Arthur Frommer
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Arthur Frommer is the man behind Frommer's travel guides and Arthur Frommer's Budget Travel[1] magazine. He has published many books for budget-conscious travelers and has been one of America's foremost budget travel champions since the 1950s. Frommer's seminal book, Europe on $5 a Day, changed the way Americans traveled, and foreshadowed such later budget-conscious guidebooks as Lonely Planet and Rick Steves.
Still going strong, Frommer is the host of his own radio show on travel which is syndicated to over 100 stations across the United States; he writes a twice weekly column on travel which appears in over 60 newspapers across the US; and recently branched out by creating his own magazine on shopping called Arthur Frommer's Smart Shopping.
Frommer was raised in Jefferson City, Missouri, moving to Brooklyn, New York when he was 14. He graduated second in his class from Yale Law School and entered the United States military during the Korean War, but was posted to Europe.
During his free time, he wrote and self-published guidebook called The GI's Guide to Traveling In Europe. It sold well and Frommer followed up with Europe on $5 a Day, which covered major European urban destinations. The series expanded, first in Europe and later worldwide.
After some years Frommer sold the business to a mainstream publisher, preserving a consultant role but leaving time to pursue other projects. Frommer kept a strong commitment to low-budget and alternative travel and to consumer advocacy in travel. In the 1980s, he published Frommer's New World of Travel, which advocated alternative vacation styles, and founded Budget Travel magazine.
Frommer was portrayed by actor Patrick Malahide in the film EuroTrip.