Stranded by the Ash? Get a free Lonely Planet Guide!

Whatever your view of the almost invisible (and apparently harmless?) Ash cloud currently grounding most of Europe’s air network, I thought I’d drop a little bit of good news.

If you’re stuck in one of the affected European cities covered by Lonely Planet, I strongly suggest you grab your iPhone and download a copy of the relevant guide, free of charge.

That’s right! The enterprising folk at Lonely Planet have decided to make 13 of their guides free until Thursday 22nd April on the iTunes app store. That’s a saving of £9.49 per guide right now.

Lonely Planet’s Travel Editor explains:

“Travellers stuck in unfamiliar places need access to practical information as well as suggestions on what to do whilst stranded”, said Tom Hall, Lonely Planet Travel Editor. “That’s why we’re giving away iPhone city guides to major affected destinations.”

Good man.

The following guides are all free right now:

– Amsterdam
– Barcelona
– Berlin
– Budapest
– Copenhagen
– Istanbul
– London
– Moscow
– Munich
– Paris
– Rome
– Stockholm
– Vienna

Very smart opportune marketing by the team Lonely Planet. Nice one!

It’s going to be interesting to see what kind of uplift they get from this strategy, because even if you’re not stranded by the Ash, you could sneakily hit the ‘download’ button… and one of those 13 guides could be yours in 5 seconds. If anything, I think it might encourage people to buy some of the full-price guides.