IT’S A CONVOLUTED STORY that tells of how we found Tom Brosnahan (Turkey 1967–70). It involves the article by Ginger Taylor Saçlioglu (Turkey 1968–70) entitled “For Love of Ankara” in the July issue of PeaceCorpsWriters.org, the wonders of the internet and a little enjoyable detective work.
     Tom has written in a different way about Turkey than Ginger — he has written several guide books on the country. Through a quick series of emails, I pieced together Tom’s very successful career as a travel writer, all of which began while he was serving in the Peace Corps.

What was your Peace Corps country and assignment?

I was a volunteer in Turkey from 1967 to 1970. I taught English in a dual-language high school near Izmir. After the first school year was over, we were required to be of service during the summer as well, so we had to think up a summer project. I could see that Turkey had immense tourism potential, but few Americans knew it. I proposed writing a chapter about Turkey for Arthur Frommer’s popular Europe travel guidebook, Europe on $5 a Day, so Americans could read what Turkey had to offer. I wrote to Frommer, who said that such a chapter wasn’t really appropriate for his book, but that he would “give a swift and sympathetic reading” to a manuscript for a new guidebook devoted to Turkey. I decided to write it.

So your first travel book was on Turkey?

Yes.

Quickly run through how one book led to another. I’m particularly interested in the “building blocks” of a career such as yours.

Once you’ve written a successful guidebook, it’s easy to get work doing other books. Publishers know you can do the job. After my Turkey book went off to press, my publisher, Arthur Frommer, asked me if I’d be interested in revising a guide to Mexico. I was, and I did. I later added Guatemala and Belize to the Frommer Mexico guide.
     Looking for more work, I contacted other publishers. Berlitz Publications needed writers, and sent me off to do seven books over a period of years. Frommer called again also, and gave me a contract for a guide to Canada, and others for New England and Israel.
     By this time I had given up graduate school and was writing full time.

How many travel books have you published?

About three dozen. It’s a matter of definition. Is a revised edition a “new” book? It takes months and months to revise a guide, so I think so.

Do you also write travel article for magazines?

Yes, it’s enjoyable to write articles as well. I’ve written for Arthur Frommer’s Budget Travel, BBC World, Diversion, Travel & Leisure, TWA Ambassador, and numerous newspapers and syndicates.

What advice would you give to a recently returned PCV about travel writing?

It takes time to break into travel writing, to build up a body of work that will give editors confidence enough to give assignments to you. Travel writing is certainly enjoyable, but many times it is also plain hard work. Some people earn a decent living at it, others must subsidize their writing habit with income from savings, a day job, or a solvent spouse.

How is it doing books for Lonely Planet?

Lonely Planet is a great company. I’ve written for them for almost 20 years now. For most of that time LP has been the best company in the world to work with. Recently, however, they’ve been wildly successful and have grown very big and — perhaps out of necessity — have gotten more and more “corporate.” It’s not nearly as lucrative nor enjoyable as it once was, but I still get a great thrill when I see my name in a new edition of one of my guides.

Do you write on a laptop? Do you take it with you on trips?

My primary tools are a paper notebook and ballpoint pen. They’re absolutely indispensable. Yes, I take a laptop on trips, but I use it mostly for email. I don’t spend much time writing during research trips. I’d rather get home sooner to my family, write at my desk, and not incur further on-the-road expenses.

Where do you live?

I live in the world’s most beautiful town: Concord, Massachusetts.

What is your favorite country? Your favorite city?

Well, these are difficult questions for a travel writer! I’d have to say that my favorite country is the US of A, but my Peace Corps “home,” Turkey, is a close second. My favorite town is Concord, Massachusetts, where I live, but my favorite city is indubitably Istanbul. I feel more at home there than in any other place except Concord.

On an average book, how much time is spent researching the country and how much time do you spend writing?

It really depends on the book’s format. Some guides are prosy travelogues, others are virtual encyclopedias with hundreds of facts on each page. For a brand-new 700-page Lonely Planet guide, I might spend four or five months in research (most of that on the road), and six or seven months writing, with a month or two of answering editors’ queries after that.

How do you pay for all the traveling? Hotels? Cars? Etc. Does the publisher give you an expense account or do you get “freebies” from hotels, etc.?

Almost all expenses come out of the fee or royalties earned from the book. A few publishers pay a few expenses, but in most cases it’s up to the author to pay. Official travel offices may sometimes get us free air travel and perhaps a few hotel rooms, but our need for anonymity doesn’t allow us to accept much more in the way of freebies.
     A guidebook author has to travel fast because information is always changing, and s/he can’t afford to spend much time chatting amiably with “hosts” (hotel managers, restaurant owners, etc) who offer freebies in exchange for a chance to pitch their establishments to the writer.

Who are your favorite travel writers?

My all-time favorite is John Lloyd Stephens, New York lawyer, sometime ambassador plenipotentiary to the fledgling United States of Central America, pioneering archeologist, and author of two excellent works, Incidents of Travel in Yucatan, and Incidents of Travel in Central America, Chiapas and Yucatan, published in the 1830s and 1840s. His writing is graceful and lucid, enjoyably descriptive, often eloquent, and always exhibits the joy of travel and the author’ s positive outlook, healthy sense of humor, and thirst for adventure.

One last question. If you were suggesting a great trip for an RPCV where would it be?

The best trip an RPCV can take is back to where s/he served, and the greatest reward is to meet people you knew and came to love during your service.
     For me, this is now bittersweet. I’ve returned to Turkey dozens of times since my service there, and although many of my students are alive, well, and serving in prominent positions, most of my other, older friends from my service time are gone.
     These days Volunteers of all ages set out to serve. In my day we were all young, mostly in our early to mid-20s. We had little acquaintance with the world. However much our Peace Corps may have helped the people of our host countries, it helped us, the Volunteers, far more. It was our coming-of-age, and a rich one it was.
     We left our homes and went abroad to find other customs, traditions, beliefs, and ways of living. Perhaps more importantly, living and working abroad taught us more about our own country than we could ever learn living at home: what was right and wrong, good and bad in it.
     Peace Corps service was a real education in the School of Life, a crash course in the way the world really works. Returning to our Peace Corps “alma mater” is sweeter and more telling than a high school or college reunion could ever be.