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When she graduated from the College, Kate Galbraith '97 had a bad case of wanderlust. Previous bouts had led her to such disparate destinations as Oregon and Bosnia in her four-year career with Let's Go guidebooks. Revered as bibles for young, thrifty travelers, the books are produced by undergraduates working under the aegis of Harvard Student Agencies. The Let's Go series is a serious business, with a nationally distributed product and sales of around a million copies in fiscal year 1997. But the student-run business also turns out a by-product that doesn't show up on any balance sheet: its experienced and travel-savvy alumni. Propelled by their curiosity and disciplined by their work for Let's Go, many of these young globe-trotters continue working in the travel- publishing industry as writers and editors.
Galbraith, for example, made her way across eastern Europe working as a freelancer after her final stint as a managing editor with Let's Go. In April, she began an assignment for the guidebook company Lonely Planet. Her mission was to update and expand the section on Bosnia, which no Lonely Planet writer had visited in two years.
Some of Galbraith's colleagues are doing similar work closer to home. David Fagundes '96 published a miniguide to Boston this June for Rough Guides, a subsidiary of Penguin. In 1999, he will publish a full-length guide to New England. Fagundes, who served as associate editor for Let's Go's California guide and managing editor for the guides to Spain, Portugal, the United States, and Austria, feels that his college experience was invaluable. "I never would've come across the industry without Let's Go," he adds. "Not only do I have interest now, but I have publishing experience at a young age."
A group of five Let's Go alumni have found a slightly different niche in the nonfiction publishing world. Presently at work on a guidebook to interesting and unusual jobs, to be published next spring by Ten Speed Press, their goal is to form a company to produce more of what they call "lifestyle guides." These will share the format and approach of Let's Go publications, but will contain information for twentysomethings about such topics as health, finances, and homes. According to Jake Brooks '97, these guides will tackle "the stuff no one taught you in college," and they will answer the questions relevant to their target audience. In the financial guide, for instance, "I want to know, 'What are the best mutual funds?'" Brooks explains, "not about annuities and living trusts."
Brooks and his collaborators--Sean Fitzpatrick '95, Chuck Kapelke '96, Michelle Sullivan '96, and Jamie Rosen '92--have conducted a careful analysis of their former employer, so that their enterprise can benefit from its strengths. "We asked ourselves, 'What's powerful about Let's Go?'" says Brooks. "It's a well-defined brand, it has a rigid editorial skeleton, it draws on an underrepresented, talented group of writers, and it has a strong demographic focus. We wanted to apply these things to our project." Brooks claims that twentysomethings lack a presence in nonfiction publishing, both as readers and writers. He and his colleagues intend to monitor the needs of that age group closely; as he says, "We are our demographic." The group hopes their guides will also provide opportunities for many of the "young, underutilized freelancers in college who want to write but end up in grunt-work editorial internships because they don't have clips. We're creating an avenue for them."
Many of the young alumni involved with publishing guides are drawn to the free rein such work allows them as writers. Several grew enamored of the friendly, intelligent tone that characterizes the Let's Go books, and they hope to emulate that style in their professional lives. "So many things written for my generation miss the mark," says Brooks, brandishing a competing guide. In a weak attempt to appeal to Gen X, he says, "they'll write a normal sentence, then throw in the word 'okay?' or 'right?'" Let's Go, on the other hand, specializes in prose that he calls "fun, conversational, lighthearted--not talking down to its readers." Kate Galbraith also enjoyed the challenges of writing good travel prose: "I found that Let's Go required a far more innovative, and ultimately appealing, writing style than term-paper assignments, which I often found repetitive and bland."
Why are so many young Harvardians drawn to touring around the world rather than conquering it? According to Fagundes, many of his colleagues arrived at the same answer. "It's a cliché around Let's Go that travel and writing are like chocolate and peanut butter: an ideal combination of two things I love. That's true for me."
~ Miriam Udel Lambert