Let's Go was a travel guide series researched, written, edited, and run entirely by students at Harvard University. Let's Go was founded in 1960 and headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts.^[1]

History

The first Let's Go guide was a 25-page mimeographed pamphlet put together by 18-year-old Harvard freshman Oliver Koppell and handed out on student charter flights to Europe.

In 1996, Let's Go launched its website, Letsgo.com, while publishing 22 titles and a new line of mini map guides.

Let's Go announced a new print publisher, Avalon Travel,^[2] upon the expiration of its contract with St. Martin's Press in 2009.^[3] The switch led to a new format for the insides of the books, new retro covers for the outsides, and a rebranding to emphasize Let's Go's student origins. The theme has been changed in 1999, 2002, 2005 and 2009. In 2014, Let's Go began self-publishing for the first time since 1970.^[4]

Production of Let's Go was suspended in 2020 as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, and never restarted.^[5]

Editorial style

Let's Go has used many words to describe the style of its content. "Witty and irreverent" is possibly the most frequently used descriptor; the company takes pride in its youthful, casual, sometimes zany tone and trains its writers to avoid "brochure-ese". Let's Go also promotes the unvarnished opinions of its reviews, stating that they want the takeaway of every single listing, good or bad, to be clear to the reader. This honesty led to a lawsuit against Let's Go in 1990 as a result of a scathing review of an Israeli hostel, but the travel guide was victorious in court, upheld by the judges as "the modern equivalents of Thomas Paine or John Peter Zenger."^[6] Other traits the company has emphasized include its budget roots and social consciousness.

Titles

As of the 2019 series of guidebooks, Let's Go has published 75 titles covering six continents. The books range from country guides to adventure, city, budget, and road trip guides, many of which are still updated annually. Let's Go has also published 20 abridged, pocket-sized "map guides" (Amsterdam, Berlin, Boston, Chicago, Dublin, Florence, Hong Kong, London, Los Angeles, Madrid, New Orleans, New York City, Paris, Prague, Rome, San Francisco, Seattle, Sydney, Venice, and Washington DC), though these have been discontinued.^[7]

Notable alumni

Because Let's Go employees are all students when working for the travel guide, many of its alumni have gone on to careers in travel writing and other areas.

• Megan Amram, comedy writer and Twitter celebrity
• Jesse Andrews, novelist and screenwriter of the novel Me and Earl and the Dying Girl (2012)
• Darren Aronofsky, film director
• Jenny Lyn Bader, playwright
• Rick Barton, diplomat
• Elif Batuman, Turkish author and journalist
• Ben Beach, marathoner
• Jess Bravin, journalist and author
• Lisa Brennan-Jobs, journalist, author, and daughter of Steve Jobs
• Irin Carmon, writer and blogger
• Pete Deemer, tech entrepreneur
• David Eilenberg, television executive
• Eleni Gage, author^[8]
• James Gleick, author and essayist.
• Kristin Gore, author, screenwriter, and daughter of Al Gore
• Barak Goodman, Oscar-nominated documentarian
• Ellen P. Goodman, Rutgers Law professor
• Adam Grant, organizational psychologist and Wharton professor
• Frank Huddle, Jr., former U.S. ambassador to Tajikistan
• Pico Iyer, travel writer, essayist, and novelist
• Kent M. Keith, author and academic
• Oliver Koppell, New York politician
• Andrew Laming, Australia politician
• Eric Lesser, Massachusetts politician
• Justin Levitt, American constitutional law professor
• Jane Lindholm, National Public Radio host
• Annie Lowrey, journalist
• Nathan Lump, travel writer
• Ghen Maynard, television producer and executive
• Emily Naphtal, competitive figure skater
• Celeste Ng, author
• Joanna O'Leary, food writer and literary historian
• Julie Cotler Pottinger, romance author^[9]
• Jeffrey Rosen, author and legal commentator
• Claire Saffitz, food writer
• Peter Sagal, radio host and writer^[10]
• Elizabeth Scarlett, author and professor, University at Buffalo
• Ashley Shuyler, founder of AfricAid
• Martin Sixsmith, author and TV/radio presenter
• Kaitlin Solimine, writer^[11]
• Alex Speier, sportswriter for the Boston Globe^[12]
• Adam Stein, screenwriter and director
• Thomas G. Stemberg,^[13] businessman and venture capitalist, co-founder of Staples Inc.
• Nicholas Stoller, screenwriter and director
• Andrew Tobias, columnist, author, and DNC treasurer
• Lisa Tolliver, media personality and academic-practitioner^[14]
• Graeme C.A. Wood, journalist and contributing editor at The Atlantic

In popular culture

There have been references (in a non-review/article context) to Let's Go in:

References

External links

• LetsGo.com – Official site