A few years ago, I was offered £6,000 to write a chunky guidebook, on which I was expected to work exclusively for six months. I declined. Though I desperately wanted to gild my bookshelf with something bearing my name, slave labour didn't interest me.

Not that I was qualified: I'd been asked to write a book for family travel when at the time I didn't have a family - something the commissioning editor ignored.

So I wasn't surprised to hear the cost-cutting stories that the American writer Thomas Kohnstamm told in his book Do Travel Writers Go to Hell? - which, by the way, he is doing a very good job of promoting.

Certainly the talk of the London Book Fair this week has been of little but the former Lonely Planet author who scribed a section in the Colombia guide without even stepping foot in the country, and blew the whistle on a world where good reviews were included on the whim of an author in need of free food.

Top 10 travel guidebooks and websites

The books and websites you can trust in this untrustworthy days

BACKGROUND

• Lonely Planet Colombia sham: a traveller’s tale

• Author admits deceiving Lonely Planet

• Guidebooks? Don't believe everything you read

50 best travel websites of 2007

Another year of innovation and refinement as travel websites continue to become more niche, focussed and useful

Cutting corners and indiscriminately accepting freebies is increasingly ingrained in the travel writing circuit because writers' pay is being whittled down to just a couple of thousand pounds in some cases, while the few weeks they spend in a country is hardly sufficient for a comprehensive review.

Which leaves us, a travel-savvy generation, in a bit of a quandary. If writers rely so heavily on the web, the obvious question is why shouldn't we just cut out the middle man, save ourselves the best part of a tenner, and get information at the touch of a keypad?

The starting place for many is the hotel review site TripAdvisor, which receives 20 million visitors a month and whose strength is that it relies on Joe Public's opinion. That strength, though, can also be a weakness. “I'd say TripAdvisor is a bit of a minefield as anyone can write a review,” says James Lohan, the managing director of the upmarket accommodation guide Mr & Mrs Smith.

With every wannabe travel writer demanding his say, there is no way for the user to know if his views coincide with Bill Smith's from Idaho.

Nor can he tell if the review is written by someone with an axe to grind who may not have even stayed at the hotel in question, or whether it's penned by a hotelier posing as a client, though TripAdvisor says it has a zero-tolerance policy to the former and can usually tell from the wording if a review comes from a hotelier.

But are these internet pitfalls any worse than guides written by professionals whose budgets don't stretch to allow them to eat or stay everywhere the guide mentions? “Nobody can visit everything,” admits Melissa Shales, the former chair of the British Guild of Travel Writers, who has more than 20 volumes to her name.

“It is impossible given deadlines, fees and the expenses we get offered to try out every restaurant and sleep in every hotel. There comes a point when you have to ask for local recommendations and to look at things like TripAdvisor.”

There are tales of an Irish guide put together entirely by an author whose only visit to the Emerald Isle was on cyberspace, and of errors perpetuated by writers relying on other guides and the internet: a mention of a hotel that closed a year previously here, the description of the stunning turquoise colour of a lagoon where the water is actually a dark shade of grey there.

The solution, if you're looking for reliable information, is probably to take a bit of this and a bit of that. As Christopher Somerville, a guidebook writer who has written on Ireland, Crete and the UK, says: “Because an author can't possibly experience all hotels and restaurants, when I travel I would look at the internet for hotel and restaurant information rather than consult a guidebook but I would use a guidebook to learn about a country itself.”

One criticism about guidebooks is that they are often out of date by the time they hit the bookstall, although forward-thinking companies such as the Hedonist's Guide series are tackling the issue by offering free online updates to book purchasers. Meanwhile, websites such as Globorati.com and Gridskipper.com paint an up-to-date picture of what's new out there.

Interestingly, it is the country-wide guides that are the first casualty in a rapidly changing industry, according to figures from the UK Travel Publishing Year Book, while specialised, niche publications are coming into their own. Accommodation and restaurant guides are ripe for a move to the web, but if you're going to the Himalayas, a trusted guidebook has to be better.

Finding the brand you trust and which suits you is often a matter of trial and error, but if you can find a series you identify with it's like carrying a best friend's recommendations in your backpack. Books written by authors who live in a city are obviously better than those who parachute in for a few weeks, while series where writers are paid royalties - such as the Rough Guides - give writers a vested interest in producing good-quality material.

For my part, I find Time Out's city guides are unsurpassable, and I identify strongly with Alastair Sawday's characterful and quirky accommodation in his Special Places to Stay series.

There is still a place for a good travel book. And despite Kohnstamm's revelations, there are some excellent guidebook authors out there, propelled by their passion, with writers almost anally obsessed with their facts, who get a kick from seeing their entry glaring back at them from the restaurant or shop window in which it has been placed.

But reliability is no longer always a given, as it was in the days of the pioneering Victorian Baedeker guides: Karl Baedeker was even discovered placing a coin on every 20th step during his ascent to the cathedral roof in Milan, just to ensure his count was exact.

Unless there's a rapid shake up, perhaps as a result of Kohnstamm's revelations, it's only going to get worse. “If publishers keep cutting corners they are going to end up with internet review guides in print that are written by amateurs, which will undermine any position of authority the guides once had,” cautions Matthew Teller, a Rough Guide author.

For now, the bookshop shelves are dangerously bowed under the weight of a staggering 35,000 different travel books which won't all survive the challenge of the internet. One is the tome I eventually wrote - The Big House Party - detailing properties for exclusive hire use, for which I and a co-author slogged around Britain over six months. We did it the long way round, without cutting corners, and barely covered our costs. It was great to see our names on the book's spine but we're both agreed that it was a one-off experience - doing it properly just doesn't pay.

Matthew Teller, Rough Guides author since 1996: "The first question people ask me when they find out that I write Rough Guides is whether I eat in all the restaurants. Of course I don't. There simply isn't the time, money or stomach capacity to do it. Researching the first edition of the Rough Guide to Switzerland took me about six months of travel. There was barely any time to think straight. I started off consulting the existing guidebooks, but they weren't much good. Then it was four months at home, often working from breakfast time until midnight. I can't make a living from guidebooks alone. To do this job, I think you have to be a writer who travels, not a traveller who writes."

James Lohan, managing director of Mr & Mrs Smith, boutique hotel directory: "We research a shortlist of favourites, based on looks, reputation and recommendations; either myself or a member of the team will then visit the property. If we're happy with what we see, we book in a reviewer for an anonymous review. Our reviewers are people we admire and respect, who can be trusted to be honest. If they come back with a glowing report, we agree terms with the hotel (a fee, and commission on bookings; our members never pay more to book through us). The reviews are edited and fact-checked by our editorial team. We also keep tabs on every property via feedback from our readers."

Beverley Fearis, author of A Hedonist's Guide to Madrid: "Madrid turned out to be one of the toughest jobs I've ever done. I was given an apartment and a budget of £50 a day and was told to review all the city's best bars, restaurants, tapas bars, cafes, shops, nightclubs and attractions. £50 a day doesn't go very far when you're living a hedonist's lifestyle, so I didn't eat a full meal everywhere I mentioned - I would maybe look at menus, or what was on other people's plates. By the end, I was exhausted, skint, had put on half a stone. What's more, I then spent the next four months writing the guide in between earning my living as a travel writer."

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