by JULIET WATERS

In its 81st edition, the Footprint South American Handbook is the longest running English guidebook in the world. The introduction reads like a bonzai portrait of the continent, lovingly pruned over decades. "If your system is jaded, South America will uplift your senses with the tropical sun rising over a palm-fringed beach, or a bracing wind blowing off the southern ice fields. Light can be blinding on the high altitude salt flats, or dense and green in the rainforest. The gentle scent of ripe guava fills the countryside, but the fire of chilli from that innocent-looking jar will electrify your taste buds."

Right now I could skip the ice fields, but after reading this, I can't think of anywhere else I'd rather be. So it's a little weird to be meeting the book's publisher, Patrick Dawson, here for a rare visit to Ulysses bookstore, his Montreal distributor. On this grey, chilly day, the city is looking about as much the opposite of South America as it ever does. I feel bad for him, but worse for us. Footprint has well over 100 guidebooks ranging across the world from Cape Town to Reykjavik. The one continent it seems to have mostly avoided is North America. Too bad. Over the decades it has forged a reputation for the one thing more modern sources will always have to compete with, credibility.

Over coffee I get a chance to look at the third edition of the South American Handbook, published in 1927. Dawson gleefully points out how it slyly promotes itself as being "in its fourth year," and claims to offer "South America in a nutshell." Originally this guide was designed as a handbook for British businessmen and was published by Royal Mail, the steamship company for South America. The book continued to be published through the war, reporting on the new Pan Am "flying boat services," and guiding travellers to adventures like a Zeppelin ride from Rio to Europe. Dawson explains that as an outbreak of foot and mouth disease nailed shut the coffin of steamship tourism, the handbook risked extinction. Fortunately his father, the book's printer, kept the book alive. In the '70s, Patrick and his brother James took over and began to expand.

Sensing a new trend in travel, Footprint began to shift its focus to the emerging backpacking trails. Fans of the South American Handbook in its contemporary form have included Paul Theroux; Footprint offices in Bath, England, once received updates from Graham Greene addressed to "the publishers of the best travel guide in the world." Around this time, guidebook companies like Lonely Planet also began to emerge. But while the Australian-based guidebook tended to claim Southeast Asia as its speciality, South America has always been Footprint's turf. It continues to draw notable fans. The most recent edition boasts this glowing review from Michael Palin: "Sets the pace for the rest to follow."

Dawson may be a godfather of the travel book industry, but he definitely doesn't look the part. He exudes nothing but easygoing, likeable, geekiness. Waving off things like focus groups and market reports, Dawson talks about assessing shifts in readership as something better negotiated by instinct and respect for the unpredictability of cycles.

Backpackers now travel with credit cards. Once they were reliably in their 20s or, if older, career avoiders. Now they're just as typically early retirees or businesspeople on a working vacation. In a sense, the industry has come full circle, especially now that the vehicles transporting people from one continent to another are more likely to be made in Brazil than Britain. Footprint, according to Dawson, has long ago given up trying to be the most comprehensive. As the bible of guidebooks, the South American Handbook can do nothing more than strive to be as good as everyone says it is.

Footprint South American Handbook 2005,
Ed. Ben Box, Footprint, pb, 1,824pp, $54.95