affair seems a long way from the essential ‘Bibles’ that Lonely Planet made their name with. So have they sold out the legend of their backpacker’s kitchen table (duly trotted out once more on the inside front cover) in favour of the lucrative coffee table market?

Well, not quite. According to the terribly chatty introduction, Tony Wheeler and Co. want a conversation. Splendid! I was feeling a bit lonely! On closer examination, of course, they didn’t want to have a conversation with me themselves; they want me to conversate with other Bluelisters on their website <<insert AdWords here>>. But I’ll drop the cynicism.

So if you can get over the fact that the US tourist board seem to hold humiliating information on the publishers (almost every Bluelist has an entry from the USA, some shamelessly crow-barred in: is ‘Riding the New York City subway’ really one of the ten best journeys in the world?), then you should enjoy reading about the planet’s best bars, best value destinations, kitchest kitch and most deadly hotels.

But it’s not all about the eponymous Bluelists – and thank god - barrel-scraping noises are distinctly heard around #37, ‘Repeat Offenders Eurovision’. There are also Golists, which recommend adventurous, fashionable, edgy places to go to in 2007 (Cornwall, for example).

These Golists are more like what Lonely Planet do best: a two-page introduction to a country or region you might not have thought of going to before. And although the ‘Defining Experience’ section reads like a ‘Do This And Be Happy’ tick list, there are plenty of insightful comments on politics, the environment and local culture all written with Lonely Planet’s trademark light touch (London Student word search game: “wankers”).

Embedded at the heart of the book is a feature on Dark Tourism. It asks serious questions about how we approach tourism: from visiting museums like the Imperial War Museum (“a tank-stroker’s paradise”) to volunteering in catastrophe hit regions like Kashmir; from spending much needed tourist dollars in so-called ‘Phoenix’ destinations like Rwanda to some pretty tasteless tourism, like pressing (the presumably faulty) Big Red Button on a Titan II Intercontinental Ballistic Missile in Tucson, Arizona.

Bluelist will start conversations (well, arguments and ‘been there’ competitions), but it is not essential. It feels like a big, fat, lovely travel mag: comfort food for the travel junkie. So if you’re stranded in Blighty this Christmas, put this on your list.

Published in 'The London Student'