With apologies to Heraclitus, no particular person ever visits the identical vacation spot twice. Journey publishers are taking this sentiment to coronary heart, revamping current guides and providing new views on favourite locales.
At Lonely Planet, managing director of publishing Piers Pickard says, “We’re updating our Pocket Guides to make them extra inspirational. Pocket London, for instance, will embody extra images, in addition to sections to assist individuals navigate by expertise slightly than place.”
The collection, designed for journeys of 1 to seven days, can also be venturing to 2 new locations: Pocket Azores and Pocket Cabo Verde are due out in October. “The Azores are completely positioned for journey, within the Atlantic between Europe and the U.S.,” Pickard says of the Portuguese territory, including that the island chain was “a preferred vacation spot through the pandemic, together with in all places else in Portugal, as a result of the nation stayed very open.” Each the Azores and Cabo Verde, an island nation close to West Africa, “are comparatively small, so we thought Pocket was the suitable format.”
Avalon Journey’s Moon imprint has traditionally been strongest in Asia and the Americas, however, says Avalon writer Jaimee Callaway, “We’ve had our eye on Europe for some time.” Moon’s enlargement to the continent, which started in 2019, continues with Moon Seville, Granada & Andalusia: With Cordoba, Malaga & Tangier (Nov.) and Provence and the French Riviera (Jan. 2025). Overtourism was an issue even earlier than 2020, Callaway says, so “there was a necessity for titles that spotlight journey outdoors of the core metropolis facilities.”
Journey impresario Rick Steves, whose eponymous imprint falls beneath the Avalon umbrella, made his title main guests from the U.S. to Europe, however his geographical résumé is extra expansive. In 1978, he traveled overland from Japanese Europe to Nepal, an expertise he documented within the journals that type the center of his forthcoming On the Hippie Path (Feb. 2025). When Steves made that journey, Callaway says, “a technology of backpackers realized that there wasn’t data accessible for the sort of journey they needed to do. In order that they made guides themselves.”
Double takes
New choices at Fodor’s embody November’s InFocus Lisbon, which editorial director Doug Stallings says is “an expanded model of the Lisbon content material from our bigger Portugal information,” and a just lately launched, full-length information to Mexico Metropolis. “We did a e-book referred to as Inside Mexico Metropolis in 2020, geared towards individuals renting Airbnbs and staying for an extended time,” Stallings says. “But it surely’s such a giant, sprawling metropolis that it’s exhausting to do in a digested format, so we determined to publish a full-fledged remedy.”
At Hardie Grant, a unique approach is revitalizing the writer’s strategy to a traditional. “Japan is an evergreen vacation spot for worldwide vacationers: 629,000 U.S. guests arrived there between October 2023 and March 2024,” says Hardie Grant commissioning editor Amanda Louey. “And with the present curiosity in sustainable journey, vacationers are turning to trains.” Japan’s handy rail passes make prepare journey particularly interesting for guests, she says; Practice Japan (Dec.) by Steve Large and Michelle Waterproof coat provides “each geographic and thematic itineraries.”
In January, Tough Guides is releasing Pocket Tough Information Geneva, marking the primary time the writer has devoted a complete e-book to the Swiss metropolis. “We do have a information to Switzerland,” says Sarah Clark, head of publishing at Tough Guides. “However though Geneva is a serious monetary heart, I haven’t seen a Geneva information earlier than. It might have an attention-grabbing attain, as a result of Geneva will get vacationers and likewise individuals coming for work, or flying in as a result of they’re going elsewhere close by, just like the French Alps.”
Additionally on deck: The Tough Information to Georgia, Armenia & Azerbaijan (Nov.), the writer’s first enterprise into the Caucasus area. “Now we have an intensive European checklist,” Clark says, “and we felt the realm, which is each attention-grabbing and never a mainstream journey vacation spot, was under-covered by us and by different publishers.”
Whether or not heading to new areas or rethinking outdated approaches, Clark says, journey publishers have the identical purpose they’ve at all times had: “We’re creating showcases for our authors’ and editors’ information and love of journey.”
A model of this text appeared within the 08/12/2024 challenge of Publishers Weekly beneath the headline: Many Completely satisfied Returns
