Frommer’s Print Guides Discontinued By Google Days After Lonely Planet Sale: Report

Frommer’s Print Guides Discontinued By Google Days After Lonely Planet Sale: Report

It does fascinate me this drive towards digital, especially consumers willing to travel with expensive devices most often to developing countries where crime levels are high. Furthermore, the costs of accessing mobile data for far flung places is not a pretty price either. For the sake of saving money on a book, are people really consuming the cost through downloading content (that in some places can be easily £5 per 500Mb), that hardly works out well!

I am charged £3 a day in Europe for unlimited access to Mobile data, SMS and phone calls. This surely does work out cheaper than a guide book, and I do get all the information I require. However for long-haul journeys this is just not possible. The costs of data are astronomical, some say that free wifi is readily available - having just completed travels of India I can say to you now, it's not! You're lucky if the hotel has WiFi.

Furthermore, maps and data are needed on the move. Wherever you will be you will require access to the nearest bar, restaurant, hotel or museum - connecting to a mobile connection is going to cost you - that's IF your mobile connection actually works.

Frommer's needs to inspire and adapt, but there cannot be a sole focus on mobile. It also takes discovery out the equation, no room to get lost and find something that is not listed. Travel needs to be real, not digital and only books can offer you that security and safety digital technologies cannot.