Jaunted

Travel Media / Blogs / Bon Voyage / Victor Ozols / → All Tags

Such Sweet Sorrow: Farewell From Your Weekend Editor

Back in June, 2008, I was a correspondent for a blog called Gridskipper, a snarky travel site run by Gawker Media. Gridskipper wasn't hitting its numbers, so Gawker sold it to the Curbed Network, which relaunched it as a luxury travel site. I don't blame them for trying something new, but I didn't love the direction it was going, so I decided to jump ship. I got in touch with the editors at Jaunted, Gridskipper's longtime competitor, or, as I often described it, the Pepsi to Gridskipper's Coke. Jaunted was good enough to take me on as a weekend editor, and I spent the next 18 months posting 363 entries (now 364) on topics as varied as the vagaries of TSA I.D. requirements and the vacation habits of my Russian barber, Oksana.

more ›

National Geographic / National Geographic Adventure / Travel Magazines / Travel Media / Adventure Travel / → All Tags

The Adventure Comes to an End as National Geographic Folds Outdoorsy Spinoff

National Geographic Adventure magazine has published its last issue, bowing to competitive pressures that have shuttered dozens of magazines in 2009. According to news reports, they tried to sell the title, but wouldn't part with the National Geographic part of the name, and nobody wanted to buy a magazine simply called Adventure.

more ›

Travel Magazines / Budget Travel / Arthur Frommer / Travel Media / → All Tags

What Is Going On At Budget Travel Magazine?

After the recent chopping of magazines like Gourmet, it's safe to say that print media is beyond shaking in their boots; they're already cleaning out desks. The latest magazine closure scare came at Budget Travel, formerly under Arthur Frommer's wing but now controlled by the Washington Post Co.

On Friday, rumors began that the magazine would announce its closure on Monday (today). NY Mag reached Editor-In-Chief Nina Willdorf for comments only to receive a cryptic "heading out town"-type response.

Instead of closing today, it was only reported that "it's business as usual," but execs did hold a meeting to discuss the future of the magazine. Although it looks like no one lost their jobs today, employees in ad sales were told to hold on the February issues. Will the scythe of death fall on Budget Travel in January 2010, or—even worse—around the holidays? Rest assured that we'll continue to follow this story.

Related Stories:
· Magazine Deathwatch: Budget Travel [Mediabistro]
· Budget Travel Shuttering? [NYMag]
· Travel Magazines [Jaunted]

[Photo: Kenn Wilson]

Tourism Boards / Tourism Board Travel / Travel Media / Hawaii Travel / Tourism Advertising / → All Tags

As If We Didn't Already Know: Vacations Make People Happier, More Productive

Every few months another one of these "vacation deprivation" studies comes out and promptly gets picked up as Science! by the same tourism boards that commissioned it. The term seems to go back to a contest for free hotel rooms that Hyatt ran in the mid-1990s, and it's been circulating as this kind of pseudo-scientific fake medical term ever since.

The latest version puts everything in terms of economic productivity, because that's what people care about right now. If people cared about something else, that's what vacations would be good for. And so, we are stuck with this drivel:

more ›

In-Flight Magazines / Magazines / Travel Media / Airlines / American Airlines / → All Tags

Air France Magazine: Like U.S. In-Flights, Only Fatter and More Artsy

We recently flew Air France between Dulles and Charles de Gaulle, giving me the chance to pore through one more in-flight magazine, the aptly-named Air France Magazine. As it turns out, Air France Magazine is a lot like an American in-flight, only fatter. It's fatter, of course, because every article is published in both French and English, a polite gesture to passengers such as me. But other than that, it seems to cater to the same demographic, rich (or aspirational) travelers obsessed with health, beauty, and duty-free items.

more ›

Magazines / Travel Media / Travel News / AFAR Magazine / → All Tags

New 'AFAR' Travel Magazine Promises More Than The Expected

One can never have too many travel magazines; after all, we need something to read while we’re flying to our destination—you know, after the iPhone battery dies. Launching later this month is AFAR, a magazine focused on places and people off the beaten path. The founders are hoping to bring cultural connections and new experiences to the masses, but we’ll have to wait for their inaugural issue to see if they deliver.

They’ll be all about experiential travel at AFAR, and their team will look to hit the Internet in 2010, assuming the magazine hits the newsstand running. Some of their upcoming regular features include: The A(FAR) List, which will reveal destinations around the world that are a little less common than the local state fair, and Spin the Globe, featuring a writer's musings after she's been randomly sent to a location—sounds like something we'd read for sure.

more ›

Beach Travel / Travel Media / Massachusetts Travel / → All Tags

Whatever, Germany: The USA Has A Singing Beach Too

Time to withdraw that application for the modern wonders of the world: The New York Times fawned over the German island of Usedom and its harmonious beaches without ever making the (comparatively short) trip to the singing beach in its backyard—er, in Massachusetts.

The classily-named town of Manchester-by-the-Sea, about an hour out of Boston's North Station, boasts a singing beach of its own not half a mile from the commuter rail stop. The low price of $5 gets you a full day of soft white sand which, if you strain your ears, appears to make a slight squeaking noise when you step on it. It's BYO spa gear, but you have very little chance of running into a dude with gray chest hair boasting of how the mineral waters aid his digestive tract, so it's a split decision.

Manchester's an easy day trip from Boston, especially when compared to the further enticements of the Cape, Newport or Block Island. There are a few things the American singing beach lacks, notably Roman Polanski and nudity, but why not leave those to the Europeans anyway, since both are potentially hazardous?

Related Stories:
· The NYT Visits Germany's "Singing" Sand Nude Beaches [Jaunted]
· Welcome to the Singing Beach [Manchester.MA.US]

[Photo: conbon]

Staycations / Staycation Travel / Travel Media / Trends / → All Tags

Travel Writers Desperate for New Buzzwords as Staycation Meme Rages

Back in March, we marveled at the sudden ubiquity of the term staycation in the travel media, charting the trajectory from its 2003 birth in the pages of the Myrtle Beach Sun-News to a staggering 242 mentions in newspapers and websites that month. At the time, I assumed that the market was saturated with staycation stories and they'd soon begin to peter out, but I was dead wrong. Google News has 1,078 mentions of the grating portmanteau for the month of May, more than four times the number for March.

more ›

What We're Reading / In-Flight Magazines / Magazines / Travel Media / Airlines / United / Delta / → All Tags

Hemispheres Sticks to the Classics, Sky Gets Busy

Airlines have cut out just about every perk imaginable, but for now, you'll still find an in-flight magazine in the seat pocket in front of you, tucked between the barf bag and SkyMall catalog. As a service to those readers who choose airlines based on the quality of their in-flight magazines, Jaunted is publishing a series that takes a look at the flagship magazines from airlines big and small. In the fourth installment, Victor Ozols notices a sharp difference in style between United's Hemispheres and Delta's Sky.

I've recently had the good fortune to get my hands on the April, 2009 issues of both United's Hemispheres magazine and Delta's Sky magazine, and a casual comparison reveals some sharp differences in editorial philosophy. One represents a traditional approach to in-flight reading, while the other seems determined to provide a digital experience in a paper format.

more ›

Surf Schools / Surfing / Travel Media / → All Tags

Can 'Anyone' Really Learn to Surf?

Dream a little dream for us: In this weekend's New York Times travel section, rock'n'roll saves an industrial casualty, the Rat Pack lives and anyone can surf. Hey, it's nice to escape every once in a while, but why not stick to places that exist beyond the pages of the Gray Lady?

We're not saying the writers involved didn't do their due diligence in finding a silver lining to every cloud. Detroit's music scene as chronicled by Micheline Maynard presents as one very much alive, albeit through the IV of bored teenagers and repeated shocks administered by the Pussycat Dolls.

Atlantic City may yet rise above the ashes to become a rival to Vegas, although the existence of Amtrak's service alone doesn't have much to do with it, nor is Steven Kurutz's review of same particularly inspired. ("I sat behind two mustached men"; good for you!)

more ›

Staycations / Staycation Travel / Travel Media / Trends / → All Tags

Staycation Story Trend Saves Travel Journalism

There's nothing like a funny-sounding buzzword to launch a library's worth of stories in the travel media. Such is the case with staycation, a portmanteau that describes a vacation spent at or close to one's home, exploring local attractions and festivals. Just about every major media outlet has made the staycation a central theme of their recession 2008-2009 travel coverage, providing a treasure trove of previously-covered story ideas that need only to be repackaged and repurposed for a local audience ("Staycation in Cleveland," "Staycation in Schenectady," etc.). I don't doubt the staycation trend is real, but I find it funny just how much the term seems to have stimulated coverage of a phenomena that probably goes back to the Great Depression and beyond, namely, when people have less money, they cut back on leisure travel.

more ›

Coincidences / Travel Media / Blogs / Jauntsetter / → All Tags

Hey Look, There's a New Travel Site Called Jaunt ... Wait, WTF?

They say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, so maybe we here at Jaunted, a website about travel, should be thrilled that former Google employee Dorothy McGivney has given the name Jauntsetter to her own website about travel. Hey, it's not the same exact word, it just takes the root of our name and adds a different ending. In fact, when she thought of her site's name, she probably didn't even know we existed, because if you're launching a travel site, the last thing you would want to do is look at the travel sites that are already out there. Totally cool, right?

more ›