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About Vegetarian GuidesWhy Veggie Guides?Vegetarianism is growing explosively. Veganism is growing even faster within vegetarianism. The veggie market is bigger than the gay market, yet hardly addressed at all by the media and travel guides beyond a few token listings. We decided to do something about this. How We StartedAfter working for a major travel publisher in the eighties, Alex Bourke set up Vegetarian Guides to map the world for vegetarians and vegans. His aim was to make it easy for vegetarians and vegans to eat anywhere in the world. Since 1991 he's travelled widely on five continents, working with veggie and vegan groups in each country to create an unrivalled research network. Vegetarian Guides publications include London (five editions), Europe, France and the latest third edition of Vegetarian Britain. Vegetarian Guides also buys in great veggie travel guides from other publishers to sell mail order. Current titles include New York, Italy, Spain, Israel and North America. The Veggie Guides approachWe are building a comprehensive series of guides for vegetarians, in partnership with the people best placed to research them, the coordinators of local and national vegetarian organisations in each country. They ensure that our books remain up to date and comprehensive. We tell you where to eat out, shop and sleep, whether you're a resident or a traveller. We don't do inane reviews of a single dish on a long menu. Instead we list the most enticing vegan dishes with prices, and get as much info as we can from local veggies who eat there all the time. We don't judge. If a place isn't up to standard we leave it out. We figure if it's still open many people like it, so we give enough info for students to select the cheapest, couples to spot the ones with candles, and business travellers to know where to go to impress. Of course if a place delights everyone we might rave about it. The FutureWe have drafts of guides to Australia, Asia, Latin America, Scandinavia, Germany (with Austria and Switzerland), Poland and Benelux. We want to get all these published as soon as possible. You can help us to get there more quickly by spreading the word about Veggie Guides to your friends and recommending us to your local bookshop and library. When there's a veggie guide to every city and country, it will be easy for everyone in the world to eat veggie. And that's our long term aim. Happy travels! About The Editors
Alex Bourke went vegetarian at fourteen and didn't meet another for five years. Having been the software guy at a guidebook company in the eighties, he spent two years doing time in France, and a year as Campaigns Coordinator at Viva! All these experiences came together in the co-production of Vegetarian Britain, Vegetaran France, Vegetarian Europe and four editions of Vegetarian London. Australian born Katrina Holland became vegan at the age of seventeen without having ever met another vegan. A couple of years later she started a vegan social group and newsletter. At the age of twenty-one she moved to England. She has travelled extensively around Western Europe, Turkey and several other countries and she wrote three sections of Vegetarian Europe. Alex and Katrina contribute travel articles to magazines and write a monthly page for the American newspaper VegNews. They have helped countless journalists and researchers, and appeared on radio and tv in several countries. Alex and Katrina are aided by 27 bilingual vegan correspondents throughout Europe, plus hundreds of local contacts and readers worldwide. |