Jeff Kraft

What makes LitLifeFrance different from other types of travel? Simple. We take time and get to know each other before we leave.

In addition to our shared appreciation for France, our traveling groups of six (seven counting me) meet online in mini-courses and share perspectives. We explore by reading, watching movies, and discussing experiences. Each traveler also shares a basic profile and can sign in to their travel group’s online spaces for meetups and further exchanges.

Why six? For starters, 6:1 is a great student-to-teacher ratio. In my experience, it’s an optimal group size for roaming narrow streets, dropping into small boutiques, restaurants and cafés (Two tables? Aucun problème!).

Just think back to your last overseas travel experience: How many people did you meet in your group before you left? Did you know who was meeting you ‘on the ground?’

Did you know much about the neighborhood you’d be staying in before you arrived? Where the bus and subway stops were, which days the farmers market was held, the local bakery with the best bread, the hip bar, the nearest pharmacy or jogging path or yoga studio, current art shows and performances going on? LitLifeFrance helps you immerse, while still allowing for plenty of spontaneous discovery – one of the great joys of authentic travel.

Sometimes you have to stop and admire artistry and simplicity. I took this photo last October while staying with lifelong French friends in their Saint-Germain apartment. Olivier plucked these oysters from the farmers market then shucked ‘em. Effortlessly. And I ate them. Effortlessly.

Paris, 1927: Berenice Abbott, a twentysomething Ohio-born art student, was working as an assistant to famed photographer Man Ray when she met an old man doing the rounds of studios to sell his photographs of old-time Paris. She admired the poetry of his solitary cityscapes and convinced him to sit for a portrait session. A few months later, she went to deliver them only to discover that Eugène Atget had died, penniless and unknown. Abbott bought all the negatives and photographs she could afford from his executor, then wrote and published a monograph praising his artistry. Atget became a legend, and she went on to a long life and brilliant career as a photographer.

Study abroad has long ranked first or second among students when they seek a college of choice.

Interestingly, very few participate.

That’s because traditional study abroad experiences are judged by undergrads as either too long (a full semester or academic year?) or too lonely (go by myself? not speaking the language well?). Or both.

Dominican University, where I work, was one of the first colleges in the nation to offer study abroad back in the 1920s. In recent years, it’s been a struggle to maintain those programs, but there’s been progress. Now they’re shorter in duration and more oriented to providing a cultural vs. a language-immersion experience. And much more popular!

Five years ago I designed a short-term study abroad program in France: 7 days in Paris, between fall and spring semester (in January), open to a small cohort with an interest in France – not just French majors. At Dominican, we also had interested international business, pre-med and fashion majors.

There were a few advance prep sessions and a reading list assigned prior to departure, plus a final paper to be submitted before spring break. The on-the-ground itinerary involved mainstream and offbeat cultural attractions: a great blend of culture, history and fun while living in a residential hotel. All on a budget that was as affordable as Paris could be for a student.

Then came the pandemic and the canceling of everything abroad. For several years.

Yet my concept wouldn’t die; it stayed with me. So I’ve retooled it for adults who enjoy lifelong learning. Who want to immerse themselves in a place for a full week. Who may never have enjoyed a study abroad experience.

That’s the origin of LitLifeFrance.com. Also don’t worry: there are no grades! Like all the best experiences, you’ll take from it what you put into it.

Writing a book is truly a labor of love, because the journey to publication is a rocky road that takes years.

In looking back on how my first – and so far, only – book came to be purchased, published and promoted by Watson-Guptill of New York, I have only gratitude for everyone who helped me along the way.

The book concept remains simple: a collection of my black-and-white photographs of Paris paired with quotations of famous authors who loved the city. It was to be promoted as an “evergreen” gift book for Francophiles. And that’s what eventually happened.

It took three years.

It began as series of happy accidents when an interior design friend first asked me to enlarge some of my photographs for one of his clients. He promptly sold them and told me I should do a book. (I laughed; he was serious.) I mentioned the idea to a neighbor; his ex-aunt happened to be a literary agent. My wife, a graphic designer, helped me format a book proposal. And suddenly, during a business trip, I was in a midtown Manhattan office pitching the concept to Claudia and Richard, two hard-boiled New Yorkers who agreed to take it on even though I wasn’t either a famous or a dead photographer.

One year later, I got the call: Watson-Guptill bought the book. I’d be receiving a small advance. That’s when the real work started, because a proposal is not a finished work. Not by a long shot!

1. Select 50+ of my photos from 15 years of negatives. Travel to Paris when I realized I needed to take more photos.
2. Source 50+ quotations related to Paris. Include a few American writers among all the classic French authors.
3. Translate all the French-language excerpts into English.
4. Group photos by themes to guide the reader and write introductory essays for each theme.
5. Finally (oy!), negotiate and pay all the permissions and international copyrights for every writer whose work was under copyright.

In that earliest Internet era, this all required another year of intense, library-based research (in downtown Chicago’s Harold Washington Library), plus much back and forth with editors while I worked full-time and helped Frances raise our two girls. Then almost another year went by owing to production and marketing considerations: final book design, printing in Italy, and migrating from hardcover to paperback to meet the desired gift book pricing.

Yet it’s quite something when a box finally arrives and inside you slim, perfect volume distilling your love for a place. Yes, it was worth it. For several years after its 1999 publication, it was a heady, scavenger-hunt-like experience to find my book in most bookstores. (I had a moment and almost had to sit down when I found a copy for sale in the boutique at the Musée Carnavalet, dedicated to the history of the city of Paris.)

If you take time to look through this book, please ask me anything. Every photo takes me back to a time and a place. And I remember the moment.

I‘m not sure how my love of all things French began.

I do know when it started. I was 10. Mom asked what I wanted for my birthday and out of nowhere I replied, “A book of French literature.” She wasn’t expecting that, but did her best.

She wound up buying me a pocket French dictionary. Not bad for pre-Amazon times, in my tiny downstate Illinois hometown of Chebanse.

But how? I must assign some credit to Mrs. Dovenspike, my grey-haired, cats-eye-bespectacled, fourth-grade teacher. I usually finished my classwork early. To keep idle 10-year-old hands and minds occupied, she forced us to read whichever volumes of the World Book encyclopedia were available on a big empty table at the back of the room.

One fateful day I picked up the L volume, thumbed through until I got to “Louis,” and started reading. I recall being fascinated that so many men with the same name had been the kings of France. For hundreds of years. And they were all from the same family!

Then I noted that most of them had married women named “Marie.” (Cue the M volume.)

Then F. (For France.)

I was hooked.

Fast forward to today.

I’m shaping this lifelong obsession into a new concept: building a lifestyle community for people with a similar curiosity about France.

This LitLife website and blog opens the doors to deeper understanding of French by sharing literature, history and practical insights as a fun series of posts and online courses. In the courses, we take time to get to know each other, just like you did in a classroom. Then once you’re ready, it would be my honor to serve as your on-the-ground, go-to guide. You’ll meet me – and the rest of a small group of no more than six people – for a one-week travel experience in Paris and France.

Here’s how the travel part works.

1. I pick travel dates, a Paris base neighborhood where everyone will stay, and set an overall itinerary based on what will be happening in the city in the season we go.

2. You book your flights and accommodations. Then you participate in more fun reading and online discussions as part of ‘mini-courses’ adapted from the French culture and language classes I teach college students. You’ll also want to condition yourself for a fair amount of walking: up to 20,000 steps some days.

3. After getting to know each other online, we meet up in person in the City of Light for a week of exploring aspects of and living in this fascinating city. Not the typical tour stops. Not in an exhausting way. Think garden walks, flea markets, hidden alleys, great meals, insider shopping, nights at the theatre. Taking buses and subways like locals. Plus time on your own to explore, work out, sleep in, sip, savor.

It’ll be inspiring and illuminating. Not perfect, of course: half the fun in immersive, authentic travel are a few happy accidents! Not professorial: sharing insights is very different from lecturing. Not part of a crowd: each travel ‘cohort’ will be no larger than 6 people. Otherwise, it’s a tour. It’s hard to navigate narrow streets and sudden departures. Plus I’d have to carry a flag. (But I’ll be happy to wear a uniquely colored baseball hat so you can find me at a park exit.)

Of course, if you’re reading this, chances are you have been to or through Paris at least once. Here at LitLife, I’ll help you feel that you’re in and part of Paris, where all things French come to life. It brings me full circle, too, back to that sense of wonder I experienced reading about kingdoms and revolutions in Mrs. Dovenspike’s classroom.