mrkstvns's Full Review: Arthur Frommer's Budget Travel Magazine
Check out the travel magazines at any major newsstand and you'll find dozens of travel magazines. It's fun to pick them up and dream about the next vacation. But next time, look a little closer, dig a little deeper -- try to find the one that really provides top-quality information that you can use. If you're a smart traveler who knows the value of a buck, I know which magazine you picked as the best...Arthur Frommer's Budget Travel.
It's not about travelling cheap. Not really. It's about travelling smart! In my mind, the guy who shops around and takes longer vacations for longer periods of time is really the smarter traveller. And that's the kind of traveller who loves Arthur Frommers Budget Travel.
Between the Covers
Every issue of Arthur Frommers Budget Travel is packed with articles about every facet of travel, from destination guides and travelogues, to tips on finding the travel agents who can get you the rock-bottom best deal on airline tickets.
I love destination articles! Especially those that feature exciting topics about places I've never been. Arthur Frommers Budget Travel has plenty of these articles, but with an eye towards places that anyone could afford to go to. Considering Europe? Think it's out of your price range? Read the current issue, with its great article about the luxury spas in Bohemia, where rates on just about everything are a fraction of what you find in the U.S.
The best thing about Arthur Frommers Budget Travel is that the editors don't pander to special interests. You find tips that are spot on the money, whether they offend certain professions or not. For example, a recent issue mentioned ways to save thousands of dollars on dental procedures by travelling to foreign dentists. Naturally, the next issue (actually the July/August 2000 issue) contained several letters from indignant U.S. dentists, protesting that U.S. technology and practices are superior to those used by foreign dentists. Maybe so, maybe not.
Each issue contains a summary of great destinations that are likely to be relative bargains based on seasonal variations, world economics, or changes in competition. For example, late summer and early fall are often great times to scarf on really cheap vacations to the Caribbean. The current issue of Arthur Frommers Budget Travel includes some recommendations for tour operators with exceptional values, plus it contains a very useful set of recommendations about avoiding the hurricanes and tropical storms that can sometimes plague the area during that season (hint, the further south you go, the less likely you are to have a hurricane wreck your vacation). Bottom line: put the info together, and have a great September fling to Isla Margarita! (See my epinion about this great place, look under Venezuela).
The magazine has an attitude. An attitude I like. It's the attitude of travelling to REAL places and meeting REAL people without a bunch of phony hype, glitz, or trash talk. One of the best quotes in the current issue: Disney busts your budget for fake thrills; you can get the real thing free at the Grand Canyon. Your basic, fed-on-pablum, TV-watching suburban reader might not be able to handle such brutal honesty, but there you have it. An attitude that what's important is travelling, not spending money, or worse, wasting it on pretend travel.
Some of the articles examine industry trends. The current article about a glut of new cruise ships shows why, in a few months to a year, you'll probably be able to scarf on even better cruise rates than you can get today.
The best thing about this magazine is all the little nuggets of info tucked away all over the place. For example, in one article, the author recommends using foreign language web sites, and using foreign tour operators to save even more. In another, there's a rock-solid recommendation about using small immigrant-owned travel agencies that cater to specific immigrant populations. This is solid advice that really can save you money. I have been using a latino-owned travel agency here in Houston for the last couple years and found that the agents can often book me on flights that other agencies don't even seem to know about, or at fares that online services can't touch. I just snagged a $190 round-trip from Houston to Mexico City through this agency, but when I look up the fares on Expedia, it currently shows over $300. A $110 savings on one short trip, not bad!
In Arthur Frommers Budget Travel, even the ads are informative! You won't find any slick ads for Ritz-Carlton or Gucci in this magazine, oh no sirree. What you will find are ads from lower cost tour operators, less expensive hotels, web-based travel agencies, charter companies, and similar types of organizations geared towards practical, affordable travel.
What About the Competition?
You gotta be kiddin'!
Nobody else does the travel magazine schtick as well as Frommer. Those other bozos just print advertisements, and their stories are generally just fluff pieces that portray the biggest spending advertisers in a shining glow of travel nirvana. (You think Conde Nast is ever gonna tell their readers about strategies for getting 50-70% discounts at luxury resorts?? Hahahaha!)
Pick up a Conde Nast and what do you find? Haughty articles about overpriced, overhyped places that are supposedly glamorous. Sorry, folks, but where I come from we have a word for people who have more money than they have common sense, and it ain't glamorous! Conde Nast's advice is generally about as practical as an 8-fingered glove.
Ditto with Travel and Leisure. Lots of fluff pieces about places that charge 10 times what they should so that they can afford glossy ads in magazines like T-n-L, but generally nothing solid. I don't know about you, but I can't see my myself travelling to India to stay in "the world's most expensive hotel room at $25,000 per night". Magazines that print such drivel just waste my time.
Fortunately, Arthur Frommer's Budget Travel is there to provide good solid advice about practical travel. Travel to real places. Travel at fair prices. It's not about saving money. It's about travelling more.
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