In 1973, a 31-year-old Hilary Bradt went trekking in Peru and Bolivia. She travelled light, so light that she didn’t have a tent or a sleeping bag. Instead, she and her then-husband George took refuge in shepherd’s huts along the way, or tied hammocks between trees.
For three months they crossed the Cordillera Blanca, trekked the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu – they were among the first modern-day pilgrims to do so – and crunched along farmers’ paths through the mountains of Bolivia. Since there were no maps or guidebooks, they relied on local information to find their way. Indeed the sight of tourists was so unusual that some villagers screamed in terror at the vision of these “gringos” and hurried inside their huts to protect their children.
On a three-day river barge trip in Bolivia, Hilary and George wrote up detailed descriptions of these three treks, plus other day walks. They drew maps and Hilary did the illustrations. Later, back in the US where Hilary lived with George (a Bostonian), they printed 2,000 copies of the pamphlet on yellow paper. In 1974, Backpacking Along Ancient Ways in Peru and Bolivia was published with a price tag of $1.95. Bradt Guides was born.
“We took it to a London publisher and said: ‘Look, we’ve got this wonderful book, would you publish it?’ and they said: ‘No. It’s not going to make any money’,” Hilary recalls. The London publisher asked if they could write a mainstream guidebook on Peru instead. When George said they couldn’t afford to fly back out to do the research, the publisher suggested they take the information from tourist brochures. This, of course, was not their style.
“That was a pivotal moment,” says Hilary. “If this is publishing, we thought, we’ll do it ourselves.”
I meet Hilary in the lounge at London’s lavish Goring hotel. She is wearing jeans and has a half-open rucksack by her side, while bow-tied waiters float about and suited businessmen take calls. Hilary says that she was worried that the doormen would refuse her entry because of her jeans, like a backpacker who has ended up in a posh hotel in which backpackers do not belong.