All Expenses Paid.

• Author: AUSTIN, ELIZABETH
• Position: The ethical swamp of travel writing

Exploring the ethical swamp of travel writing

I am standing stark naked in a lush Balinese ricefield. Warm water from a sacred hot spring is spilling over my shoulders and dripping down my sunbaked back. After the sacred waters complete their healing work, a deferential driver in a crisp uniform will whisk me back to my private villa in one of the most luxurious resorts in the world, where a trained masseuse is waiting to knead my travel-weary muscles, scour my skin with exotic grains, slather me all over with yogurt, and lead me to a warm, deep bath scented with fresh frangipangi blossoms. Later, I'll enjoy a gourmet dinner and carefully selected wines at the hotel's world-renowned restaurant, while gently insistent gamelan music tinkles in the background. Finally, after a refreshing dip in my villas private plunge pool, I'll draw the billowing mosquito netting around my wide bed and dream of another day in paradise. And it's not going to cost me one thin dime.

I was a travel whore. This is my story.

Like so many other good girls gone bad, I could try to excuse myself by arguing that everybody does it. Unbeknownst to readers, an astonishing number of travel articles are based on press junkets and complimentary travel and lodgings; although a few magazines and newspapers refuse all free travel, some of their reporters have been known to wheedle free upgrades and price reductions that might not be offered to their readers.

But, at the risk of self-justification, I'm not sure press trips are quite the crooked little racket that some journalism critics would have you believe. Obviously, an investigative reporter who regularly skimmed a cool $10,000 in goods and services from her sources would lose all her credibility--and her job. But in the world of travel journalism, the lines aren't so clearly drawn. Almost all travel stories tend to wax lyrical about the awesome views, crisp bedlinens and piquant cuisine, no matter who's footing the bill. Travel writers know they're generally expected to accentuate the positive. The real ethical problems in travel junkets are murkier than they seem, because it's never quite clear who's giving what to whom, how much it really costs, and precisely what quid they're expecting for their quo.

I Used to be a Nice Girl Too

Back in my spotless girlhood, I would never have considered accepting an all-expense-paid press trip. Although I've been a part-time travel writer for nearly 15 years, most of my work was published in a magazine that forbids its writers to accept any freebies from airlines, hotels, restaurants, or tourism boards. So I adopted a tone of haughty disdain when publicists offered to whisk me off to Scandinavia for midsum-mernight or tour me through romantic castles on the west coast of Ireland. "I'm not that kind of girl," I insisted primly. And if occasionally other publications sent me off on trips that had a whiff of junket about them, I simply didn't inquire too closely. The financial arrangements were my editor's problem; I was just there to get the facts...