R.I.P. Transitions Abroad (Print Edition)
Travel Blog • Jim Benning • 01.16.08 | 3:55 PM ET
Sad news from the world of independent travel publishing: Transitions Abroad, the magazine that has promoted independent and responsible travel for 30 years, will no longer be published in printed form. The January/February issue is the last. Transitions Abroad contributor Kelly Amabile noted the decision on her Web site, and today, I dialed up outgoing editor Sherry Schwarz to ask her about it. “I’m very saddened by it,” she said. “It feels like the end of an era.” Schwarz said the death of founder and publisher Clay Hubbs last year contributed to the Hubbs family’s decision, but that the move was also based on publishing economics.
“These are challenging times for the print industry,” she said, “and this is part and parcel of that.”
The good news is that Transitions Abroad’s print legacy—which naturally includes Hubbs’s broad view of travel—will live on. TransitionsAbroad.com will continue to publish original material from the magazine’s contributors and columnists.
“I would have loved to see Clay’s print magazine continue, but the community that he envisioned and the type of travel that he pioneered—educational and responsible travel—will still have a chance to grow,” she said. “The magazine was highly influential. In a way it did its job in helping to shape U.S. perspectives beyond tourism. And now, it’s giong to have a chance to reach new audiences online and to develop further. It’s just evolving to a new platform.”
Schwarz said she’d been planning to leave the magazine to devote herself to the non-profit foundation she directs, Abroad View, which publishes a global education magazine for college and university students studying overseas.
It is the end of an era. All the best to Gregory Hubbs and those working online to carry on Clay Hubbs’s legacy.
Related on World Hum:
* Q&A with Gregory Hubbs: Remembering Transitions Abroad Founder Clay Hubbs
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Jim Benning is the editor and co-founder of World Hum.
Gregory Hubbs 01.16.08 | 7:20 PM ET
Thanks for the kind words Jim.
And great thanks and appreciation goes out to Sherry Schwarz, who not only extended the life of the magazine from its near-retirement with my father in 2004, but managed to improve it immensely in the process.
Finally, thank you to all the contributors and contributing editors who allowed the magazine to defy the odds for 30+ years. We hope to continue to work with them and others in the future.
I promised my father that I would continue his work and he was very enthusiastic to see a Web version which would allow years of work to be organized for a larger audience. We will be launching version 2.0 of the website in March and hope to provide far more material, much better organization, and possibly an interactive community built on that foundation.
After all, the magazine was designed to be an educational travel resource for independent travelers in 1977… Now we have all the tools my father did not have at his disposal and an audience of almost 5 million worldwide. I have no excuse not to make this ever more useful for others and hopefully for the very hip and sophisticated community which is Worldhum.
placeswegopeoplewesee 01.17.08 | 9:34 AM ET
I spent a day with Transitions print editor Sherry Schwarz in 2006 for a Boston Globe article and found her to be an exceptional young woman—dedicated to her readers and to responsible travel. I’m thrilled that Transitions will live on via the Internet and the wonderful Hubbs family, and that Sherry will continue to publish Abroad View, for high school and college exchange students. As I told Sherry, Transitions published my first travel article some 25 years ago. Yikes!! Long live Transitions!
Jim Benning 01.17.08 | 11:36 AM ET
I can’t wait to see version 2.0, Greg. That’s very exciting.
Long live Transitions, indeed.
Peggy Coonley 01.18.08 | 12:02 AM ET
I feel privileged to have my first travel article published in the last edition of Transitions Abroad. Sherry Schwartz even made it a feature bless her!“Dominica”.
I will look forward to the emergence of
Transitions Abroad new version of their
website.
For those of us who view travel as a tool for transformation Transitions Abroad has been a treasure. I will miss the magazine and am reminded that nothing good ever dies it just changes.
Photo to canvas 05.22.08 | 9:27 AM ET
It is such a shame, 30 years, will no longer be published in printed form, i hope there will be somebody to invest in this!
Environmental News Articles 09.23.08 | 10:29 AM ET
That’s a shame - I read it a few times on holiday years ago and it was a good read. I guess things change…