A Guide to the Unique and Unusual Destinations - National Geographic Traveler
Written: Jan 06 '04 (Updated Jan 30 '04)
Product Rating:
Pros: Not a typical travel magazine, chronicles destinations off the beaten path, timely and helpful information
Cons: I want more issues!
The Bottom Line: Going beyond the glitz and glamour or the typical touristy destination and instead exploring the interesting and varied world that we live in, National Geographic Traveler is unique and helpful
jps246's Full Review: National Geographic Traveler Magazine Subscription
Filled with the photography and writing that you would expect with the National Geographic name, National Geographic Traveler is a useful and interesting travel magazine for those of us looking for trips that may be a bit more “off the beaten path” than most of the masses take.
Details
Published 8 times a year by the National Geographic Society with a subscription going for $14.95, National Geographic Traveler (NGT) is, according to the magazine, the World’s most widely read travel magazine. If you are picking it up on the newsstand, a single issue will cost you $4.95.
Filled with both feature articles on various travel destinations and helpful travel advice, NGT is an engaging read from cover to cover and helps anyone interested in both exotic and mundane vacations figure out where to go and how to do it.
Consisting of the Features section and the Departments section, NGT combines the best of both worlds. The Features section includes the full-length articles on various travel destinations, along with stories on other travel related topics. The Departments section includes more travel information, along with tips, hints and news about the travel world.
In the January/February 2004 issue, the features include a story on Bermuda, photo essays on several different locations (this is their annual photo issue – so the various locations: Alaska, Scotland, Burma, Iceland and the Aeolian Islands – are reviewed in both photographs and stories from the photographers themselves). The issue also includes a story on why travel photographers should go digital and a review of NGT’s 15th annual photo contest winners.
The end of Features includes a handy section called “TravelWise” where the destinations in each feature article are detailed for the reader to get information on how to get there, where to stay and what to do.
The Departments section is made up of various smaller sections that include: Smart Traveler, On the Road, Real Travel and Trips.
Smart Traveler claims that it includes “travel tactics for a changing world,” and includes short news stories and travel tactics for travelers. Issues like airline award tickets, good places to eat in various cities, changing environmental attitudes at hotels and destinations travelers are going to are just a few of the things that are brought up in an average issue.
On the Road is “in search of the authentic” and chronicles a road adventure each issue. In the current issue a trip to Mardi Gras is detailed along with a trip through Cajun country and the adventures that were found on the way to New Orleans.
Real Travel shows you “how to be a traveler, and not a tourist” with stories on how to avoid the pitfalls of being a tourist and how to really experience the destinations that you are visiting. This issue covers the rise of internet cafes in various locales and how they are becoming the next-generation’s café society.
And finally Trips includes “great getaways and discoveries” for the reader and consists of a collection of locations and getaways that the average person may not think of for a vacation or travel destination. A calendar of events at various destinations throughout the world is generally included for the next two months time in each issue. The rest of trips is made up of travel information and ideas for various locations.
The rest of each issue is made up of a few other sections that includes the Editor’s column and a “letters to the Editor” section.
Like any magazine, NGT contains its fair share of advertisements, but in general, they are mild compared to other travel magazines. Out of an average of a hundred or so pages in an issue, maybe a quarter to a third of the magazine is advertisements, the remainder is dedicated to the meat of the magazine.
Who Wants This?
Tired of travel magazines that pander to the rich and famous or focus solely on destinations that everyone has already gone to? NGT is a welcome change for the reader who is interested in various destinations that may be just a bit more off the beaten path than the average travel might be used to.
Interesting and engaging and true to the National Geographic tradition of great photography and writing, National Geographic Traveler is a welcome delivery and helps me come up with travel ideas that are different from everyone else’s.
So if you are looking for a travel magazine that goes beyond glitz and glamour or the typical touristy destination and instead explores the interesting and varied world that we live in, National Geographic Traveler is the travel magazine for you.
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