Arthur Frommer, travel writer and guidebook publisher, dead at 95

By Lilit Marcus, CNN

(CNN) — Pioneering travel guidebook writer Arthur Frommer has died at the age of 95, according to a statement from the media brand he founded.

His daughter, Pauline Frommer, confirmed that her father died on November 18, “at his home, surrounded by loved ones.”

Born in Virginia in 1929, Arthur Frommer attended Yale Law School and served in the US Army during the Korean War. His love of travel and languages inspired him to write and self-publish a guidebook for fellow GIs.

Its popularity then moved him to write his first mainstream guidebook, “Europe on $5 a Day.”

That book was the first step in a long media career.

He founded Frommer’s in 1957. The company began as a series of guidebooks, then expanded through the decades to include online content, newsletters, podcasts and more. He continued to write, travel, publish, speak at conferences and give interviews into his 90s.

But for Frommer, travel writing was about more than recommending hotels or providing historical facts about famous attractions.

In an essay titled “How Travel Changed My Life,” he wrote: “Travel has taught me that despite all the exotic differences in dress and language, of political and religious beliefs, that all the world’s people are essentially alike. We all have the same urges and concerns, we all yearn for the same goals.”

The Frommer’s books introduced a generation of upwardly mobile post-war Americans to a new travel approach, abandoning the Grand Tour model of the past in favor of youth hostels, street food and exploring local neighborhoods.

Frommer believed that travel was the cure for prejudice.

“Those who patronize other people, or demonize those with whom we disagree, or regard them as funny or backward, are foolish indeed,” he wrote in the essay. “They have not yet learned the lessons of travel.”

The Frommer’s brand changed hands several times since its initial founding. Google bought the company in 2012, only to sell it back to Arthur a year later.

His daughter Pauline Frommer is the co-president of FrommerMedia and editorial director of Frommer’s Guidebooks.

“Throughout his remarkable life, Arthur Frommer democratized travel, showing average Americans how anyone can afford to travel widely and better understand the world,” she wrote in the announcement of her father’s death. “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 died of complications from pneumonia, according to the Associated Press, citing Pauline Frommer.

“Travel makes it impossible to pay no heed to the sufferings of others simply because they are far away,” he wrote in “How Travel Changed My Life.”

“It erases distance, and makes you a more sensitive citizen of the world, yearning for peace everywhere.”

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