If ever you were in doubt that nepotism is alive and well, you’d need look no further than the travel writing industry to see that it is. Who knew guidebooks were the stuff of travel royalty?
Take Arthur Frommer’s daughter, Pauline, for example. She has her own line of guidebooks. Incidentally, I learned about her writing through Arthur Frommer’s delightfully insightful and curmudgeonly travel blog, of which I am an avid reader. With marketing like that, she’s bound to succeed.
And then there was the big scandal a while back about Max Gogarty, son of The Guardian‘s travel writer Paul Gogarty. Guardian readers were none too happy to hear that 18-year-old Max had scored a travel blog on the Guardian site to document his privileged international partying. Comments were so harsh that they seem to have actually prevented the blog from going past the first entry.
The latest edition to the travel writing offspring pack is Rick Steve’s daughter Jackie, who has a blog on her father’s website to document her summer romp around Europe. The reception she has received has been vastly different to poor Max’s, with most of her commenters sounding like concerned mothers, wringing their hands as they read about the 18-year-old’s encounters with Italian boys and red-light districts. I wonder if the comments are heavily moderated, or if ‘concerned mother’ types are just the kind of folks who read Rick Steves’s site. I suppose the latter is pretty plausible.
(As an aside, I am so insanely impressed with Rick Steve’s recent trip to Iran. I have never been a particular fan of his, but this self-funded adventure in cultural understanding has earned him huge amounts of respect from me. I really hope I get a chance to see the show that comes out of it.)
So my question is, why oh why couldn’t I have been born into travel-writing royalty?
Oh yeah. Of all the writing-for-money genres travel must be the one for which the most are called and fewest chosen. You simply have to have a flair for it and the perseverence to keep going while making a name for yourself and building up a portfolio. Family money helps there, and connections never hurt.
Guess I can always call up Great Uncle Lonelyplanet for some help…
Maybe you married into it and you just don’t know it?
You could also make up your own dance and get sponsored.. uh.
Choreographing now….
well… maybe you’re not royalty – but you definitely have created jealousy for living in Europe, while I am in America living vicariously through your adventures!!!
Aaaaaw, thanks, Stephanie!
(You don’t happen to know anyone with the last name ‘Fodor’ do you?) 🙂
Luck of the draw?
“Maybe you married into it and you just don’t know it?”
Actually, one of Ann’s cousins co-authored a lonely planet book.
Hah! Great Post! I have wondered that myself although I didn’t realize it was such a generational thing. Rick Steves actually lived in the town in Washington State I was from-Edmonds. (just north of Seattle) He was ROYALTY in Seattle let me tell you.
In person, he is not as lame as his books/shows. In fact, he puts his foot in his mouth a lot about politics and his producers are always shushing him.
Who knows? Maybe your blog will get you noticed!?!?!?
GL’sD – indeed, like everything else we get from our families…
Chuck – Nifty. Although I hear that’s the less glamorous end of the travel-writing world, it still sounds pretty cool.
Yelli – it’s funny to hear that about Rick and his handlers. I bet that’s part of what makes him so appealing – he seems like just a regular bumbling guy, who knows some stuff about travel.
re: Rick
I’ve never purchased one of his travel guides, but I enjoyed his German phrase book. I thought the included maps of the US to explain where you are from and the phrases for talking to children and animals were clever. Unfortunately, I gave it away to some ingrate.
That’s funny about the maps of the US! I would never have thought of that… oh, that clever Rick…