David Vanderhoef, a traveler and former bar manager, expressed concerns about the latest Lonely Planet guidebook to Kenya, which notably diminished important safety content. Compared to the 2018 edition, the 2024 guidebook contained fewer listings and warnings about crime, which is a critical issue in Kenya. He highlighted the importance of acknowledging travel safety risks and criticized the trend of sanitizing travel experiences to make them more appealing. Vanderhoef noted that while social media often glamorizes travel, it is troubling to see a reputable guidebook follow suit by omitting significant safety information.
"Even the staunchest Kenyan patriot will readily admit that one of the country's biggest problems is crime," the 2018 edition said.
Safety is a really important thing to us when we're traveling because it can be really unsafe out there," Vanderhoef tells me.
A big problem with travel in general is trying to beautify travel, which is happening on Instagram. But it's happening now on Lonely Planet, and it's not good.
The 2024 edition omitted almost all of these warnings. It mentioned the word "crime" only three times in the space of 107,000 words.
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