Let's Go employees (from left) Alice DuBois '99, Alex Leichtman '01, Rolan Hernandez '99, physics graduate student Jonathan Dawid, and publication director Ben Wilkinson '99 display recent copies of their travel books.

Ben Wilkinson, a senior studying East Asian history, approvingly eyed the mushrooming pile of thick applications. The buildup to Let's Go 2000 was under way.

Hopefuls looking for positions as associate editors and research-writers for the newest editions of the ever-popular budget travel guides deposited their copies of the 10-page application form into a filing tray, keen to spend their summer working for this student-run business.

Wilkinson, fresh-faced and athletic, does not look like your average publishing director, but then Let's Go is not your average publishing company.

The unconventionality of Let's Go is apparent as soon as you enter the inconspicuous crimson door on Mount Auburn Street. Color copies of 1999 covers decorate the stairwell as you make your way to the third floor. Photocopied teasers for applicants cover the walls of the entrance way: "No dress code. Just class." "Ever been on Seinfeld? We have."

The offices themselves look like a tornado just whirled through; paperwork is piled up on desks, around computers, and hidden among bagel bags and paper coffee cups. Huge beanbag chairs are scattered for when a break from the creative momentum is needed.

Maps of countries adorn the walls with pins punched through cities, and colored threads form a web around them, representing the itinerary for a future research-writer. Unconventional, for sure.

But "we are very serious about what we do," Wilkinson, a four- year Let's Go veteran, says. "We are a bunch of students very dedicated to what we do." No doubt about that. With current worldwide sales reaching 1 million copies, the oldest budget travel guide in the business, Let's Go, will celebrate its 40th anniversary in 2000.

Though competition from such guides as the Australian-based Lonely Planet series (started in 1973) and the English Rough Guides (started in the mid-1980s) is taken seriously, after 40 years, Let's Go is still the leader of the pack. Updating every entry in its books each year ensures an incomparable accuracy for the budget traveler.

Rooms for a Dollar -- in 1961

Back in the 1950s, a travel agency run by Harvard Student Agencies (HSA) distributed pamphlets with travel tips for Europe-bound students. These pamphlets evolved into Let's Go, founded in 1960, with the first edition of Let's Go Europe. The 1961 edition, costing 75 cents, listed hostels with rooms for $1 per night. Today at $21.99, Let's Go Europe is the company's most popular guide, selling more than 130,000 copies in 1998. Let's Go, still operating under the umbrella of HSA, is the only for-profit subsidiary of this student-run corporation. Although closely linked with Harvard, the University's only dictate to Let's Go is that it employ exclusively degree-seeking Harvard students.

Not a Paid Vacation

Editors for the Let's Go 2000 editions, who were recruited in early February, helped Wilkinson and editor-in-chief Ben Harder '99 to sift through the record 750 applications for some 180 positions to once again update the 29 guides. Notably for the millennium, Let's Go is entering new territory with the compilation of three new editions -- for China, the Middle East, and Israel.

Choosing the research-writers (RWs) was the most important part of the editors' jobs, Wilkinson says. Working as an RW is not a paid vacation, he warns, speaking from personal experience -- he researched the Southeast Asia guide in his freshman and sophomore years.

"There's a tremendous amount of work involved," he says, "but it's very rewarding."

RWs depart soon after end-of-semester exams. On the road, an RW's typical day begins around 8 a.m. Post offices, medical centers, banks, and libraries have to be checked out. Do they still exist? Have their addresses changed?

In their quest to give the most exhaustive transportation information, RWs will spend hours at ferry terminals and bus stations. Wilkinson remembers when he was an RW, "I spent a lot of time in sprawling, dusty, hot, Southeast Asian bus stations trying to track down which bus goes where."

The RW will return to a hostel around 6 p.m. to write up the day's copy before heading out to research the nightlife. More writing will be done before bed to prepare for the next destination on a rigorously prepared itinerary.

Every 10 days or so, copy is filed from all over the world back to the editors in Cambridge, increasingly via e-mail, thanks to laptop computers. The intensity of the job is undeniable. Rolán Hernandez, a senior concentrating in economics and editor of the Peru and Ecuador edition this year, was previously the RW for Ecuador.

"It takes a certain type of person," Hernandez says. "You have to enjoy being alone and become totally immersed in the culture." Wilkinson agrees that unlike regular tourists, RWs get to know places very well. "You visit every sight and sound," he says.

Although writing skills and language ability are an advantage for someone seeking to become an R-W, "paramount is a heck of a lot of enthusiasm, dependability and determination," Wilkinson says. "These people have to grit it out, even if they are in their fifth week, have been wearing the same underwear for 10 days, and have been working 18 hours a day, seven days a week."

Greg Cohn, travel editor at St. Martin's Press, the company that prints, sells, and markets the Let's Go series, recognizes the upside of a regular intake of new writers. "New students have the energy to revamp the books on an annual basis," he says. The new RW on the road can sniff out new bargains and interesting places. The new editors in the office bring fresh new ideas to the development of the books. "This keeps people here on their toes," Cohn says, "and pushes us to do fresh and cool things."

Marking the Millennium

To celebrate the millennium and the publishing company's 40th anniversary, Let's Go 2000 will hit bookstores around Thanksgiving of this year with "a cleaner, more stylized look," says Alex Leichtman, a sophomore studying social studies who works in public relations for Let's Go. Cohn says "the dynamite design" results from extensive collaboration between St. Martin's and the students at Let's Go.

How many people around the world will be carrying a copy of Let's Go as they celebrate the millennium? Let's Go hopes to capitalize on the fact that travel is expected to increase by about 50 percent near the millennium, Cohn says. But he also says that although marketing activities are aimed at selling the books, they also hope to encourage people to travel and discover new places. Surveys show that the Let's Go audience covers the whole spectrum of ages, with 15 percent of readers 60 or older.

Let's Go on the Web

One of the newest ventures of the Let's Go enterprise is Letsgo.com. Introduced three years ago, the Website also will be revamped for the millennium. Associate production manager for the '99 series Maryanthe Malliaris, a sophomore concentrating in mathematics, is this year's Webmaster.

"The current Website is an interim Web presence while we gather our artillery behind the scenes for a masterpiece launch early next year," she says. The current Website receives up to 1,500 e-mail messages a month, from everyone from cataloging librarians to the copy editor of a major Canadian daily newspaper who asked if "outsiders" are ever let into the Let's Go empire. World travelers who respond to the Website give thanks for "such terrific travel guides" and offer up-to-the-minute revisions on lodging and restaurants.

Though details of the Website relaunch are being kept closely under wraps, Malliaris explains that "the updated Website is much more about new methods of packaging information and making resources available."

After spending the last four decades conquering the world, the staff members of Let's Go are now also dedicating themselves to conquering the World Wide Web.

Lucinda Sears is graduating from the Extension School's Certificate in Publishing and Communications Program.