In a book: my Lonely Planet guide

So I managed to make my way through the whole of Morocco without a guidebook. It was a bit annoying at times to be dependent on the battery life of my phone, in case I needed to look something up. But there is so much info on Maroc that it was never a problem to find whatever I needed, and there was almost always internet access/wifi everywhere I went.

And besides, I no longer want to be one of those guidebook travellers, who only goes to, stays in, and eats at the places in the book. And those places are so… vanilla. Not to mention packed with all the other guidebook travellers! Boring.

But then there’s Mauritania, and even Western Sahara for that matter, where you’d have to go looking for white skin. And as well, there exists very little information online, and the connectivity leaves much to be desired.

So I bought a West Africa guidebook. An e-version, mind you, because as if I’m gonna find it in paper, in English, anywhere out here. But I can print out the countries as I go, which seemed like a logical solution.

Until Lonely Planet let me down.

I mean, I know things change, and I know that the “September 2013” version wasn’t actually written in September 2013, but the information so far has been completely off the mark, for all but one guesthouse. The rest of the time, there are a multitude of places that aren’t listed; the ones that are listed are often totally different than the description (or they have closed, 3 years ago..); and the majority of the transportation info is completely wrong.

So here’s hoping that I can stay better connected in Senegal, and can stick to my old method!