Last weekend at the New York Times Travel Show on the Hudson River in Manhattan, WalletPop cornered Pauline Frommer, the first female editor of a major guide book series, to ask her for the biggest travel bargain of the year.

It's Las Vegas, where rooms can be had for as little as $10 a night, followed closely by cruising, where cabins are going for $42. As Arthur Frommer confirmed during an address to the crowd on the same day, there's a very good reason why both of these vacation destinations are going so cheap, and surprisingly, is the same reason for both.



Arthur Frommer is a budget travel legend. In the 1950s, when passenger jet planes arrived and everyone could finally travel the way only the wealthy, jet-set crowd had done, he pioneered the guide book written for the common man's income and sensibilities. His Europe on $5 a Day series popularized international travel among all classes.

WalletPop's Jason Cochran has worked with Frommer at the magazine he started, with his daughter, Pauline, on several of her guides (Orlando, London, and San Francisco), and with both halves of the budget travel dynasty as a co-host for their national radio show.