My travel primer begins when Arthur
Frommer published Europe on $5 a Day in 1957, it was just a pocket book for
GI's who were stationed abroad, nobody was expecting that middle class
Americans would embrace his guide with such fervor, but then in the 1960's it
was very expensive to travel in the US, and during 1962, for those who lived in New York city or in Los Angeles, CA, Frommer's breakout book was
publicized in the NEW YORK TIMES "Travel Section."
As it turned out, despite that Frommer's Europe on $5 per day 1st class travel claims seemed too
good to be true, many bought the book and they experienced living life large in Europe, in fact the opportunity to experience first class travel abroad attracted thrifty travelers for the next decade.
The current advent of private train
cars, see the link to the recent NEW YORK TIMES "Travel Section," was the basis for this "travel primer," however, thanks to Google's AI, I was advised about the publication of Arthur Frommer's middle class travel sensation book, decades ago.
I have experienced the Eurail international rail pass system created
in 1959 by major European railway companies to allow tourists to travel across
multiple European national rail networks, and sad to say, it was no better than the current USA AMTRAK's TV dinner, dining car experience.
My personal first class travel experiences also come to mind, decades ago I attempted to book a SNCF Mistral-like train for a memorable trip to Istanbul by train instead of by plane, but catching that train was a logistical nightmare, and I arrived in Turkey's most western oriented city in the 1st class section of the long defunct defunct PAN AMERICAN airplane.
Today, travel by train, and eating in a dining car, is
like a TV dinner experience, but my travel primer is a reminder that it was
once possible to spend $5 a day and travel first class.
It could be that in a few decades, if the riots in Paris spread to other parts of western Europe, that a bankrupt EU might offer 1st class travel again on $5 per day, that is unless we in the USA decide to try the EU socialists recipe for a worker's paradise here, then we won't have $5 to spare.
HAPPY TRAVELS!
