He Changed the World of Travel With '$5 a Day' Guides

Arthur Frommer, whose Europe on 5 Dollars a Day guidebooks revolutionized leisure travel by convincing average Americans to take budget vacations abroad, has died. He was 95, the AP reports. Frommer died from complications of pneumonia, daughter Pauline Frommer said Monday. "My father opened up the world to so many people," she said. "He believed deeply that travel could be an enlightening activity and one that did not require a big budget." Frommer's philosophy—stay in inns and budget hotels instead of five-star hotels, sightsee on your own using public transportation, eat with locals in small cafes instead of fancy restaurants—changed the way Americans traveled in the mid- to late 20th century. He said budget travel was preferable to luxury travel "because it leads to a more authentic experience."

Frommer began writing about travel while serving in the US Army in Europe in the 1950s. When a guidebook he wrote for American soldiers overseas sold out, he launched what became one of the travel industry's best-known brands, self-publishing Europe on 5 Dollars a Day in 1957. "It struck a chord and became an immediate best-seller," he recalled in an interview with the AP in 2007, on the 50th anniversary of the book's debut. The Frommer's brand, led today by Pauline Frommer, remains one of the best-known names in the travel industry, with guidebooks to destinations around the world, an influential social media presence, podcasts, and a radio show.

Frommer's budget-friendly advice became so standard that it's hard to remember how radical it seemed in the days before discount flights and backpacks. "It was really pioneering stuff," Tony Wheeler, founder of the Lonely Planet guidebook company, said in an interview in 2013. Before Frommer, Wheeler said, you could find guidebooks "that would tell you everything about the church or the temple ruin. But the idea that you wanted to eat somewhere and find a hotel or get from A to B—well, I've got a huge amount of respect for Arthur." The final editions of Frommer's groundbreaking series were titled Europe from $95 a Day. The concept no longer made sense when hotels could not be had for less than $100 a night, so the series was discontinued in 2007. (More on Frommer's fascinating life here.)