Do You Know The Way To San Jose?

There's precious little room in an airplane's overhead cargo bin, so you take care in packing your carry-on bag.

No room for a guidebook, apparently. Google is going to stop printing up the Frommer guides, and that after they spent $22 million to buy the franchise.

New editions are not in the works, and as anyone who has travelled is aware, there's nothing more useless than an outdated travel guide. Especially if you're in Europe, where the economic crisis has resulted in shortened hours of operation for museums and the demise of various restaurants.

So will Google just write off their investment in Frommer as a loss and move on?

Is Google Books going to pick up the slack?

Sure, a guidebook could be turned into an e-book, and the benefit there would be the ease of updating the information. The Roman Forum is closing for a strike on a Thursday? A few keystrokes and your online guide has the latest information.

But have you ever tried to use the Internet in Europe if you're traveling?

It isn't all that easy to access, and if you're in Italy, you have to register and sign on to an account so that the government can keep an eye on things.

Then there is the cost. Data charges are astronomical. If you're traveling on a budget, you'd be happy to give up cyberspace. If you need a map or an address, you would refer to your print edition of Frommer's.

Not any more.

Google is leaving the print market to other publishers. They may be giving up on that particular niche entirely. They may be anticipating a digital-only form for Frommer's.

But it's looking like Frommer's is going the way of Baedeker's. Then one day it will be a touchstone in a novel, some future work of fiction akin to Forster's A Room With A View.