I find it an odd brief. There’s a good reason guidebooks cover that usual ground, at least when it comes to attractions. An example: Frankly, I couldn’t care less if I never see the Ponte Vecchio again. It’s not even the prettiest bridge in Florence, let alone Europe – or even the world, as the occasional misguided claim goes. I’ve been to Florence countless times. However, you, the purchaser of our new Florence guidebook, might only go once. It’s the way you travel in the era of budget airlines and cheap city-breaks – and it’s you I’m writing for, and you that most travel features are aimed at. And if you’re going just once, for me not to highlight that Old Bridge and its famous rep would be a bit, well, I’m struggling for the right word here… but “twattish” certainly covers it. So would “arrogant”. And, yes, a piece of travel journalism, given its immediacy, its desire to capture a Zeitgeist in a thousand words, probably shouldn’t just cover the usual stuff… not all of it, anyway.

But it always feels like that brief goes further. The caveat extends to restaurants, hotels, shops. It seems to equate “in the guidebook” with uninteresting, unworthy, or at least unrecommendable to a more discerning audience. It seems to sneer at the curation choices made by guide researchers (journalists themselves, mostly) who spend far more time in their destinations, sifting and sorting, than your usual journo on assignment or (worse) on a press trip.

In the last year, I’ve read one-pagers on Florence in highly regarded travel magazines that certainly included places that “weren’t in the guidebook,” none of mine anyway. That’s because I know these places, and I know they either aren’t good enough, or just aren’t sufficiently interesting to warrant a recommendation to someone who might be in the city once, for a brief visit. There’s nothing wrong with a good cliche; many of their selections were bad cliches. Selections, I’d suggest, borne out of writing about a place the writer just didn’t know that well, and didn’t have the time to discover properly.

I’m not saying that guidebook writers have a monopoly on destination travel expertise. I’m forever clipping ideas and other writers’ recommendations to Evernote, mining local knowledge. I learn tons from in-depth, heavily-angled print pieces on places that I otherwise know well. There’s some fantastic travel journalism out there. But, frankly, some – especially “one weekend in…” and roundup pieces – could do a whole lot worse than cover those usual places from a good guidebook written by a committed author who spends a fair chunk of most years in her or his destination.

The trick, then, is choosing the right guidebook…

• I’m still co-writing the travel advice Q&A column in the UK’s Sunday Telegraph, covering anything with a tech twist. Recent pieces have covered the best apps for taking skiing with you, the best gadgets, apps, and websites for translating on the fly, and (inevitably) data roaming and SIM cards, in the light of the EU’s new price cap regulations.
• A couple of new co-authored guidebooks have appeared. For the first, Great Britain Day by Day, I wrote two brand new chapters on Wales. I also co-wrote the completely revised new edition of Frommer’s Florence, Tuscany & Umbria Complete. If you’re a journalist or blogger and would like to review either of those, let me know. By the end of 2012, another 4 or 5 titles that I’ve written or co-written are scheduled to appear.
• I’ve also written a number of destination pieces, including: a look at the cultural side of Udine for the Sunday Telegraph; a guide to what to do in Florence in the Spring for b-There magazine; and a tour around Britain’s beer capital (it’s a tough job, but someone’s etc. etc.), for Frommers.com.

More soon…

1. She’s done her maths. She knows that the Groupon voucher breaks even for her, at best. That’s all. There’s no chance she’ll lose money on the deal, but if she wants to make a profit, well, …

2. Not everything you could ever want from an evening in the restaurant is on that voucher. There’s an up-sell/cross-sell strategy in place before anyone walks in the door.

3. She knows when she’s busy, and when she isn’t. There’s no point in her shipping in break-even customers when regulars are fighting for a table. For her, November is a great month to run a Groupon deal. December would be nuts.

4. She’s taken second-order effects into account. Nobody wants to eat in an empty restaurant. If her place is half-full with Grouponers on a Tuesday night, she knows that window-browsers are more likely to stop in for an unplanned dinner. Or to come back some other time, to what they see as a “popular, buzzing” local restaurant.

5. She has already decided what happens next. She has her Grouponers’ email addresses, and knows what to do with them. Groupon isn’t a one-shot deal. It’s the beginning of a relationship for her. That’s the only way it makes financial sense.

6. She’s realistic in her expectations. The money quote: “About 20% of our Groupon customers create all the complaints on the night. And they are the ones that spend nothing on top of the offer and never come back.” She’s already accounted for these customers, and shrugs them off.

None of this is rocket science. But it requires thought, planning, and a strategy, of which Groupon forms just one part. If your total strategy is “Let’s do a Groupon,” you’re going to fail. Whether Groupon itself is a sound business is beyond my ability to assess. But it strikes me that the daily-deals model can be very useful for the right small businesses. The haters are probably just doing it wrong, or shouldn’t be doing it at all.

There were strings, of course. But they didn’t insist I write a glowing review anywhere. They didn’t even oblige me to write a blog post or two. In fact, they didn’t ask me to generate any content at all, as far as I could tell from the T&Cs. However, they did insist that my name and face be available to them for future “publicity purposes”. Not with an endorsement appended, obviously, but still. I value my impartiality and independence, and a reputation for taking ethics seriously. Lending my name (even trivially) crosses a line.

Which leads neatly to a recent post on Travelllll.com. In a panel discussion at WTM 2011, leading travel bloggers apparently referred to hosting tourist boards as the blogger’s “client” (read the post comments and see, perhaps, here at 0:13, though it’s ambiguous). Now, I’ve met many of these writers, and they seem like smart, independent-minded folk to me. I’m sure this was just a slip of the tongue. They’d likely agree: unless you’re a paid copywriter, writing what is transparently promotional copy, then DMO PRs are not a writer’s client. They may facilitate your work. They might set up (and even host) a trip. But you’re not promoting them, and not writing for them. You’re writing for your readers.

If there are going to be more opportunities for independent writers to make a living online–and I hope there are–then proper journalistic (dirty word, I know) ethics need to be more visible. When you write for someone else, the publication’s ethics policy has to be yours, or you don’t get hired. When you’re the publisher and writer, I want to see a clear statement of your ethics displayed front-and-center. This is your declaration of independence. And if you’re not independent, then you’re just a shill.

It’s for this reason I have a problem with industry commentators (writers, journalists, bloggers, whoever) taking money as “brand ambassadors”. Sure, you can tell me you’d recommend this amazing product anyway. But your relationship with this brand is bound to make a reader unsure. By all means, as a travel or tech writer, work as a brand ambassador for toothpaste. But if your chosen brand works on your beat, I’m never going to trust in your impartiality. Sorry. And that, via a long way round, is why I turned down the phone. I can assure you that that phone would have made no difference to my reporting of smartphone travel. But words are cheap. Deeds, on the other hand, can be expensive… and are therefore valuable.

Ethics are costly; they’ve cost me £450 so far this week. But I like to think the cost of not having ethics is much greater.

No, not my “forthcoming projects” folder. That one’s bursting-full, thankfully. More my unforgiveably irregular postings and updates here. It’s about time, so here’s a snapshot of some of what I’ve been up to work-wise in the last couple of months.

• My regular slot in the Sunday Telegraph‘s travel Q&A column, as consumer technlogy expert, continued with two advice pieces on data roaming. There are more coming out soon, on different subjects.
• A couple of UK guidebooks I worked on last year have been published. For Frommer’s England & the Best of Wales 2012, I wrote chapters on “Hampshire & Dorset” and “North Wales”, and co-wrote chapters on “Wiltshire & Somerset” and “London”. For Frommer’s London 2012, I was lead author and wrote 3 new chapters. There are more guidebooks in the pipeline, some already listed on my Amazon author page.
• I’ve been back in Tuscany (twice), researching a piece for the Guardian (coming soon) and two new guidebooks due out in 2012, one of them a new edition of my Frommer’s Florence & Tuscany Day by Day.
• Various travel features have appeared here and there, including this slideshow guide to Britain for music lovers.

If you represent or know of anywhere (or anything) I should see or hear about, I’m always happy to be contacted by phone or email, or on Twitter. I’ll attempt to update this page a bit more regularly in future… but my record on that to date would suggest I’m wise not to make any promises. See you around.

For visitors to Italy, buying a local SIM card with internet access is as simple as 1-2-3:

1) Find a cellphone shop. All you need to do is find the tourist office or a friendly local and ask: “Sto cercando un negozio [INSERT NETWORK NAME… SEE BELOW]…?” Italians talk on their mobiles all day every day, and anywhere with more than about 100 inhabitants has a phone shop. Euronics superstores sell all the networks under one roof.

2) Remember your passport, or driving licence, or similar official ID. As well as cash or credit card, they are going to ask you for “un documento,” which they will photocopy. This is required by Italian law. If they also request a “codice fiscale” (a tax number), just tell them “sono un(a) turista.” Visitors don’t need one to buy a mobile phone.

3) Choose your network and tariff. If you’re only here temporarily, you want “una scheda ricaricabile, anche per navigare in Internet sul mio smartphone” (“a pay-as-you-go [PAYG] SIM that also connects to the Internet via my smartphone”). Make sure that you also register for a prepaid data option, as paying-as-you-browse for data is very expensive (for EU residents, not much cheaper than connecting via roaming).

As of August 2011, these are the best network-by-network deals on data in Italy:

TIM: the PAYG SIM card costs €10, which includes €5 of credit towards calls and data. The option “TIM PER SMARTPHONE” costs €2 a week for up to 250 MB of data. To activate it if you already have a TIM SIM, just text TIMSMART ON to 40916. This way avoids any “activation” charges that a shop might try to foist on you. It stays activated, automatically debiting your PAYG balance, until you deactivate it by calling TIM customer services on 119.

Vodafone: as with TIM, the PAYG SIM card costs €10, which includes €5 of credit. The data option “Mobile Internet” costs €3 per week for 250 MB… but the first week is free. You do the math. As with TIM, it renews automatically until you disconnect or run out of credit.

Wind: like TIM and Vodafone, a “SIM ricaricabile” costs €10, with €5 credit included. Wind’s “Internet No Stop Daily” option costs nothing to activate, and debits your PAYG credit €1 on every day that you connect to the Web. There’s a fair use limit, of 50 MB, and you pay nothing if you don’t use the Web on any day. Alternatively, “Internet No Stop” costs €5 to activate (free until September 4^th, 2011) plus €9 for a month of traffic up to 1 GB.

3: Known as “Tre” in Italy, 3 charges more for SIM cards, so it only really makes sense for longer stays and/or heavy users. A 3 PAYG SIM card costs €30, which breaks down as €7 for the SIM and €23 credit preloaded on it. Thirty days of data, with a 3 GB limit and a daily ceiling of 100 MB, costs just €5. Note that, in my experience, you’re more likely to have connection problems with 3 in rural areas. Cities should be fine, but if you’re lodging in the sticks, ask locally about network reception.

iPad travellers: As with smartphones, seek out a “SIM per iPad ricaricabile.” A Vodafone microSIM costs €10, which includes €5 of credit. You then have the option of paying to connect daily (€2 “al giorno” only when you use the Web; fair-use limit) or prepay for a month (€9 “al mese” for 1 GB). 3 microSIMs again are more expensive, but €5 buys you 3 GB of data which—and this is the really good bit—you can also use back home if your home country has a 3 network. Currently, that’s Australia, Austria, Denmark, Great Britain, Hong Kong, Ireland, and Sweden all covered by their free option called “all’estero come a casa.” I’ll leave it up to you to calculate if it’s worth packing an Italian 3 microSIM to carry home with your souvenirs and novelty grappa.

A Guide to Italian Street Names for Frommers.com:

Popes and lovers, assassins and pacifists, artists, scholars, inventors, and industrialists: There are no set criteria to qualify for an Italian street named in your honor — though saints, like important dates in the country’s short history, are pretty much a shoo-in. Among literally thousands (including several named Via John F. Kennedy and Via “Abramo” Lincoln), here are just a handful of monikers to get you started.

Read the rest at Frommers.com

And, for the Sunday Telegraph, an answer to a reader’s question: Can I really use Groupon or similar group-buying websites to find travel bargains? The answer, of course, is yes you can.

More soon.

Most satisfying of the lot was the publication of the new edition of our award-winning family travel guidebook (with a slightly revised name), Frommer’s Tuscany, Umbria & Florence With Your Family. I’m always happy to hear opinions on what’s right, or what’s wrong, about the book, so if you’ve read it or (better still) test-driven it in the wild, do leave a comment below or get in touch. If you’re a journalist or blogger and fancy reviewing it, drop me a line and I’ll arrange that. It’s not yet published in the US, so you can get a jump on the rest if you fancy seeing it now.

Three features appeared online in the last month. The first was a contribution to the Guardian’s 10 of the Best Summer Holidays for Under-Fives, in which I went with the island of Elba (out of season), and these friendly family apartments in particular. As part of my regular tech-expert Q&A slot for the Sunday Telegraph, I answered the reader question: Where can I search online for affordable alternative accommodation? Among my suggestions for sidestepping the usual villa, apartment, and hotel websites were the excellent “pop-up B&B” site Crashpadder.com and MonasteryStays.com, which sells what you think it sells, currently in Italy only (but watch this space). MonasteryStays.com recently hosted me with the Suore di Santa Elisabetta, in Florence, a friendly place I’d certainly recommend to anyone travelling on a budget and bringing a car into the city.

Most recently, I wrote an extended slideshow piece for Frommers.com on San Frediano, Florence’s rapidly-changing left-bank neighbourhood:

Cities change. It’s what they do. However, one of the draws of Florence has been that its center is stuck in time. It was old when Lucy and George traded gazes in E. M. Forster’s 1908 novel, Room with a View. It was old when the English Grand Tourists of the 1700s came to study the palazzo architecture and church art. Heck, some of it was even old when Michelangelo raised his giantDavid outside the Palazzo Vecchio. He’d still be able to navigate much of Florence’s centro storico, without Google Maps.

However, one part that is changing — and fast — is San Frediano.

There’s more in the pipeline, including three more guidebooks due out before the end of 2011 and hopefully an update to my Florence iPhone app (iTunes link). My Amazon Author Page has details of a couple of the books.

The Fair Tax on Flying  campaign is an alliance of more than 25 airlines, airports, tour operators, destinations and trade associations who are uniting to call on the Government to make the system of aviation tax in the UK fairer.  We already pay the highest levels of aviation tax of any nation in Europe.

By fairer, of course, they largely mean lower. Or, at least, no higher than it is under current APD 4-band rules: £12 per person for economy class flights to Europe, £60 for the USA, and £85 to Australia, for example. There is a Facebook group, which has attracted “Likes” from plenty of respectable travel industry names, alongside the odd anti-all-tax nut and corporates with an obvious interest. Major players at the top level of the industry (largely the CEOs and MDs of the big airports, airlines, and large outbound tour operators) have written to the Chancellor outlining their case (pdf).

If the idea is to “unite the travel industry” behind the campaign, I’m afraid I’m not joining.

1. The figures released by ABTA focus only on the (real) economic benefits of air travel (jobs, “contributions” to the economy, supply-side effects, and so on), without any proper consideration of the costs. In health and pollution clean-up, obviously. But also in congestion, and the clearing of it from the environs of our airports: how much has the widening of the M25 around Heathrow cost the general taxation pot? The externalities of air travel are a major part of the calculation, but ABTA seems to ignore them. Without a consideration of the long-term net economic impact of flying, any figures quoted are worthless. (And this is before we even get onto any Fallacy of Composition considerations.)

2. Arguments along the lines of “this is money saved by hard-working British families” etc., such as this on-message piece by a Labour MP, can safely be ignored. (And remember: APD isn’t a tax on travel or holidays; it’s a tax on flying.) Those are empty arguments against all tax, not this one. As can comparisons to European countries. Travel companies might like Germany’s take on APD, for example, but would be less happy with its corporation tax regime. “But country x does it this way” is not an argument, just a statement of fact.

3. The campaign makes much of data that shows inbound passengers falling in the face of a rise in APD: “rising APD levels had already begun to contribute to a fall in passenger numbers in late 2008″ (Key Facts [pdf], p. 3). What they may have found here is a correlation, of course, not a causal relationship. (Correlation and causation aren’t the same breed: the period since Liverpool were last champions of England has seen unprecedented growth in home PC ownership. That’s another correlation.) A significant growth in domestic tourism (11.8% between 2008 and 2009, according to VisitEngland [pdf]), aligned with a world economy in meltdown, could be considered a more potent factor in air passenger numbers simultaneously falling. This is exactly when the neologism “staycation” was coined, after all. In any case, the idea that significant numbers of long-haul inbound travellers would cancel a multi-thousand dollar trip here over a few pounds in APD doesn’t seem credible. What they would trouser from APD’s abolition wouldn’t even pay for one night in a London hotel.

4. Later in the same document (Key Facts, p. 4), ABTA claims that the “Aviation tax is not environmentally effective.” However, in their press release, ABTA Chief Executive Mark Tanzer says: “Air passenger numbers have decreased by 22% since 2007 when the tax was last increased“. If this is a causal relationship, it has been the most effective environmental tax in history. ABTA can’t have the argument both ways.

4. “In a separate survey of 2,046 British adults conducted… for ABTA by ComRes, almost two thirds of consumers (63%) believe the current level of tax is too high”. Yes, but look at the survey question. I’m surprised they could find 5% to say that it was currently too low.

The naked, actual, real truth is that air travel currently receives a massive effective subsidy from other forms of travel. Aviation fuel is not taxed. Air travel is exempt from VAT under VAT Notice 744B. The main substitutes to air travel are subject to one or both of these taxes. You don’t need to have got much beyond “Microeconomics 101″ to see this is hugely damaging to domestic and local tourism, and to the viability of green alternatives to mid-range transit such as high-speed rail. I’m not the only hack to spot this:

If we just taxed aviation fuel at the same rate as the petrol that UK motorists get out of the pump, everything would be wonderfully fair. That’s just a measly 58.95 pence for every litre of fuel used. Can’t say fairer than that, can you Fair Tax on Flying Alliance? Everybody’s happy, justice is done, and… oh yes, the cost to your business would be absolutely crippling

Yesterday, coincidentally, I was pricing up rail travel from London to Florence. It’s looking likely to cost me  £400+. A budget airline return to Pisa, an hour by train from Florence, could be mine for under £100, including all those “unfair” taxes. As I tweeted, the economics of responsible travel are screwed. There also skewed… in the airlines’ and large corporate outbound operators’ favour. Don’t let ABTA persuade you otherwise.

Feel free to agree, or to tell me I’m wrong: I’m always happy to hear comments and opinions.

Q: “I know it should be possible to save money by shopping around for flights. But what’s the best website for finding deals? There are so many to choose from these days.”

Answer:

It wasn’t so long ago that the terminal operated by a high-street travel agent was the gatekeeper to all our holiday bookings.

Then along came online travel agents (OTAs), such as Expedia and Travelocity, with websites that allowed us to search for ourselves. However, an OTA isn’t usually the cheapest place to find a flight deal online. A newer breed of site known as the “meta-search engine” provides (in theory) a more comprehensive service.

These meta-search engines trawl hundreds of airline websites, OTAs, flight-data wholesalers and other search engines to find the best price. But which one finds the cheapest flight most often?

Read the rest, and the results of my test, at Telegraph.co.uk