Let's Go Travel Guides

Let's Go is the first and only travel guide guide series aimed at the student traveler. Researched, written, edited, and run entirely by students at Harvard University, Let's Go was founded in 1960 and is headquartered in Cambridge, MA.

History

The first Let's Go guide was a 20-page mimeographed pamphlet put together by an ambitious 18-year-old Harvard freshman named Oliver Koppell, to be handed out on student charter flights to Europe.^[1] The first professionally published guide was issued in 1961. Early guides tended to be freewheeling, for example advising travelers on motorbiking through Southeast Asia in the late 1960s and financing travel in Europe by singing in the street. The first edition included tips on traveling from Europe to Asia on just four cents, by taking the ferry across the Bosphorus.^[1]

Ever "witty and irreverent," Let's Go books are produced by traveling student researcher-writers, who send raw copy to teams of editors and cartographers (also students) in the United States. These editors refine the researcher-writers work into sparkling prose for readers both young and young at heart.^[2] Researcher-writers are hired and trained in the spring, with the bulk of travel and research conducted from June to August. In order to keep the writing true to the budget heritage of the series, researcher-writers are paid a daily stipend intended to cover only basic expenses. Every establishment listed in the guides has been visited and recommended by researcher-writers, meaning that tens of thousands of cafes, castles, hostels, hotsprings, nightclubs, national parks, waterfalls, and wax museums are visited every summer. The guides are edited and published over the summer and are usually on bookstore shelves by October.

Books

As of 2010, there will be over 50 books in the series, casting light on places from Australia to Turkey.^[1] These guides range from regular country guides to adventure, city, and roadtrip guides, many of which are updated annually. Let's Go also has 10 pocket city guides in its series. Let's Go: Europe is the world's bestselling budget travel guide title.

Titles include:

• Europe
• Eastern Europe
• Western Europe
  • France
    • Paris
  • Ireland
  • Great Britain
    • London, Oxford, Cambridge, and Edinburgh
    • London
  • Amsterdam
  • Germany
  • Greece
  • Italy
    • Rome
    • Florence
  • Spain & Portugal
    • Barcelona
  • Berlin, Prague, and Budapest
• North America
  • Roadtripping USA
  • USA
    • Hawaii
    • New York City
    • Puerto Rico
• Latin America
  • Central America
    • Belize and Guatemala
    • Costa Rica
  • Mexico
    • Yucatan Peninsula
• Israel
• Asia & the Pacific
  • New Zealand
  • Australia
  • Thailand
  • Vietnam

Publishers

In 2007, the publisher of Let's Go Travel Guides, St. Martin's Press in New York, disclosed that it would not renew its publishing contract with Let's Go.^[3] The five-year contract expired in 2009. In January 2009, Let's Go announced a new print publishing partner, Avalon Travel and Publishers Group West (PGW).^[4] Under this new partnership, Let's Go will join PGW’s prominent line of travel publishing clients in addition to Avalon Travel’s Rick Steve's and Moon Handbook series.^[4] Let's Go Travel Guides will continue to be student-run, for profit, subsidiary of Harvard Student Agencies based in Cambridge, MA.^[4]

In Popular Culture

There have been references (in a non-review/article context) to LG in:

• Seinfeld
• The Economist
• Futurama
• The Daily Show
• The Simpsons

Articles

In a 1995 Rolling Stone magazine article titled "Let's Go or Let's Not and Say We Did", writer Dan Zevin criticizes the "R-W"'s claiming they are poorly chosen, and do NOT actually visit all the establishments listed in the Turkey edition.

External links

• Let's Go Travel Guides

References