From humble beginnings as a pamphlet of travel tips slapped together for students summering in Europe, Let's Go blossomed into one of the world's most popular travel guides, a mainstay on the shelves of bookstores, hostels, and world travelers for 61 years. Though its story may now be over, the legacy it leaves is not. Let's Go brought travel writing from a privileged few to the hoi polloi by inspiring several competitors in the budget guidebook arena, and it gave countless unforgettable memories to the students who have made up the Let's Go family.
Pages in the first book: 25. Cover price: $0. The fact that HSA used to charter air-planes: priceless.
75 cents for 64 pages—not bad.
Let’s Go is outsourced to Lampooners for the first and last time.
HSA hires an artist, Richard Copaken, who proceeds to draw Let’s Go’s original hot-air-balloon logo.
Let’s Go debuts its first maps.
496 pages and $2.25—opulence, plain and simple.
As Oliver Koppell said a quarter of a century after he came to Harvard: “I am extraordinarily proud of the success which Let’s Go has achieved in the years since my graduation. The expansion of editions, the detail of the work, and the general level of acceptance which Let’s Go has achieved throughout the country, and indeed the world, is beyond my wildest dreams.”