Travel Magazines For Real People

Tired of the uber-glossy, four figure, shrink-wrapped vacations touted in Travel + Leisure, et. al.?

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Via Smarter Traveler’s Ed Perkins:

Do you sometimes feel that most of the travel information you see is aimed at someone who has three times as much free time as you and five times the money? Certainly today’s slick travel magazines aim primarily at travelers at or near the very top of the income scale, and little of what you see there is useful to you and other real-world travelers.

Those slick travel magazines also tend to zero in on remote, exotic, and (especially) photogenic destinations. Elephant rides in Sri Lanka. Dream vacations on a private island somewhere in the Indian Ocean. No matter that real world travelers flock to Las Vegas, Orlando, New York, London, and Paris, those offbeat spots take great photos. It seems to me that at least one big magazine features hot-air ballooning in New Mexico every year””not because many of us are actually interested, but because pictures of colorful balloons make a great cover.

The remedy: check out Tim Leffel’s list of travel publications for real people.

Founding Editor

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