GREAT TRIPS/EUROPE

THE SAGA OF A 1970's VENTURE IN TRAVEL GUIDES...How It Happened, Why It Failed, And How It Eventually Led To Better Things — And Why It Could Work Today.

Click on each chapter for the full story.

PART I: My 1975 plan for an offbeat travel program on cable TV goes nowhere, but leads to something entirely different.

PART II: So the TV thing didn't work. Instead, the concept of Great Trips/Europe rose from its ashes, and made good use of the little adventures I had in England that summer of '75.

PART III: Great Trips/Europe gets off the ground. How I did it all by myself.

PART IV: Selling Great Trips/Europe. How advertising and free publicity brought in orders, but failed to produce a profit.

PART V: It's Off to Portugal and Spain for a Last Fling With Great Trips/Europe.

Great Trips #5, A One-Day Rent-A-Bike Trip from Amsterdam In 1975.

Great Trips #158: Innsbruck Mountain Walk. An easy hike in the Austrian Alps, taken in 1979 but still valid.

Great Trips #24: Gaudi's Barcelona. A One-Day Walk Exploring The Work Of A Great Architect.

Great Trips #48: Beethoven's Vienna. A 1970's assignment for Opera News leads me to develop a trip visiting the composer's old haunts.

Great Trips #160, Odense, Denmark. This daytrip from Copenhagen takes you to the birthplace of Hans Christian Andersen, a restored 19th-century farm village, and much mire.

Great Trips #1, Stoke Bruerne, England. A towpath walk along England's Grand Union Canal to a picturesque old village.

Great Trips #154, Helsingør, Denmark & Helsingborg, Sweden. An encounter with the Prince of Denmark in Shakespeare's Hamlet.

Great Trips #25, A Mountain Walk Near Vaduz, Liechtenstein. This easy daytrip takes you from Zürich in Switzerland to the capital of a tiny nation for an adventurous hike in the woods.

(More coming later, stay tuned)