Providing advice on Istanbul's most popular excursions, this guide also gives an insight into the city's arts, history and culture. There is also the lowdown on the Covered Market and all local amenities.
Tom Brosnahan is a veteran travel writer who has written 40 guidebooks. He now writes travel websites including TurkeyTravelPlanner.com, NewEnglandTravelPlanner.com, FranceTravelPlanner.com, ParisTravelPlanner.com, EgyptTravelPlanner.com, and St MoritzTravelPlanner.com, offering free in-depth travel information to nearly five million travelers annually.
His humorous travel memoir, "Turkey: Bright Sun, Strong Tea" (available through Amazon.com) relates his experiences as a Peace Corps English teacher in Turkey (1967-68), and his--sometimes hilarious, sometimes perilous--travels on assignment.
Born and raised in eastern Pennsylvania, Tom Brosnahan graduated from Tufts University in 1967, joined the Peace Corps, and went to Turkey to teach English. In Turkey he discovered a fascinating country little known in North America or Europe. He wrote Frommer's "Turkey on $5 a Day" (1972) as a Peace Corps project to encourage tourism and increase acquaintance with Turkey. During the next 20 years, the guidebook was the best-seller to the destination, going through seven editions, up to Turkey '92-'93 on $40 a Day.
After graduate studies on a US Title V fellowship, Tom returned to Istanbul in 1974 on a Fulbright-Hays Dissertation Fellowship fellowship for 15 months' research of 19th-century Ottoman legal documents for his PhD dissertation.
As jobs for historians were lacking in academia, he instead became a travel writer, guidebook author, photographer and consultant on travel information. His 40 guidebooks to Belize, Canada, Egypt, England, France, Guatemala, Israel, Mexico, Morocco, New England, Tunisia and Turkey for Lonely Planet, Frommer's, Berlitz and Insight have sold over four million copies worldwide, and have been translated into ten languages. His Lonely Planet guide to Turkey became the best-seller to the destination shortly after its publication in 1985. Tom also wrote the original editions of the Lonely Planet's "Istanbul" guide, "Turkish Phrasebook," and "Turkey Travel Atlas."
Tom served as a founding Contributing Editor for "Arthur Frommer's Budget Travel" magazine. Many of his travel articles and photographs have been published in other leading newspapers and magazines as well.
Tom has appeared on numerous television and radio programs, including ABC's "Good Morning America," NPR's "Talk of the Nation," the Travel Channel, and PRI's "The Connection." He has given lectures on Turkey at the American Turkish Council's annual conference, the Smithsonian Institution, the Cooper-Hewitt National Museum of Design, and other organizations.
His travel-information consulting clients have included many top names in the travel and public relations industries, as well as the Turkish Embassy in Washington. He is currently a consultant to Dream Design Factory of Istanbul, a prominent advertising and public relations company that has developed many worldwide annual advertising and publicity campaigns for Turkey's Ministry of Culture and Tourism.
He is a longtime member of the Society of American Travel Writers, and has served two terms on its board of directors.
In 2000 he founded Travel Info Exchange, Inc., a developer of destination websites. TurkeyTravelPlanner.com now serves four million visitors from 213 countries annually. Other TIE websites include NewEnglandTravelPlanner.com, SipNewEngland.com, FranceTravelPlanner.com, ParisTravelPlanner.com, EgyptTravelPlanner.com, and St MoritzTravelPlanner.com.
