Diving and Travel in the USA and Beyond
Written: May 06 '07
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Some excellent photography; Travel articles
Cons: Too many ads; Some departments too short
The Bottom Line: This is a good magazine but they need to do something about the number and placement of ads.
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| Bryan_Carey's Full Review: Rodale's Scuba Diving Magazine |
Travel- related magazines rank with financial magazines as my favorite genre and I often will read them even when the main subject is not something I am directly interested in. One magazine that offers a main subject that isn’t necessarily of interest but it still focused on travel is Scuba Diving, a magazine about excursions under the sea.
Basic Contents of This Magazine:
Scuba Diving contains about 100 to 120 pages in each issue with the following departments:
Great Dives- This is a monthly recommendation of “must dive” sites in the United States and around the world.
Currents- This is a current event section that includes the latest news relating to water and/or the sport of diving.
Travel- This department highlights some good places for traveling and taking a dive.
Training- Instructions on the use of scuba gear, photographing the underwater world, and tips on eliminating common problems are the subjects of this department.
Look- The final page of each issue, this is a full page photograph taken from the depths of the ocean.
These departments make up a small portion of each issue. The remainder is made up of three or four longer featured articles of the month along with numerous advertisements.
Cost to Subscribe:
Scuba Diving sells for a standard subscription price of about $19 for 11 issues (one year). This makes each issue cost about $1.73, which is a savings of 57 percent off the newsstand price. If you search the web, you can find some sites selling it for a few dollars less per year, but the prices are very similar from one web service to the next.
Magazine Website/Customer Service:
Finding this magazine’s web page on the world wide web is as simple as typing scubadiving.com into your web browser. The web site will give you a sneak preview of the type of material you can expect to find in each issue. Customer service can be reached by sending an e-mail or by calling 800-666-0016.
Final Thoughts:
Scuba Diving is a sporting/travel magazine written mainly for those who enjoy the recreational sport of scuba diving. This magazine takes you to the best diving spots, introduces you to the best scuba gear, and offers instructional advice and tips to make the sport more enjoyable.
This magazine is, first and foremost, a publication for divers. Readers can read about flashlights, underwater watches, fins, water suits, tanks, regulators, and other gear used by divers. There is also much information to be shared about photography, dealing with the risks naturally present when under the sea, and learning the proper way to use different types of equipment.
Scuba Diving is not an activity I partake in and I can recall only one time when I attached an oxygen tank to my back and viewed the world under water. So, it would seem like I would be a poor spokesman for a magazine on scuba diving. But that isn’t the case, for Scuba Diving Magazine is also a publication about general travel. Several of the features and departments, in fact, are dedicated to basic travel and cruising and these articles can be enjoyed by anyone. Yes, they usually point out good places to dive but they also include general travel information on what to see when above sea level.
Another useful part of Scuba Diving is the Currents section. What I like about this department is that it includes information on current events as they relate to the water. One month might include information on an endangered species, another month might offer an educational piece on beach erosion. Again, these types of articles can be enjoyed by anyone and the only thing I can find wrong with Currents is that it isn’t longer. It barely gets warmed up before it comes to an end.
If you don’t like advertisements, then you may get very frustrated with Scuba Diving because ads are found on about sixty percent of the pages. They are all related to travel and scuba products and for those who like to dive, there are some good products to be found here complete with web sites and phone numbers for making a purchase. But sixty percent is a high level for advertising and it does interfere with some of the articles.
Overall, I find Scuba Diving to be a good magazine with plenty of colorful photos of undersea plant and animal life, good advice on diving, and some fun adventure travel to coastlines around the world. It is intended mostly for divers, but it does have some general articles that any travel junkie can enjoy.
Recommended:
No
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