Where’s the Love for Travel Magazines?

Travel Blog • David Farley • 06.28.07 | 8:05 AM ET

The Chicago Tribune’s annual list of 50 favorite magazines recently came out, this year categorized by genre. The best travel magazines, according to the paper: National Geographic and Southwest’s in-flight zine Spirit. The editors remarked the former ran stories that were both “thought provoking” and “important,” and the latter published pieces that were “well thought out.” Congratulations to them, but did the Chi Trib give travel mags a raw deal? Did it overlook the oft-admirable prose in Outside and National Geographic Traveler? Or the useful info published every month in Arthur Frommer’s Budget Travel? Or is the absence of other travel magazines a comment about the current state of service-oriented travel journalism and travel publishing, which at times seems overwhelmed by a need to cover “hot” destinations that might appeal to the vapid hotel heiresses of the world and recommending hotels that only travelers in higher tax brackets can afford?