Arthur Frommer, Travel Publishing Legend, Passes Away at 95

Arthur Frommer, the namesake and creator of some of the most iconic budget travel writing ever, passed away on Monday at the age of 95 from complications of pneumonia, his daughter Pauline Frommer announced.

Frommer was born July 17, 1929, in Jersey City, New Jersey. After earning a law degree from Yale, he began his travel writing while serving in the U.S. Army in Europe in the 1950s, self-publishing The GI’s Guide to Traveling in Europe. In 1957, he followed it with the consumer-focused guidebook Europe on 5 Dollars a Day.

That guide became one of the best-selling travel books of all time, helping democratize travel for a new generation of Americans looking for practical tips to explore abroad on a budget.

The success of the guide led Frommer to self-publish more books, covering destinations like New York, Mexico, Hawaii, Japan, and more. By the late 1970s, the Frommer brand had become a powerhouse in travel publishing. In 1977, Frommer sold the brand to Simon & Schuster. He continued writing, including Frommer’s New World of Travel, which he sold to Newsweek, and co-hosted a syndicated travel radio show with his daughter for over two decades.

Frommer reacquired the brand from then-owner Google in 2013.

Today, the Frommer brand is led by his daughter Pauline and remains one of the most influential and well-known voices in travel. According to The New York Times, over 75 million Frommer’s guidebooks have been sold.

After news broke of Arthur’s death, Frommer’s website republished his essay How Travel Changed My Life, in which he reflected on what travel meant to him—and the world.

“I feel the same intimate bond with Protestants and Catholics of Northern Ireland, whose cities I visited at the height of the ‘Troubles,’ and with people of both Egypt and Israel, to which I once led groups of tourists,” he wrote. “Travel makes it impossible to pay no heed to the sufferings of others simply because they are far away. It erases distance and makes you a more sensitive citizen of the world, yearning for peace everywhere.”