Since 1992, Traveler Guitar has been the leading innovator in the design and manufacture of full-scale travel guitars being focused on providing high quality and compact solutions for mobile musicians. Their guitars have been travelling all over the world for more than 25 years - from a submarine deep in the Atlantic to the peak of Mt. Everest, as they say. From their original Pro-Series model to the cutting edge EG-1 Custom, to the revolutionary Traveler Acoustic Series.
Leon Cox installed the diaphragm of a stethoscope in the body of his first guitar. He also used old tuning machines from an acoustic guitar and wood which previously covered a bar top.
The brand produced and sold more than 85,000 instruments in 30 countries worldwide which appeared to be a nice surprise for Leon. The first Traveler Guitar was sold on July 23rd, 1993. More than three hundred of “The Traveler” guitars were produced during the next three years. In 1995, Corey Oliver who got attracted to the unique instruments suggested taking the entire inventory on a sales road trip. In two weeks the huge batch was all sold out.
They started with selling 100 guitars per month. They moved the business to a local industrial space and, over the next few years, the small crew of locals produced guitars as fast as they could. In 1998, the demand for Traveler Guitars was over the top – the company tried to cope with the production making more and more units.
Later Traveler Guitar’s manufacturing was offered to be moved to Fender’s prestigious Corona facility. Oliver turned his focus to sales and marketing and the brand began to grow making the demand outgrow Traveler’s production allotment in Corona by early 2001.
The Speedster model, which remains Traveler Guitar’s best-selling model of all time, came out after the success of the Pro-Series. In 2012, Speedster Hot Rod was introduced to commemorate the Speedster’s 10th anniversary.
Traveler Acoustic Series, the world’s first full-scale, compact hollow-body travel guitar, came out in 2013 and in 2015 V2 electronics package was released.
The travel guitar was transformed from a novelty into a real guitar category, remaining the industry’s premier manufacturer of full-scale travel guitars.