Lonely Planet Writer Plagiarized

The 32 year old Lonely Planet author, Thomas Kohnstamm from Seattle, Washington admits he plagiarized some parts of his popular travel guidebooks and deal with drugs to supplement low pay.

Thomas who has wrote a book about his misadventures said that he didn’t really go to Colombia to write the guidebook for the country but instead he wrote it in San Francisco and got most of his information from a Columbian Consulate girl he was dating, because he said that “they didn’t pay me enough”.

He also admits on accepting free travels which is also a violation of the company policy. He had worked for Lonely Planet for more than a dozen books including books on Colombia, Brazil, Venezuela, the Caribbean, South America and Chile.

An email from Lonely Planet says all of his books were now being reviewed.

If we find that the content has been compromised, we’ll take urgent steps to fix it. Once we’ve got things right for travelers as quickly as we can, we’ll look at what we do and how we do it to ensure as best we can that this type of thing never happens again.

(Photo from his MySpace Account)

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This entry was posted on Monday, April 14th, 2008 at 1:29 am and is filed under International, Internet, Lifestyle, News, Technology, Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

4 Responses to “Lonely Planet Writer Plagiarized”

  1. durano lawayan Says:
    April 14th, 2008 at 5:09 pm

    Hi Joanjoyce,

    Really! That is a fact? Wow, he certainly had me fooled. I followed those guidebooks with intense interest.

    Now he has published an expose of his own plagiarism, has he ran out of projects to support his drug abuse? I think he might be finished as a writer. This is not a good role model. :-) –Durano, done!

    [Reply]

  2. Dave from Welcome Back Rosenthal Says:
    April 14th, 2008 at 6:38 pm

    I wonder would have been “enough” for him to make the trip.

    [Reply]

  3. admin Says:
    April 15th, 2008 at 2:24 am

    @durano - yes saw that news on cnn.

    @dave - not enough i guess for his addiction.

    [Reply]

  4. The Budget Shopper Says:
    September 14th, 2008 at 5:54 pm

    i would like to pinch this guy until he dies! plagiarism is a shameful act. :(

    [Reply]

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