Going By The Book
Anyone watching the re-runs of Great Continental Railway Journeys with host Michael Portillo
with a copy of his 1913 Bradshaw’s tucked under his arm? Aw come on… you have to be. It’s
entertaining, educational and one heck of an idea for travel agents who love books, history and
able to create and lead their own tours. Imagine your own Going By The Book tours…
Pick a place. Any place. One you love. One that
has captured your soul and one that you wish to
share with your clients. Now… is there a book
about this place? An old book. A historic
anything that could serve as your guide as
Michael Portillo’s Bradshaw’s does for him?
That’s your first task. Find that book.
Believe or not, there has been a revival in old
guide books being reprinted. Here’s the
webpage to a company that has reprinted the
Bradshaw’s guide featured in the show.
Found It!
Next: okay here’s what you do. You head to a
Barnes & Noble, Chapters, Indigo and or your
local book store and you look for those large
coffee table books that actually deliver
everything you need in terms of places, routes,
itineraries, history etc. Wonderful tools for
planning. The only challenge is, they are so large
and heavy that they’ll not fit in your tote!
http://bradshawsguides.com/books-and-maps.html
Found It #2
Your mission continues and here it’s time to
change book stores and look for an old to
antique bookshop. Ask if they have any old guide
books. That’s all you ask. Don’t restrict the
request by naming a country or mode of
transportation as many times the front end
person is not the store owner and not up to
speed with what’s on their shelves. Once you
locate those old travel books then you can start
rummaging.
Found It #3
Now it’s time to go online and start searching for
old to antique guidebooks. This time you’ll need
to be more precise in your search terms. Take a
click around the following online bookstores and
search by keyword or dedicated author’s name if
you have one.
You may also wish to
tour around local
used book stores and
look for original,
leather bound, gold
stamped books like
this one in my
collection…
Invest $50 and then
use the old guide to
explore and marvel
at the changes or the fact that nothing has
changed! Also there’s nothing wrong with
factoring into the price of your tour the cost of a
brand new guide and hand a copy to everyone at
the start of your tour.