By Owen Lee, Staff Writer
On Monday, October 2 at 7 p.m, UMass Dartmouth’s Boivin Center for French Language and Culture welcomed Pauline Frommer, an established writer and expert on travel, as a guest presenter.
She arrived to celebrate the 60th anniversary of her Frommer’s travel guides, and to speak to an audience of travel enthusiasts at UMass, as a part of the presentation, “An Evening With Pauline Frommer.”
This night, she shared tips and experience with a wide audience of tourism enthusiasts in the Campus Center’s Main Auditorium.
Frommer is considered one of the most knowledgeable people in the country when it comes to travelling on a budget, having written numerous national and international travel guides and spoken extensively on the subject.
She is the founding and current editor of Frommer.com. She writes an internationally syndicated newspaper column, and she and her father also discuss travelling on their successful syndicated radio show, “The Travel Program.” She’s even appeared as a guest expert on numerous prestigious TV shows, including The O’Reilly Factor, The Today Show, NPR’s Marketplace, CNN, and much more.
The Frommer line of travel guides could be considered a part of a family business. Pauline’s father Arthur Frommer wrote his first book “The GI’s Guide to Travel in Europe” while he was serving as an American soldier in Germany in 1957, which he quickly followed up on with the more civilian “Europe on $5 a Day”.
Since then, he and Pauline have published travel guides to popular destinations in across the planet, both nationally and internationally.
The travel guides, branded as Pauline Frommer’s Travel Guides, all contain easy tips and pointers on matters like affordable air travel, tourist destinations, and hotel selection.
The books have won “Best Guidebook of the Year” from the American Travel Association three years in a row, a strong mark of quality.
When Frommer got onstage, she discussed a number of travel topics. Talking points included the most effective flights, the most frugal and enjoyable hotels, the most scenic travel routes, and the most economic travel destinations this season.
The topic of Hurricane Irma’s devastation of the Caribbean Islands was discussed, and how the tragedy would affect the travel economy. She also offered prime destinations for this time of year, places where flight prices would be the lowest this season, suggesting Poland, Thailand, and Indonesia.
“…There was a myth, where if you didn’t have a lot of money, you couldn’t travel well, and my father showed that it was often the opposite” Frommer once told TIME magazine in a June 2017 interview. “When you plan for travel, when you get a guidebook, or a book of history, or you watch a movie, you bring the travel into your daily life, and then when you’re there, you’ll have a context for what you’re seeing.” Her views on tourism reflect an accessibility and passion that so few experts are comfortable in expressing.
The event was completely free and open to the public. After her presentation, Frommer held a short Q&A, and signed visitors’ books in the hall outside.
The next guest that the Boivin Center will host will be William Alexander, another esteemed writer, who will be arriving later this month.