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February.
Travel Writing: The Next Generation.
Somebodyisfromhere.com recently read Chuck Thompson's Smile When You're
Lying: Confessions of a Rogue Travel Writer
and explains why it's worth reading.
Smile When You're Lying may start off with an anecdote involving a Thai hooker
pleasuring a German tourist, but how does it climax?

Although he may not be a rogue travel writer, Chuck Thompson, former editor
for Travelocity ("a travel magazine for people who didn't like travel magazines")  
and contributor for countless other publications, isn't afraid to offer his unique
perspective on destinations throughout the world.
Thompson spends a good portion of the book recounting stories he's accumulated during years as
a freelance writer. These stories are from all over Asia, Germany, and South America. To further
explain his adventures would be to gyp his readers of the entertainment. Suffice to say, they involve
the standard (albeit fun to read) fare of bad hotels while mixing in unique accounts of things like
being approached by strangers wielding machetes in foreign lands.

Part of me suspects he wasn't always honest. Even in the stories that happen to him, it's as if he
wasn't there. Always the writer. Like a politician, he mentions partaking in drinking and only being a
bystander when the actions get questionable or lewd.

The rest of the book is about the travel writing industry and how the articles are often written as
public relations pieces for resorts. Thompson suggests that writing real stories (which may or may
not involve Thai hookers) would be both more accurate and more entertaining to the reader.
Interestingly, he makes a sports analogy in the introduction that sums it up best. He writes, "Hating
the Dallas Cowboys not only doesn't make me any less of a football fan, it probably makes me more
of an avid one."

Armed with a sense of clarity, Thompson may spend pages with seemingly frivolous stories only to
wrap them up with the deep human realities that aren't found in magazines trying to build up a
resort's new pool. Thompson's book is a funny and informative read coming from somebody who
has had years to nitpick only to realize, in the end, there's nothing else he'd rather do.
With new content weekly, Somebodyisfromhere.com takes a look at travel albeit from the perspective of somebody
who probably watched  a little too much TV as a kid (or yesterday). The site doubles as a venue in which you can share
stories or pictures from your vacations because, let's face it, your friends are sick of hearing about it.
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Posted by Elizabeth on Wednesday, February 27, 2008 at 8:49 PM
Your review bests a few others of this book I've read recently. Nice job!