Touriste Professionnel

PROFESSIONAL TOURIST
AN ANTI-TRAVEL-GUIDE
"The sentimental masses have a hero.
He is a smiling man kitted out with a globe-shaped backpack, and who has shaved off his moustache to look younger. He carts a dream around with him, the dream we all have: travel, blissful wandering, adventure with a happy ending. This man, you will have recognised him, is the modern-day backpacker, the professional traveller. Notebook in hand, eye on the alert, he roams around the world and, being nice and friendly, he lets you in on all his great plans [...]
I was once like you: I wanted to be him, the author of tourist guides. Crossing every continent at someone else's expense, tanned skin, stamped passport, multi-pocket jacket filled with African charms. I too wanted to lick my plates in picturesque little eating houses and sleep in Rajasthani palaces; feel the fur of a dromedary and follow the wine routes of Alsace. I was a small-time Kerouac, aspiring to adventure, on condition that there was air conditioning in the car and a mini-bar in the hotel room. I wouldn't have said no to having my name of the cover of the guidebook, and why not a picture of me [...]
But let me give you a word of warning first. What you are about to read might permanently damage your view of guide books. When you close this volume, your collection of guides and Lonely Planets (the proof of your insatiable desire for adventure) might end up in the bin.
My friends, you will find that you are having the wool pulled over your eyes. No, writing a travel guide does not mean writing the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
It means talking about hotels in which you have never slept and restaurants in which you have never eaten; museums you have visited at a sprint and ancient towns in which you have got horribly lost; countries you don't like and locals who eye you suspiciously; people and places you don't understand.
This book is made up of bad faith and poor judgement, sentimental digressions and geographical blunders, historical errors and spelling mistakes. Illegible maps, erroneous information and catastrophic misunderstandings. In short, the daily fare of every travel writer, that man whose existence everyone envies without knowing the troubles and traumas, blood, sweat and tears that it entails.
This book wants to set things straight again. Because they are so wildly wrong."
Vincent Noyoux
Vincent Noyoux is 33 and the author of several travel guides (in the "Géoguides" collection for Gallimard).