Ed Readicker-Henderson on the limits of guidebooks

“When you’re headed out with your happy travel dreams, the guidebook is your magic key, it’s your oracle, where all the answers await. Problem is, the book is the ideal, that marketing image of grass skirts or exotic temples or jungles that stretch on forever. But the world has its own agenda of trains that break down when it’s 120 degrees outside, and goats that vomit on your shoes.”
–Ed Readicker-Henderson, “Why You’re Here Now”, Motionsickness, Nov/Dec 2002