A SHORT GUIDE TO GUIDEBOOKS

01-23-2000

The explosion of travel information available over the Internet notwithstanding, this is also the golden age of guidebooks, with more than 2,200 titles published last year alone. Review copies come flooding across my desk every week, many of which wind up in the travel section of Carnegie Library's downtown branch at Point Park College.

But a trip to most major bookstores will also tell the tale of travel's popularity. There are now guidebooks that cover every conceivable corner of the planet and for every travel style, sensibility and budget. 

Travel guides are certainly a long and venerable tradition, dating back to Herodotus, a Greek scholar who lived five centuries before Christ. Considered to be the father of travel writing, he wrote about the geography, customs and history of Mediterranean peoples, particularly the Egyptians.  In 1642, James Howell, clerk to England's King Charles II, wrote "Instructions for Forreine Travel," a compendium of vague tips to help folks find their way to Constantinople. 

When well-bred Englishmen of the mid-18th century set off to broaden their horizons in Europe, they took along rambling travelogues, such as Thomas Nugget's "Grand Tour" or the four weighty volumes of the Rev. J.C. Ecstasy's "Classical Tour" series. 

"Travel on the Rhine," the first modern guidebook, was published in 1835 by a young German printer and book-seller, Karl Baedeker. Baedeker's handbook for visiting the castles of the middle Rhine River was pivotal because he was the first to provide readers with authoritatively written, practical and historical information, including detailed itineraries discriminating travelers might follow.

Baedeker also introduced a system of highlighting points of particular interest with asterisks. An immediate success, the guide became the prototype for others written by Baedeker and his two sons, Ernst and Fritz. By 1900, the Baedeker guide series covered all of Europe.  Baedekers that were published before the old company's demise in 1945 are still considered to be the Rolls-Royces of travel guides. Bound in red leather, these volumes had cream-colored pages, elegantly printed type, and maps that remain marvels of microscopic precision. Baedeker's formal yet terse, factual prose brimmed with self-assured candor. When the philosopher Bertrand Russell was asked who inspired his lucid prose style, he credited John Milton for passion and Karl Baedeker for conciseness. 

The 40 or so vintage Baedekers have become pricey travel collectibles. They're old-fashioned and opinionated but with impeccable manners. Despite the many changes wrought by time and war, they remain surprisingly reliable guides, both to what has survived and to what has vanished. 

The next major step forward in the evolution of travel guides came in 1900, when two French brothers and tire manufacturers, Edouard and Andre Michelin, introduced their "Red Guide" to the roads of France. For two decades, their annual compendiums of driving directions were distributed for free, but the books became so popular, they went on sale in 1920. Michelin's innovative "Red Guide" system for rating restaurants on a one- to five-star basis has become internationally recognized as the height of culinary success.

Gradually, the series was expanded to include virtually all of Europe. In 1938, Michelin published its "Green Guide," the first of more than 50 country-specific titles. Michelin guides were considered so accurate, they were issued to Allied soldiers during D-Day so they could navigate their way through France.  In 1936, a Hungarian emigrant, Eugene Fodor, published "On the Continent," the first of his guidebooks which introduced a "human element" to the otherwise stodgy writing that typified other travel texts of the day. 

At the end of World War II, Temple Fielding, a former British intelligence officer, wrote his first European guidebook. Ten years later, Arthur Frommer wrote "The GIs Guide to Traveling in Europe," a cost-conscious precursor to his "Europe on $5 a Day." The "Let's Go" guides written and mimeographed by a group of Harvard University undergraduates in 1960 became a backpacker's bible. The series, still written by and for students, are now the world's best-selling, international guides.  In the past 30 years, dozens of new series were being introduced.

In 1972, a husband and wife team, Maureen and Tony Wheeler, wrote "Across Asia on the Cheap," an account of their penny-pinching honeymoon. That book's popularity was the springboard for the 200 titles of the Lonely Planet series. 

Rick Steves' "Europe Through the Back Door," published in 1980, made its author a budget travel celebrity and host of a popular PBS television series. 

Two years later, Martin Ellingham, recently graduated from an English university, wrote the first "Rough Guide" to Greece. The "Rough Guide" series now numbers more than 100 titles.  In 1995, "Rough Guides" became an Internet pioneer when it made the bulk of its titles available online. Since then, many of the other major guidebook publishers have put snippets of their content on Web sites. 

Notable among the more recent international guidebooks is the "Eyewitness" series, by the British publisher Dorling Kindersley, which puts an emphasis on high-quality photographs, colorful graphics and concise text. 

Domestic travel has been another big growth area. Old standbys such as the Mobil and AAA travel guides, which are primarily rated listings of places to eat and stay, have lots of new competition. Publishers who have plunged into the business of revealing America include John Muir's "CitySmart" series, Passport Books "Essential" city series and Globe Pequot Press. 

Longstreet Press has published an excellent "Highroad" series to America's mountain and coastal areas, and Hunter Publishing has produced several dozen titles on corners of North and South America which are more off the beaten path. Venerable institutions such as The National Geographic Society, Sierra Club and Smithsonian have all recently rushed domestic adventure and nature titles into print. 

With so many options, just figuring out which guidebook series suits your particular travel preferences can be tricky. To help clarify the options, the editors of National Geographic Traveler have put together their "Ultimate Guide to Guidebooks," a 13-page piece in the January/February issue of the magazine.  Grouping guides in a variety of categories by theme and target audience, they rate each title's relative merits and shortcomings and offer overviews of why and by whom they were written. But while laying out the pertinent information, the editors refrain from ranking the guides, though top values are highlighted with an asterisk. Recognizing the broad variety in travel tastes, they invite readers to match their needs to the offerings. 

But though the right guidebook can make a huge difference in how a trip goes, it's important to remember that none are infallible. Many new titles are quickly written by underpaid and overworked free-lance writers, but even the most authoritatively researched guide can become quickly outdated, especially when it comes to mutable elements such as hotel and restaurant reviews.  Nor are travel guides a substitute for real world experience. Although a good guidebook can be a great traveling companion, be careful not to spend too much time with it on your journey. 

After all, when you get home, it will be the impressions you make on your own that will count the most.

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