Arthur Frommer, an esteemed travel writer whose eponymous guidebooks helped to shape the landscape of the budget travel industry, has died at the age of 95 from complications of pneumonia.
Frommer passed away at his Manhattan home on Monday while surrounded by loved ones, his daughter, Pauline Frommer, confirmed in an online statement.
“It is with deep sadness that I announce my father, Arthur Frommer, founder of the Frommer’s guidebooks and Frommers.com, passed away today,” she wrote on Nov. 18 in a blog post.
“Throughout his remarkable life, Arthur Frommer democratized travel, showing average Americans how anyone can afford to travel widely and better understand the world,” she continued.
“I am honored to carry on his work of sharing the world with you, which I proudly do with his team of extraordinary and dedicated travel journalists around the world. We will all miss him greatly.”
Frommer was born in Lynchburg, Virginia, on July 17, 1929, to immigrant parents; his father hailed from Poland, while his mother was from Austria. His family later relocated to Jefferson City, Missouri, before moving to New York when he was in his teens.
Frommer—who initially aspired to become a journalist—attended the University of Missouri for a year before transferring to New York University, where he majored in political science. He later attended Yale Law School, serving as an editor for the Yale Law Journal, a student-run law review. Upon graduating, Frommer was drafted into the U.S. Army in 1953 as the Korean War was drawing to an end.
“I was trained to be an infantryman in Korea when someone in the Pentagon must have discovered some of my linguistic abilities,” Frommer, who also spoke French and Russian, told travel writer Rolf Potts in 2008.
“I was assigned instead to Berlin. I wanted to pinch myself for my good luck. I had never dreamed that I would ever be able to see Europe, as I came from a family of very modest income.”
Despite earning a modest Private First Class salary, Frommer still managed to explore Europe on a budget during his time away from duty.
“I discovered that the fact that I had very little money had transformed the quality of my vacation and travels and made them far more rewarding and far more pleasant,” he told Potts.
Frommer’s Travel Guides
Frommer went on to write about his budget-friendly travels, drawing inspiration from his own experiences.In 1955, he self-published “The G.I.’s Guide to Travelling in Europe,” which promptly sold out. Following his departure from the Army, Frommer released a revised and expanded version of his first book, “Europe on 5 Dollars a Day,” which was published in 1957.
Amid the success of his travel guidebooks, Frommer decided to step away from his law career to work full-time as a writer.
In 1997, he founded Frommers.com, one of the first online travel sites, and later passed the torch to his daughter, who now helms the Frommer’s travel brand.
“I find it gratifying that the books still carry on the tradition in which they were founded,” he said in a 2007 blog post.
“I was reading one of my daughter Pauline’s guides the other day and I burst out laughing when she described one hotel in Manhattan. She said it was done by a designer who must have been blind-folded when he chose the decor. I started laughing because that’s the sort of open, impudent way in which the very first books were written,” Frommer added.
“It’s an example of the fact that the books, from the very beginning, have and should regard the reader as their only client and I hope this is always the case—and it’s certainly the case with Pauline’s guidebooks. ... I’m just so proud of her.”
