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Web-Exclusive Book Review
Don’t Go There! The Travel Detective’s Essential Guide to the Must-Miss Places of the World
By Peter Greenberg
Review by Ellen Kanner, December 2008
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Glossy mags and glitzy TV shows tell you plenty about travel’s trendy
hot spots. But they don’t tell you everything. Fortunately, Peter
Greenberg does. Travel editor for NBC’s Today show and travel
editor at large for AARP The Magazine, Greenberg offers up a list of
“the not spots” in his book Don’t Go There! The Travel Detective’s
Essential Guide to the Must-Miss Places of the World.
With over 20 years in the business, Greenberg hasn’t been just around
the block; he’s been around the world. And he hasn’t always stayed at
five-star hotels. He and his team of intrepid researchers have done
the gruesome groundwork so you won’t have to—finding the worst
places for crime, pollution, corruption, natural disasters, and other
trip-ruining factors. He doesn’t mean to be a killjoy; he’s just
trying to save your vacation.
 
Don’t Go There! is reportage from the frontline. It is to the
travel industry what Anthony Bourdain’s Kitchen Confidential is to fine
dining. Greenberg can’t match Bourdain’s gonzo prose, but like the
tell-all chef he takes you behind the glamour to show the whole ugly,
naked truth. His tone is like that of a curmudgeonly but
commonsense uncle: “You can’t be the ‘island of enchantment’ and at
the same time have one of the highest murder rates in the world. Well,
you can call yourself that, but that’s why I’m here to put things in
proper, real-world perspective.”
Miami, this reviewer’s home, makes Greenberg’s list for the worst airports
and dirtiest hotels (the Miami International Airport Hotel) and ranks number one in the country when it comes to road rage. On the up side, we’re not on the
list of most toxic places. The winners there include Bhopal, India, and,
closer to home, Louisiana’s polluted industrial corridor that runs from
Baton Rouge to New Orleans, a stretch quaintly known as “Cancer Alley.”
All of South Florida is up there when it comes to hurricane risk; so
is Galveston, Texas, as residents there know only too well after
Hurricane Ike blew through this summer. Greenberg acknowledges
Galveston’s recent hardship, but he wouldn’t want to go there anyway.
“Hurricanes notwithstanding,” he writes, “there’s still that oily
beach!”
Yet the author is an equal-opportunity complainer. He dings
swanky stays such as London’s Mandarin Oriental Hyde Park (bedbugs) and
the Paris Hilton (filthy and run-down—that’s the hotel, not the
blond).
If you’re looking for rhapsodic prose about quaint inns, sun-soaked
beaches, or breathtaking vistas, this is not your book. Don’t Go There!
isn’t meant to make you travel-averse but, rather, travel-savvy.
It’s about knowing you’ll need to open your wallet in Moscow
(rated Greenberg’s most expensive city) and open your eyes
wherever you go. That said, please do come to Miami. We’d love to have
you.
Ellen Kanner also contributes to Pages, The Miami Herald, and food magazines, including Bon Appétit and Vegetarian Times.
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