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'Let's Go' Travel Guides On The Road At 50
Fifty years ago, a scrappy new travel publication aimed at budget-conscious students offered this guarantee: a trip from Europe to Asia for only four cents. That was the cost of the ferry ride across the Bosporus Strait dividing the East and West in Turkey. The guide was called Let's Go: The Student Guide to Europe , founded by 18-year-old Harvard undergrad Oliver Koppell. Since then, millions of backpackers have toted the guides to destinations around the globe. Guest host Ari Shapiro speaks to Koppell and Charlotte Alter, one of the publication's current student editors.
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The Historical Archive of Let's Go
liver Koppell came to college as a young man with a big idea: to create a travel guide for those who thought travel was beyond their reach. On the floor of his dorm room, Koppell crafted 25 pages of advertisements, brochures, and tips on touring Europe: the first Let's Go guide. For the next 61 years, the company Koppell founded constantly succeeded in realizing his dream of accessible budget travel —publishing 75 separate books, covering more than 90 different countries, and reaching millions of readers worldwide.
Most amazingly of all, "the granddaddy of budget guides" (in the words of The New York Times ) was researched, written, edited, and produced entirely by students at Harvard University — most of whom were not even old enough to drink. This is Let's Go's history, but it is their story.
Humble Origins
Let's Go began as a pamphlet put together by an enterprising Harvard sophmore named Oliver Koppell.
Let's Grow
The 1971 Let's Go: Europe was a banner edition, heralding the advent of the modern series.
The Expansion Era
To this point, Let's Go had published multiple travel books other than the flagship Europe guide, but they were all one off events.
World Domination
By the early 90s, Let's Go had a problem (admittedly, one many companies would love to have): it was too successful for a non-profit company like HSA.
Bumps in the Road
Even before September 11, Let's Go was facing challenges. Lonely Planet and other competitor series were eating into Let's Go sales as they expanded into European destinations.
Going, Going, Gone
Let's Go's contracts with Avalon and Travora expired after the 2013's series, and this time there was no new publisher waiting in the wings.
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Let's Go (book series)
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Let's Go is a travel guide series researched, written, edited, and run entirely by students at Harvard University . Let's Go was founded in 1960 and is headquartered in Cambridge , Massachusetts .
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History. The first Let's Go guide was a 25-page mimeographed pamphlet put together by 18-year-old Harvard freshman Oliver Koppell and handed out on student charter flights to Europe.. In 1996, Let's Go launched its website, Letsgo.com, while publishing 22 titles and a new line of mini map guides. Let's Go announced a new print publisher, Avalon Travel, upon the expiration of its contract with ...
The travel guide was called "Let's Go: The Student Guide to Europe." It was founded by 18-year-old Harvard undergraduate Oliver Koppell. Since then, millions of backpackers have toted the guides ...
O. liver Koppell came to college as a young man with a big idea: to create a travel guide for those who thought travel was beyond their reach. On the floor of his dorm room, Koppell crafted 25 pages of advertisements, brochures, and tips on touring Europe: the first Let's Go guide. For the next 61 years, the company Koppell founded constantly ...
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Welcome! Let's Go is a budget travel guide series that accompanies the free-spirited on treks across the globe. Between our book covers and across our web pages are descriptions of off-the-path ...
Let's Go is a budget travel guide series based in Cambridge, Massachusetts at Harvard University. Our student Researcher-Writers spend their summers fully immersed in new cultures both near and ...
Digital Era. In 1996, Let's Go launched its website, www.letsgo.com, while publishing 22 titles and a new line of mini map guides.By this time, Let's Go had branched out beyond just Europe (its traditional turf) and North America to Africa and Asia as well.The company's first South American guide, Let's Go: Ecuador and the Galapagos, came in 1997 as the 24th title.
Let's Go is a travel guide series researched, written, edited, and run entirely by students at Harvard University. The first of the budgetbackpackeroriented travel guides, Let's Go promotes itself as the student travel guide but is aimed at readers both young and young at heart. Let's Go was f
Welcome to Wikivoyage The free worldwide travel guide that you can edit. The official, non-commercial sister site of Wikipedia for sightseeing, activities, cuisine and accommodation around the world; with 32,538 articles in English written by travellers like you. Read about a location near you. Got a specific question? Ask it at the tourist office
Let's Go is a travel guide series researched, written, edited, ... Unless indicated otherwise, the text in this article is either based on Wikipedia article "Let's Go (book series)" or another language Wikipedia page thereof used under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License; or on research by Jahsonic and friends.
Let's Go is a series of American-English based EFL (English as a foreign language) textbooks developed by Oxford University Press and first released in 1990. While having its origins in ESL teaching in the US, and then as an early EFL resource in Japan, the series is currently in general use for English-language learners in over 160 countries around the world.
Let's Go: Europe is the world's bestselling budget travel guide title. As of 2007, the publisher of Let's Go Travel Guides, St. Martin's Press in New York, has disclosed that it will not renew its publishing contract with Let's Go. The current five-year contract is set to expire in 2009, and the future of Let's Go lies up in the air (1).
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