Harvard Student Agencies to Relaunch ‘Let’s Go’ Travel Guide

Let’s Go, a travel guide produced by student members of Harvard Student Agencies, will relaunch following four years of dormancy with a new plan to pay students to post about their travels on social media.

While the business will operate under the Let’s Go brand, it will no longer include printed travel books, aiming instead to brand employed students as online travel influencers.

Initially founded in 1959 as a one-page pamphlet, Let’s Go quickly evolved into a recognizable name, appearing in prominent TV shows like Seinfeld and The Daily Show and on the cover of the Economist in 2003. During the Covid-19 pandemic, however, HSA announced that their 2020 edition would be the company’s last.

For each annual Let’s Go issue, HSA hired several students to travel to popular tourist destinations, write about their experiences, and recommend sites to other young travelers.

While the revival has not been publicly announced, HSA President Juliet R. Fitzgerald ’25 said in an interview with The Crimson that the group plans to employ students for a Summer 2025 trip. They have not decided which country to feature.

“Full transparency, Let’s Go did not have a team until a month ago,” Fitzgerald said.

“We know that it’s going to be implemented in some form,” she added. “We’re not ready to send out an email to the entire Harvard population being like, ‘Come try out to be a Let’s Go writer.’”

The organization plans to bring back what was, in the past, one of the organization’s most lucrative businesses — and what previous HSA President Christopher T. Doyle ’25 called “the coolest job on campus.”

“Let’s Go was the biggest money maker for a long time,” Doyle said. “If you were studying abroad, you bought a Let’s Go book.”

But, according to Doyle, the motivation for restarting the program is not financially driven.

“We’re actually probably going to lose money on the business for the foreseeable future by reopening it,” Doyle said. “Honestly, we’d prefer to lose money if we’re able to offer a rewarding experience to students.”

Doyle added that recent business successes have given HSA more room to experiment.

“Over the past few years, we’ve actually become a good bit profitable just because of how well The Harvard Shop and Trademark Tours have done,” he said. “We’re actually at an amazing point right now where we can afford to lose money.”

Fitzgerald said the transition to social media meets the market for travel advice where it is.

“People are not necessarily buying travel books anymore, but obviously there’s still a need for budget travel content, particularly I think among college students,” Fitzgerald said.

“There are people who become millionaires by being on Tiktok,” she added. “It is time that we start seeing social media creation as an extremely valuable business opportunity for students to gain.”

Megan E. Galbreath ’20, who worked for Let’s Go during summer 2019, applauded the company’s digital shift.

“I honestly think it’s a great move,” Galbreath said. “Digital presence is something that is much more effective as you think about communicating out to the public and to students.”

She encouraged students interested in participating in Let’s Go to apply when the program is officially launched.

“Absolutely do it,” Galbreath said. “When I was selected, I knew it was going to be a once in a lifetime opportunity.

—Staff writer Hiral M. Chavre can be reached at hiral.chavre@thecrimson.com.

—Staff writer Samuel A. Church can be reached at samuel.church@thecrimson.com. Follow him on X @samuelachurch.