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Arthur Frommer (1929–2024), creator of top-selling travel guides

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Arthur Frommer was a travel writer best known for creating the Frommer’s brand of affordable-travel guidebooks.0

Arthur Frommer’s legacy00

When Frommer graduated with honors from Yale Law School in 1953, serving as an editor with the Yale Law Journal, he may have had a different career path in mind. However, he was drafted into the U.S. Army during the Korean War and sent to serve in Germany, where in 1955 he wrote cThe GI's Guide to Traveling in Europed in his spare time. The self-published book quickly sold out. In 1957, he followed that up with cEurope on 5 Dollars a Day.d It became a huge success and set the stage for his series of budget travel guides, which have since sold over 75 million copies worldwide.00

Frommer practiced law for several years before leaving the field to focus full time on his growing travel business. He established the Frommer's line of travel guides and co-hosted cThe Travel Show with Arthur and Pauline Frommer.d He also created one of the internetfs first travel websites, Frommers.com, alongside IDG publishing.00

Born to Jewish immigrants, Frommer believed meeting people of different cultures in their native nations was the path to combating bigotry, once writing of travel that cit exposes you to the finest in every land, and makes you distinctly uneasyas it now does to meawhen you later return home and hear people proclaiming their own nation to be better than all others.d00

His work in travel was not limited to print. Frommer started a tour company, built hotels in Amsterdam, Aruba, Copenhagen and Curacao, created magazines (Budget Travel and Arthur Frommer's Smart Shopping), and penned a syndicated column for over 20 years, among his many notable endeavors.00

Notable quote00

cI love the discoveries you make overseas of elements that have not yet reached the U.S.d d interview with Hadassah Magazine, 201600

Tributes to Arthur Frommer00

Full obituary: The New York Times00

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