Travel Books March to a Different Beat

After three decades as the Bibles of budget-minded travelers, Harvard’s “Let’s Go” guidebooks have some politically correct competition. Berkeley Guides, written by UC Berkeley students for Fodor’s Travel Publications, hit the stores this month.

The four guides, priced at $14.50 each, feature the finds of students on stipends of up to $70 daily who scoured California, Mexico, Eastern Europe and the Pacific Northwest and Alaska for cheapo hotels and cafes. The books will compete with 17 Harvard titles (published by St. Martin’s Press) covering 42 countries.

True to Berkeley sensibilities, the books are printed in soybean-based ink on recycled paper. In conjunction with the launch, Fodor’s introduced a recycling and reforestation project.

The guides make for fun and/or enlightening reading. A chapter about far Northern California wilderness areas and national forests offers this laid-back advice: “This is all confusing, even on the map, but don’t be discouraged. Just talk to one of the rangers, then point yourself in the direction of the greatest beauty.”