Lonely Planet editor tours Atlantic City using Monopoly board as his guide

Can you tour Atlantic City using a Monopoly board?

ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. — A Lonely Planet editor came up with an unusual substitute for a guidebook to Atlantic City: He found his way around town using a Monopoly board.

The guidebook publisher’s U.S. travel editor Robert Reid made an amusing video of his effort to use Monopoly as his guide, walking around town carrying a game board and the property cards bearing familiar street names.

Standing on St. James Place with the corresponding card, he said, “A lot of people don’t realize that the places — Oriental Avenue, Ventnor Avenue, St. Charles Place, Park Place and this, St. James Place, are real and they can be visited here in Atlantic City.”

He then walked into a small hotel, the Inn of the Irish Pub, and told the man at the desk that according to his Monopoly card, he could buy the hotel for $100 plus four houses.

“We would never sell this hotel,” responded Frank Pileggi, but he later accepted $30 in Monopoly money to pay for Reid’s night at the inn.

In addition to visiting various streets, Reid’s tour included a stop at the city water tower with the “Water Works” utility card in hand, and a shot of an Atlantic City police car to correspond to the “Go to Jail” card.

The video can be seen on the LonelyPlanet.com blog at bit.ly/a5CrcD.