Killing Batteries

My hostel roommate the other night, an Aussie on a round-the-world tour, informed me that he’d run across ’several of your lot’, meaning guidebook writers, in the mere two months he’d been traveling so far. Indeed, if you’ve ever spent serious time on the road in spring or summer you too have probably encountered several guidebook writers and never known it. We’re everywhere, usually trying to keep a low profile. Up at dawn, back late, seemingly impervious to culture shock, encumbered with an inordinate amount of paperwork for a backpacker and very focused, which comes off as vaguely anti-social.

Ever mused in hushed tones about the eccentric loner, staying in the hostel’s only private room and smelling faintly of dirty laundry? Yeah, that was a guidebook writer. Here’s a comprehensive list of more telltale guidebook writer signs:

•    Exclusively wears shorts/pants with six pockets (which always seem to be bulging with accessories), non-descript shirt, shades, and butt-ugly, but very practical shoes.

•    Looks at every business marquee while speed-walking down the street at a scorching 5 MPH.

•    Is traveling alone and has a rental car.

•    Painstakingly saves all receipts.

•    Seems constantly distracted and lonely (by ‘distracted and lonely’ I mean horny)

•    Grills you and everyone else in the hostel for details about where you went and what you did that day and how you liked it. Then scribbles every detail down in a ludicrously large, bursting filofax or PDA.

•    May be intentionally vague when questioned about their career.

•    Seems to have memorized ridiculous amounts of information about the country you’re in.

•    Looks exhausted and disheveled, yet still intriguingly sexy.

Of course some of these details vary for females. I know at least one who uses her cleavage to get cooperation and/or entry to swanky restaurants and bars when doormen frown at her trainers. (I wish I had cleavage.) On the flip side, I’ll admit to batting my eyelashes and smiling sweetly at female hotel desk clerks and waitresses which frequently gets me the world. And it goes without saying, with my ageless, ’smoochy’ baby-face, gay men are putty in my hands.

Finally, I’m not going to sugarcoat it, if the guidebook writer seems eccentric, it’s probably because they’re genuinely eccentric. Exceedingly eccentric in some cases. I’ve spent a lot of time in rooms full of guidebook writers and it never ceases to make me (of all people) feel like a well-adjusted, charming, social wizard.

In truth, you kind of need to be a little peculiar to do this job. Occasionally one starts out sane and is duly driven batshit crazy by the singular, wide-ranging obligations expected of us. Either way, it’s an even bet that your guidebook writer, no matter how badly you might like to sit and pick their brain for hours, will ultimately make you wish you were in a public place, where you could excuse yourself from the table, walk casually into the bathroom, heave a chair through the window, jump down two stories into a dumpster and make your escape.

Tomorrow I fly back to Romania for the second time in three months like a jet-setting badass to complete my LP guidebook research, wallow in the fame of being a travel writing all-star, beat off amorous groupies with my medical burro riding crop and sleep soundly every night with the knowledge that my life kicks so much ass that my government actually imposes extra taxes on me for it.

If only.

I’m not going to deny that there are days that I struggle into my home-office desk chair at the crack of noon, with a mug of chocolate-flavored coffee, no boss in sight, having not donned shoes or a shirt in over 24 hours, read my two pieces of daily fan mail (and delete my 37 pieces of hate mail) and finally get to the grave task of writing caustic remarks and cheap shots about Berlin, Jesus and the slightly dry steak I ate while in First Class during my last flight over the Pacific, but equally, this job has its moments of sobering wretchedness.

Since I’m comfortably at the experience and wisdom levels now that allow me to accurately see into the future (by the way, it’s Splitsville for Christina Aguilera and Jordan Bratman in 2009), I’ll give you a preview of subjects you’re like to read about in this blog - or more likely, on my Twitter page - over the next three weeks while I’m on the road in Romania:

•    The hair-melting heat wave that’s descending on southern Romania as I write this

•    People that work in Romanian tourism, that plainly loathe tourists

•    Why in Buddha’s name did I choose to research in July, knowing that every decent hotel would be booked for weeks?

•    How many Ibuprofen per day I’m taking to fight back the hip pain

•    How little clothing women bother with on the Black Sea coast

•    The ethical dilemma of being treated like a vagrant by people whose businesses I could make or break with one sentence in the book

•    Loud hostels/little sleep

•    Has anyone sent me a check recently?

•    I have exactly zero confirmed work for after September 1st – do I worry about finances or celebrate the long-overdue break?

•    I’d kill for a cheeseburger

And so goes the head-spinning highs and demoralizing lows in the life of a travel writer.

All possible adversity, pain and humiliation aside, this is actually shaping up to be the easiest bit of guidebook research of my short career. I’ve got three weeks to do about two weeks worth of work, almost everywhere I’m going is unspeakably awesome (e.g. Sibiu, Braşov, Danube Delta, Black Sea Coast), and if things go well I’ll spend the final two or three days sitting on a beach and practicing my Romanian with some of Europe’s most beautiful women.

Now I have to go pack my guidebook writer cape and tights (the lavender or the burgundy, I can never decide), review my Romanian curse words and lewd gestures for that first drive through Bucharest, shave my head for optimum speed-walking aerodynamics and eat one last cheeseburger to offset the 5-8 pounds that I’m about to lose.