Interview with Arthur Frommer

Founder
Frommer's ®

Arthur Frommer, one of the most trusted names in travel, published his first travel guide back in 1957. Today, Frommer’s is turning out more than 340 guidebooks per year. He also hosts a nationwide travel radio show, writes a syndicated newspaper column and daily travel blog.

What inspired you to publish your first travel guide?
My first travel guide was published when I was in the Army. I was horrified at the failure of my fellow G.I.’s to take advantage of the travel opportunities. We were all stationed in Germany. Yet, I alone would use every weekend pass I received to travel while everyone else stayed in the barracks. Many of them were scared of traveling. They didn’t know how to properly change their money. They were worried about the language barrier. They were worried about the cost of travel. So I sat down and wrote a little book called the G.I.’s Guide to Traveling in Europe which urged my fellow G.I.s to take advantage of the opportunity that they had…being stationed in Europe.

Later, I realized that some of the same misconceptions were causing American civilians not to travel. People were being told by the travel industry at that time that a trip to Europe, in particular, was a major splurge. You had to fly…you had to stay first class because Europe was a war torn continent and it wasn’t safe to travel unless you went to deluxe hotels and top restaurants. I knew that was all hooey. A couple of years after publishing the G.I.s guide, I went back to Europe to civilianize the G.I.’s guide. I published a book called Europe on 5 Dollars a Day. It told the American public that not only was Europe affordable, but that it was a phenomenal opportunity for them and they should travel.

What changes in the travel business have you seen since you first started?
The activity has become a much more mammoth one. When I wrote Europe on 5 Dollars a Day, the amount of space devoted to travel books in the average bookstore was one foot of a single shelf. Today, there are whole bookstores that do nothing else but sell travel books. Travel has become a part of everyone’s life. People regard their vacations as a right that is to be exercised despite economic factors. It has been interesting that during the last several recessions travel has not fallen off a bit. People will put off the purchase of a new refrigerator, but they will not put off their vacations. So travel has become a major activity. It’s an activity in which America is becoming an ever more minor part. We are now being overwhelmed in terms of tourist numbers by the number of people traveling from India, China, Brazil, and Mexico. We are now competing as tourists with the vast numbers of people who are traveling all over the world. Travel has become the single largest industry in the world.

Recently, on a short-term basis we travelers are now facing all sorts of problems we never had to contend with before. We have an unusually weak U.S. dollar and we have a surging price of fuel which makes the cost of transportation much higher than ever before and, therefore it becomes more and more important to off-set the cost of transportation by lowering your demands in the field of accommodations, meals, and sightseeing when you arrive at the destination.

Are you surprised by the success of Frommers?
I never expected it. I was a lawyer when I was drafted into the Army. I had no intention of doing anything other than go into the practice of law despite having written a travel book. When I was released from the Army, I joined a major law firm in New York City and worked very hard as a lawyer for the next 6 or 7 years. But the little books that I had written became larger and larger in popularity each year and I finally had to make the agonizing decision of choosing between the law and going into travel publishing. I decided I would never forgive myself unless I went into travel publishing – and that’s exactly what I did. Now, 50 years later, we are publishing more than 340 titles a year and our travel guides have become the largest selling travel guides in North America. They account for as many as one out of every four travel books sold in the United States.

Approximately how many countries have you visited so far? How often do you travel in a year?
I’ve been to close to 150 different islands, nations, and countries…almost everywhere in the world. I travel less than I used to. There was a time in my life when I was somewhere every week of my life. I lived on an airplane. I made an effort to be home on the weekends, but other than that I was constantly traveling. I’ve slowed down since then, but I still undertake about 3 or 4 transatlantic flights in the course of a year and several domestic destinations. My wife and I just returned from three weeks in the Canadian Rockies and the Pacific Northwest about which I wrote very extensively in my columns and my other travel writing.

What are some of your best travel tips?
Light packing…it is funny that the contents of your suitcase can affect your trip. People are able to travel with so much less luggage than they think is needed. And the moment they restrict themselves to one small suitcase their entire trip takes on a different coloration. They become free-spirited and independent. They are not prisoners of porters or taxi cabs. They don’t have to stay at the first hotel they look at. They don’t spend an inordinate amount of their time laboriously packing and unpacking during the course of their trips. So light packing is rule number one.

An important rule in travel is to split/share food courses when you eat in a restaurant. When my wife and I go out to any restaurant, we order one appetizer and one main course and then just ask for extra plates. We still send uneaten food back to the kitchen and spend so much less than most other people. I think we eat in a more healthy fashion. We don’t stuff ourselves to the gills.

A third important rule of travel is to prepare yourself culturally for the experience; to read about the destinations you are about to visit so you don’t arrive there as an untutored ignoramus. When most Americans travel, they feel somebody at the destination is going to tell them what they are looking at. If you don’t read about the history and culture of the places you are going to in advance, your trip is a very shallow experience. A few nights in a public library or online is the key, in my opinion, to a successful trip.

In the 50 years you’ve been involved in travel publishing, what has been your biggest surprise?
It has been the invasion of people who regard travel as a trivial recreation and not as a learning experience. The great majority of the professional travel industry -- the tour operators, the hotels, the cruises -- treats travel as simply a form of entertainment. I have always believed that travel is the best form of learning and that it affects the mind in a way that no other activity -- even that of widespread reading -- can possibly do, and, therefore; it has become an essential part of a civilized life.

In your opinion, what three places should every American visit before they die?
You really have to see China. It is important for any intellectually curious person to see a nation that is growing in importance by leaps and bounds and simply has to be visited.

Every American should go to New York City at some time in their lives and concentrate on the off-Broadway and the off-off Broadway theater. It is where all sorts of shocking and provocative themes are dealt with from the stage and, in many cases, long before they enter the currency of public thinking.

I think everyone at some point in their life has to spend some time in the city of Paris. It is on the frontier of every subject ranging from art to music to political thinking to cuisine. It is a phenomenal city and my favorite travel destination. It’s a place I could go back to over and over again.

What are some “up and coming” hotspots?
People are starting to go to Vietnam which is very inexpensive and an interesting place to visit. More than ever, Americans are going to the countries of Central America. Nicaragua is now starting to enjoy a major surge in its incoming tourism. Panama was late coming to the field of tourism, but it is also being visited more and more. People are visiting the countries of Eastern Europe which remain much more inexpensive to visit than the more established countries of Western Europe. There is a great deal of travel now to Brazil and Argentina where the U.S. dollar remains strong, especially in the case of Brazil where there is another emerging super-power that has finally found its economic footing and is doing extremely well.