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As a young travel writer, working as a Contributing Editor at Arthur Frommer’s Budget Travel Magazine, I would regularly meet Arthur Frommer in his office in midtown Manhattan. I would come prepared, ready to pitch my 3 to 4 story angles on a sheet of paper and the legendary writer, who made his name penning "Europe on 5 Dollars A Day" in 1957, would politely listen and shoot down every one of my ideas. He then would come up with his own suggestions: "Steve, why don’t you do a story on the Caribbean islands that are rarely affected by hurricanes, like the ABC islands of Aruba, Bonaire, and Curacao?" One of those story ideas I would return to again and again in my travel writing career and, in fact, became the cornerstone of our beliefs when we opened our travel agency, ActiveTravels<\/a>, 7 years ago. Arthur said to me, "Steve, these big-name American travel companies like National Geographic Expeditions are hiring smaller outfitters to run their trips in each of the countries they visit. Find the best small local ground operator in a dozen countries and pen a story on them. This way, you eliminate the middleman and save a bundle." <\/p>\n <\/div>\n
Working as a travel writer since 1990, I’ve had the good fortune to visit close to 100 countries, 46 American states (still missing Iowa, Alabama, Oklahoma, and South Dakota), and 9 out of 10 Canadian provinces (need to get to Saskatchewan). This has given me a wealth of knowledge to help design routes for clients when they travel. But let’s be realistic. Even if I’ve traveled to the African continent 7 times, I’m no expert. In fact, I’ve barely scraped the surface. And what about those countries still on my Bucket List, like Sri Lanka, Nepal, and Uganda. It’s simply unrealistic for any travel agency to have expertise on all countries. That’s why we rely on local contacts we’ve made around the globe, these small tour operators Arthur Frommer first introduced me to so many years ago. They live locally, know every nook and cranny of their country like I know every nook and cranny of the Northeastern US, and they have become invaluable in our profession in creating an authentic itinerary that only a local could know. These include a New Zealander who designs detailed self-guided driving itineraries to his favorite sites and B&Bs on the South Island, a naturalist in Sumatra that will help locate the native orangutans, an art historian in Rome who will take you behind the scenes to talk about Caravaggio, and a Ecuadorean yacht owner who takes small, select groups to visit the Galapagos Islands on weeklong cruises. Whenever one of our clients returns with rave reviews for a local outfitter or guide, we add them to a growing list. That’s how we find the perfect person to custom-design your itineraries based on your desires. <\/div>\n
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I would come prepared, ready to pitch my 3 to 4 story angles on a sheet of paper and the legendary writer, who made his name penning...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"http:\/\/activetravels.ibec.me\/archives\/6684\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Active Travels\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/activetravels\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2019-03-07T11:00:16+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/activetravels.ibec.me\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/Home-Page-Top-Photo-add-Let-us-take-you-there-heading.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"2048\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"1536\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Steve Jermanok\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Steve Jermanok\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"http:\/\/activetravels.ibec.me\/archives\/6684#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"http:\/\/activetravels.ibec.me\/archives\/6684\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Steve Jermanok\",\"@id\":\"http:\/\/activetravels.ibec.me\/#\/schema\/person\/77b14e74586df26d3c691dca9cebca4b\"},\"headline\":\"How A Travel Advisor Helps Design an Authentic Travel Experience\",\"datePublished\":\"2019-03-07T11:00:16+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2019-03-07T11:00:16+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"http:\/\/activetravels.ibec.me\/archives\/6684\"},\"wordCount\":493,\"commentCount\":0,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"http:\/\/activetravels.ibec.me\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"http:\/\/activetravels.ibec.me\/archives\/6684#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"\",\"articleSection\":[\"ActiveTravels | get up & go!\",\"Travel Advice\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"http:\/\/activetravels.ibec.me\/archives\/6684#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"http:\/\/activetravels.ibec.me\/archives\/6684\",\"url\":\"http:\/\/activetravels.ibec.me\/archives\/6684\",\"name\":\"How A Travel Advisor Helps Design an Authentic Travel Experience - 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As a young travel writer, working as a Contributing Editor at Arthur Frommer’s Budget Travel Magazine, I would regularly meet Arthur Frommer in his office in midtown Manhattan. I would come prepared, ready to pitch my 3 to 4 story angles on a sheet of paper and the legendary writer, who made his name penning…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6685,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_kad_blocks_custom_css":"","_kad_blocks_head_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_body_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_footer_custom_js":"","_kadence_starter_templates_imported_post":false,"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[46,70],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6684","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-default-site","category-travel-advice"],"yoast_head":"\n