The view from the guidebooks : backpackers in Australia

Tourism can be seen as a search for the authentic, which is one of the central ideas in the study of tourism. It achieves this without ever being at odds with the tourists who search for it. This is especially acknowledged in guide books and tourist brochures by a plethora of apparently authentic experiences (Craik 1991:32). This paper will examine the use of the guidebook as a source of information about Australia for international longterm budget travellers as the journey around this country. It will show how the guides, and in particular, Lonely Planet, have become an integral part of the backpacking world and, one of the representations of backpacking itself. The findings are based primarily on my Master of Social Science thesis by research in sociology entitled Searching for Authenticity in Touristic Experience: Female Backpackers in North Queensland.