Taipei: The Bradt e-Guide

Visiting Taipei for business or pleasure, yet lacking the time to go down island or explore the east? In that case, you might not bother to pack a guidebook which covers all of Taiwan. For the sake of such travellers, Bradt has extracted the Taipei chapter from my guidebook and repackaged it as a city guide. It's available only in electronic formats; unlike the full Taiwan guide, there's no print edition. 

The Taipei e-Guide can be ordered direct from Bradt, and should be available via Amazon any day now.

Why buy a guidebook?

As a guidebook author I obviously have a vested interest in this question. While no one disputes that guidebook sales have fallen – because of the economy as well as the rise of smartphone apps and other electronic alternatives – this recent New York Times article provides a number of good reasons why, for some travellers at least, print guidebooks remain an excellent option.

Noting that sifting through websites can take an eternity, the article points out that: "[C]hoice can be paralyzing. For those who want the deciding done for them, a trusted guidebook brand wins, at least in planning an agenda."

The writer concludes that "a guidebook stomps the web almost every time" in three ways. Firstly, guidebooks have "curated maps" which are more useful than anything published online by Google or Bing. Second, "guidebooks offer information you may never think to look for online. In the Hungary book, I happened on a section about common tourist scams in Budapest, and an article on Budapest’s Jewish population — neither of which I would have thought to look up on my own." Finally, with a printed book you need never worry about the battery running out, or going out of range.

As a friend pointed out, the writer didn't even mention roaming charges, or hotel-room internet access fees, both which can be significant. These were among the reasons given by two recent American visitors to Taiwan when I asked them why, in addition to their iPhones, they were carrying not one but two print guidebooks.

For a bit more on this debate, click here.

Bradt named best guidebook brand

Bradt Travel Guides has come out on top in a poll of over 2,500 Which? members to find the best guidebook brands for country, regional and city guides. Bradt heads the list for country guidebooks with a customer score of 75%. Guidebooks from DK Eyewitness are close behind on 73%, while Rough Guides is third with a score of 65%.

Which? is a product-testing and consumers' rights charity based in the UK. They've been publishing a magazine with that name since 1957. To see the online report, go here.

Kind words from a Scottish reader

Via LinkedIn, a reader in Scotland (who writes about his travels in Scottish Gaelic) s told me:

You may be interested to know that in my opinion your Bradt guide to Taiwan was the most useful of the three I obtained before my first visit last year. As it happened, I left my copy with a friend there before I left, and I'm likely to buy another for use this year. From recollection, the use of Chinese characters was more consistent in this guide than in the other two.

Regards,
Fearchar I MacIllFhinnein

Kind words from a Taiwanese reader

It's always nice to get feedback from readers. The majority of responses have been from Western or Singaporean tourists who used my book while travelling around Taiwan, but here's what one Taiwanese reader told me in an email to Bradt:

Thank you for your lovely introduction of my beloved land--Taiwan!
I am a surgeon from Taiwan and studying for a PhD in London now.
I found this book in a secondhand bookstore yesterday and decided to keep it. I have had a wonderful reading time on Saturday evening.
The history part is amazing! I never learned a lot of Taiwan history when I was in school.
I like your way to describe Taiwan—very sensitive but neutral.
This is the best travel book I have ever read about Taiwan.

-- Anne Yeh

Two more reviews of the guidebook

Reviews of the book have just come out in two very different media. One is in Taiwan Business Topics, the monthly print and online magazine of the American Chamber of Commerce (disclosure: I often write for this magazine); the other appears in The View from Taiwan, one of Taiwan's most prominent English-language blogs (disclosure: the blogger, Michael Turton, is a friend of mine).

Read extracts online

If you're curious about my new guidebook, click here and you can browse the contents thanks to Google Books. Text and maps are visible, but if you want to see the colour photos inside, you'll have to lay your hands on a print copy.

The book is here!

Taiwan: The Bradt Travel Guide is now in physical existence. It's real, not just a series of files on my computer! I received an advance copy yesterday (my other author's copies will follow in a few weeks, I'm told). Since then, apart from sleeping and driving, I've spent almost every moment reading it, checking that last-minute changes I requested were made, scrutinising the maps and photos, and simply enjoying the feel and heft of a nicely-produced tome.

It has 344 pages, 33 maps and 49 colour photos.

Cover design confirmed

The cover photo for my book was taken by Rich Matheson and was taken in his wife's home township, Namasia in Kaohsiung County. The book is now listed on amazon.co.uk and amazon.com as available for pre-order, although it won't hit the shops until October or thereabouts. One hopeful sign: According to the amazon.co.uk/amazon.com ranking system, it's already selling better than my first book about Taiwan, Keeping Up With The War God.

Caught in a culture clash

Neil Taylor, who writes the Bradt Travel Guides to Estonia and Baltic Capitals, visited Taiwan last month for the British newspaper The Independent. His article appeared on March 20; here's the first third:

"My favourite fact about Taiwan's capital, Taipei, is this: within two years no resident nor office worker will be further than 50 metres from an entrance to an underground station. It puts the estimate that Londoners are never more than 20 yards from a rat to shame.

"Taiwan has been off the map, almost literally, for decades from the British traveller's perspective. It used to style itself the "Republic of China", much to the irritation of the much larger People's Republic of China, 100 miles away on the mainland – which has long regarded this surprising and dramatic island as a thorn in its ideological side.

"China exacted all kinds of diplomatic revenge: when BA flew briefly to Taipei, for example, the airline had to create a subsidiary, "British Asia Airways", to serve the route for fear of losing its valuable rights to fly to Beijing.

"But rapprochement across the Taiwan Strait means that the first non-stop flights from London start next weekend, helping to open up an island that has much to offer besides excellent public transport. Early in the year of the tiger, Taiwan is burning bright.

"In 1971, I led a pioneering tour to the People's Republic of China; at the height of the "Cultural Revolution", we were treated to an abundance of propaganda. This month, I redressed the ideological balance with a visit to Taiwan – and, for the necessary history lesson, headed straight to Taipei's memorial to Chiang Kai-Shek.

"You can't miss it: modelled on the temples in the Forbidden City in Beijing, it continues a Chinese tradition of honouring former rulers with folie de grandeur rather than grandeur on its own and is therefore plumb in the centre of the city. Carefully tendered lawns and flower beds on all sides, and then the marble of the building itself, topped with blue-glazed tiles, make clear that this is a shrine and nothing else. Eighty-seven steps – one for each year of Chiang's life – take pilgrims from ground level to the exhibition hall..."

The contract

I'm starting this blog because I've been commissioned by Bradt Travel Guides Ltd., a British publishing company, to write a comprehensive Taiwan guidebook. Over the next 12 months, I'll be posting details of my travels and research, plus lots of photos. The book is due to hit bookstores in autumn 2010.

I've been living in Taiwan since 1991, and writing about it since 1996. Links to many of my articles - not just travel pieces - can be found on my blog.