Tried travelling without a guidebook. Quickly gave that up. Just having an idea of the price of things pays for the book. Asia was great - loads of cheap, illegal photocopied books available & many used book shops. But the Middle East & Africa... haven't really found any. So been paying US prices plus $10 for a guidebook.

For decades, my old standby's been Lonely Planet. But they've gone downhill. Heard one traveler refer to them as 'Lonely Fu*king Liars'. For Yemen tried Brandt Guides. With guidebooks for cool countries like North Korea, Iraq & every obscure, war torn country in Africa, thought they'd be great. Nope... Lonely Fu*king Liars might not be stellar but they're still the best.

Lonely Planet recently started selling downloadable books online. Now, no more weight from the book (just store it on the computer) & you only have to pay for the chapters you want. Excellent!

Plus, they offer some chapters for free. Well... took their free "Congo" chapter. It's not much, the entire Congo section consists of just the town of Goma. Heard of it? I hadn't. Know the Congo is one of the world's most dangerous countries, but supposedly so is Yemen. And the book made Goma sound so fantastic, instantly decided had to go!

Since seen the news. Goma, Congo is a hotspot... for rebels - not tourists. The lesson here... don't trust any guidebook. Gotta follow the news & ask locals too. (Recommend Google's email news service... they email me the top news stories for the country I'm in & the next one or two I'm headed to.)

An interesting side note:
As of mid-2007, the Congo's civil war (which officially ended in 2003) has killed 5.4 million people making it the world's deadliest conflict since World War II.