Fifty years ago, only the rich vacationed in Europe. Then along came the guidebook "Europe on $5 a Day."

Traveling was changed forever.

"There had been guidebooks about traveling in Europe, but most of them followed the message that it was a once-in-a-lifetime experience, and that you should not go unless you had a lot of money," says Arthur Frommer, 78.

"They also had the point that Europe was still a war-torn country, and you had to go first class. I knew it was all nonsense."

It is hard to believe now, but in 1957 riding the London Underground was 1 1/2 cents. All over Europe, you could eat a meal for less than $1 and stay at a nice hotel for $3.

Frommer, an Army intelligence lawyer stationed in Berlin, found all these deals while spending his weekends wandering Europe with hardly a penny in his pocket. He found bargains never listed in other travel guides.

So he decided to write one, first for GIs, then for the public.

Instead of insisting on the snootiest hotels and restaurants, its goal was to tell travelers how to spend $5 or less on a hotel and three daily meals. They could do it by eating and sleeping like Europeans. His approach — now a template for virtually every travel guide written — was to include details, lots of details:

"Traveling within Venice is cheap — provided you stay away from gondolas. They cost as much as $3 an hour."

"Lunch at the National costs 70 cents for tomato juice, roast lamb with mint sauce, creamed carrots, Victoria pudding and coffee."

The book had no editor, publicist, legion of fact checkers or foot soldiers. It was just Frommer and his worn-out shoes.

After publishing a small version for GIs in Europe, Frommer returned to the States, finished writing the 110-page book, found a printer and ordered 5,000 copies. He hired a guy with a truck to distribute the books in the metro New York-New Jersey area.

It sold out the first afternoon.

Within a couple years, millions of Americans were headed for European vacations, inspired both by "Europe on $5 a Day" and the advent of trans-Atlantic jet service in 1958, which cut flight time in half.

"It was said at the time that one in 10 Americans going to Europe had a copy of the book in their hands," Frommer says. "It's sometimes credited with giving people the confidence to go."

Frommer now is semi-retired, though he still writes travel columns, and living in New York. His daughter, Pauline, launched her own imprint last year, "Pauline Frommer Guides," that takes over where the dollar books left off. They are written for budget-conscious adult travelers "who don't want to stay in hostels and eat ramen noodles but who still want to enjoy travel," she says.

Sadly, Arthur Frommer admits, there is no way to visit Europe on $5 a day anymore. That $3 hotel room now runs about $200. The 1 1/2-cent tube ride in London? As of this month, London Transport raised prices to create the most expensive public transport system in the world — $7.80 for a single ride (a 51,900 percent price increase over 1957 rates).

The only comparative bargain is airfare. It's less than double what it was 50 years ago.

The actual title "Europe on $5 a Day" lasted for seven years.

Frommer went back to Europe annually, updating the entire book himself each time.

"It was my baby," he says. "The first 25 to 30 editions were never written by anyone else."

In 1965, prices in Europe started rising. The title had to change.

"We had to change it to "Europe on $5 and $10 a Day," he says. "It was like someone had plunged a knife in my heart. I didn't think anyone would buy it."

But of course, they did, even when the theme changed to $25 a day, then $50 a day, and most recently 2004's "Europe From $85 a Day," which had 1,069 pages and 15 contributing writers.

Now the series has ended just before cracking the $100 ceiling.

"The idea of travel on $100 a day is so different from $5," says Michael Spring, publisher of Frommer's Travel Guides. "We decided it was time to end it."

Not to worry. Frommer's, now an imprint of Wiley Publishing, has 330 titles and sells about 25 percent of all travel books on the market. New in the line are MTV travel books, "day-by-day" full-color guides, and the Pauline Frommer guides.

But even 50 years later, the spirit of "Europe on $5 Day" lives.

Its vivid message? You, too, can travel, even if you're not rich.