Arthur Frommer, who died yesterday, was for many of us the “first name” in travel, a guide not only to many places and to many ways of seeing the world but also to the idea of travel for the masses, not just for the elite.
He rose to fame in the 1950s on a revolutionary book: Europe on $5 a Day. The very title was a beacon to many who had never thought they could travel any real distance from home, much less across the world. Combined with more affordable airfares, his book and his idea started a travel revolution.
While the books and later website he founded grew to take in other levels of travel, they never lost their appeal to the budget traveler and to new travelers. And, he never lost the sharp tongue that produced memorable essays on trends and topics in travel, including sharp rebukes for pomposity, impracticality and racism.
A good place to remember and think about Arthur Frommer is this essay, If I Had Never Traveled, written as the foreword to the book “Ask Arthur Frommer.”
Many of us involved in TravelGumbo first met in the active forums that were for years a feature of the Frommers.com website, and which helped us come to understand travel, and our own site, as a community of travelers, sharing experience and enthusiasm.
We will miss him, and we offer our condolences to his daughter and long-time colleague Pauline Frommer, who carries on the “first name” in travel.
