The travel writer who wrote part of the Lonely Planet Guide to Colombia has admitted that he never visited the country.

Thomas Kohnstamm says that he was in San Francisco at the time. “They didn’t pay me enough to go to Colombia,” he told The Australian Herald Sun. So he “got the information from a chick I was dating who was an intern in the Colombian Consulate”.

In an interview for his own book - Do Travel Writers Go to Hell? - Kohnstamm appears to admit that he used other authors’ information, and accepted gifts in contravention of the policies of Lonely Planet, which is now partly owned by the BBC.

The writer’s exposé of the guidebook business portrays a morally ambiguous view of the job, which Kohnstamm claims is “not all about beautiful sunsets and fancy cocktails with paper umbrellas” – although casual sex and exotic locations feature prominently.

The claims have sparked outrage across the travel industry, not least among his former employers at Lonely Planet, for whom he contributed to more than a dozen titles, including books on Brazil, Colombia, the Caribbean and South America.

Speaking from his home in Seattle, Kohnstamm told The Times that his comments had been misrepresented. He denied inventing content. However, he stood by his original argument that overstretched and underfunded freelance travel writers, whose recommendations are relied upon by generations of travellers, cannot possibly visit every budget hotel and jungle outpost they are asked to.

He said: “This is not an issue of mass plagiarism, or invented content. The point is that, with the massive amount of territory you are given to cover, it’s nearly impossible for a human being to see all that in person.”

In some cases, Kohnstamm confirmed, he was forced to rely upon secondhand information, local contacts and the internet when reviewing some hotels, bars and towns, although he declined to say how frequently. “I always worked with the best of intentions, but I always came home feeling somewhat guilty that I should have visited more places in person. However, there are time and financial constraints that make that very difficult.”

Kohnstamm, 32, and Lonely Planet agree that there was never any expectation that he would travel to Colombia, as he was only commissioned to do desk-based research on the history, culture and food and drink. Two other contributors did visit the country.

Tom Hall, of Lonely Planet , which sells six million guides a year, said that once writers have been accepted into the 350-strong pool of authors they are given a lump sum and left to arrange their own travel. Research usually lasts from four to eight weeks. Lonely Planet is reviewing Kohnstamm’s contributions but has so far found nothing inaccurate.

Paul Bloomfield, an editor at Wanderlust magazine and a former editor at Lonely Planet, said: “Thomas Kohnstamm’s seedy revelations say more about his own ethics than those of Lonely Planet or guidebook publishers in general.”

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