Travel Maven Blog ...... David Molyneaux posts from TheTravelMavens.com

National Geographic Adventure tops Lowell Thomas Awards

Houston, Texas

National Geographic Adventure magazine ran away with top honors today at the presentation of the 24th annual Lowell Thomas Travel Journalism Competition.

National Geographic Adventure is well-edited and well-researched, which impressed the judges, as the magazine gathered 10 awards, including Best Travel Magazine.

Among newspapers -- a dying breed in travel journalism -- the Boston Globe won five awards, including the gold for Online Travel Journalism and the gold for Special Projects, combining traditional print journalism with high-quality video, sound and photojournalism on the Web.

Travel Journalist of the Year is Christopher Baker, a freelance writer and photographer who specializes in articles and guidebooks on the Caribbean, with a concentration on Cuba and Costa Rica. Baker will receive $1,500. In the grand-award category, the silver went to Jane Wooldridge, travel editor of the Miami Herald. The bronze was awarded to freelance journalist Sarah Wildman.

New categories this year included broadcast, won by Paul Lasley and Elizabeth Harryman for their work on XM Satellite Radio, and video, won by Joseph Rosendo for shows on PBS TV stations.

The contest is overseen by the Society of American Travel Writers Foundation (www.satwfoundation.org) and was judged by the faculty at the University of Missouri School of Journalism.

Travelers are reading on the Internet

I am president of the SATW Foundation. Our goal is to recognize and reward the best of travel journalism in all its forms, including print, the Internet, audio and video. Each year, travelers explore farther, beyond traditional places, for information, expertise and authenticity in the journals of fellow travelers. And each year, journalists find new ways to provide insights, reviews and good reads to the traveling public.

Total prize money for individual winners this year was nearly $20,000. Among the winners:

Newspapers: The Chicago Tribune and  Seattle Times won multiple awards. The Los Angeles Times earned the gold for Best Newspaper Travel Section with a circulation of at least 500,000; the Houston Chronicle won silver, the Boston Globe bronze. In the circulation class of 350,000 to 499,999, the Globe and Mail in Toronto took gold, the St. Petersburg Times silver, the Miami Herald bronze and the Cleveland Plain Dealer honorable mention. For circulation under 350,000, The New Orleans Times-Picayune earned gold, California’s Orange County Register silver, Fort Worth Star-Telegram bronze and Ottawa Citizen honorable mention.

Travel magazines: National Geographic Traveler, Departures and Budget Travel each won multiple awards. Travel + Leisure, Brides Magazine, and Coastal Living won awards.

Online Travel Journalism Sites: BudgetTravel.com, from Budget Travel, won silver. Southernliving.com/southernbyways, from Southern Living, won bronze.

Travel books: The gold winner for best travel book was “Encounters with the Middle East,” Nesreen Khashan and Jim Bowman, editors, published by Travelers’ Tales/Solas House. The gold winner for best guidebook was “Secret Hotels,” by Erik Torkells and the editors of Budget Travel, Stewart, Tabori & Chang

The competition is open to all North American journalists. First-place gold winners in individual categories each receive $500. Silver and bronze winners are awarded $250 and $150, respectively. The awards are named for Lowell Thomas, acclaimed broadcast journalist, prolific author and world explorer during five decades in travel journalism.

A list of the winners and the judges’ comments are available on the Foundation Web site, www.satwfoundation.org, or from the Foundation administrator, Mary Lu Abbott, at [email protected]. For information about the contest or the Foundation, visit the Web site. For information about SATW, visit the organization’s Web site, www.satw.org.

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Molyneaux is editor of TravelMavens.net. CLICK for articles on cruising, golf, Florida, Europe, adventure and travel gear and gadgets.

Uniting travel bloggers of the world

As American newspapers continue to wither and to whimper that nobody loves them anymore, pity the poor newspaper reader who once could count on the Sunday Travel Section for a friendly and credible worldly review of distant people and places.

Yes, of course, the Sunday Travel Section pales in significance to serious investigative journalism by experienced, hard-nosed reporters whose trained eyes, critical analysis, and relentless chase for information has kept reluctant officials somewhere between honest and half a bubble out of plumb. You will find praise and concern for these essential folks elsewhere.

I am writing about softer noses -- the travel journalists. For their newspaper jobs, this blog is an obituary.

Hail to the lowly travel journalist

Less than a decade ago, American newspapers, especially those in big cities, covered the world of travel in thick Sunday Travel Sections.

They chronicled changes that brought welcomes all over the world to ordinary travelers from the United States. Dispatches from journalists heightened interest in tours, treks, and adventures. Their focus had a huge impact on the vacation habits of Americans who took advantage of decreasing air prices to explore far beyond U.S. borders.

If you wanted a fair and mostly unbiased consumer report or a review of the world's travel  destinations or cruise ships, big city newspapers were your best bet.

Reporting wasn’t perfect; it never is. But most big newspapers had a small, dedicated staff who wrote about the world of travel in a way that served newspaper readers, reviewing positives and negatives of destinations in balance that you would never see in an advertisement or brochure.

In return, newspapers were rewarded with millions of dollars in advertising -- from airlines to cruise lines -- that was far greater than the costs of publishing the Travel Section. This was a win-win situation for readers and newspapers, who spent their Sunday Travel Section profits on other parts of the newspaper that drew fewer ads.

Readers like travel, newspapers don't

Strangely, even in the best years of income and readership, top management at most newspapers, throughout the country, never had any idea how much their readers loved the Sunday Travel Section; myopic newspaper management consistently undervalued, underplayed and undermined the weekly travel report. There was always plenty of budget money for researching articles in the hard news sections about natural disasters and man's inhumanities to man, but little budget money for articles in Travel, which had direct impact on their reader's precious disposable time and income.

Meanwhile, the rest of the media paid little attention to travel reporting aimed at the consumer, which is time consuming and expensive. Outside the small group of serious newspapers, reports usually were penned by writers on a free vacation. Magazines were (and continue to be) mostly hype. Television seldom tries to present a well researched travel story.

Lately, as newspapers cut staffs to balance their losses of revenue, even the bigger papers have just about given up serving the worldly travelers among their readers. They have changed travel focus, if they have any left, into short trips on one tank of gas. Isn't that strange? Among the stalwarts of newspaper readers are the people who are most educated, most read, and most traveled, if only in their dreams.

Why newspapers decided to jettison serious journalism in their travel reports is beyond me.

But today, most of the newspaper travel journalists are gone, as reporters and editors who took their readers all over the world have lost their jobs at newspapers all over the country.

Some are retired, some chose other lines of work. And some are still writing. Friends may call on the Internet.

Searching the Internet for journalism

Why should you care? Because in a world filled with charlatans, every bit of serious reporting, with a concern for the consumer, is a precious commodity.

The great hunt for credible, reliable, consumer-oriented travel journalism on the Internet has begun.

Ironically, some of the best travel journalism comes from non journalists, who are reporting their experiences on useful and successful interactive websites such as TripAdvisor and CruiseCritic. 

Some experienced travel journalists are writing and blogging, which brings me to Blogistan, a new website. Joe Brancatelli, expert travel writer and editor of JoeSentMe.com, is attempting to find all of the important bloggers who comment about travel. His purpose is to link travel readers with travel voices.

One of those important voices, says Brancatelli, is this blog, Travel Maven. The blog grew from a website, TravelMavens.net, which is designed to link viewers with top travel journalism, especially about cruises, golf resorts, Florida, and travel gear and gadgets.

Take a look at Blogistan.

And tell us what you think.

You may reach me by emailing David at TravelMavens.net

You may reach Joe by emailing Joe at JoeSentMe.com

David Molyneaux was editor of the Travel section at The Plain Dealer in Cleveland for nearly 25 years. None of his criticism is directed at The Plain Dealer. 

Worth Clicking: Cruise tips, updates on ships

In the wake of bad economic news and increasing fuel surcharges by cruise lines, Cruise Critic editor Carolyn Spencer Brown finds some good news for cruisers, including impressive new ships about to debut.

Glimpses of Celebrity's new Solstice

CruiseCritic.com offers a good look at the Celebrity Solstice, certain to be one of the hot ships of 2008 when it begins cruising in November. The Solstice, first of a new class of ships from Celebrity, will sport a glass blowing show, right, and cruising's first Lawn Club, with real grass and a bocce ball court.

Designs on the Carnival Splendor

Stairs and lobbies on the new Carnival Splendor, due to begin cruises in July in Europe, are pink, copper, silver and black, says interior designer Joe Farcus.

Why a good cruise goes bad

Paul Motter, editor of the website CruiseMates.com, says there are two reasons why people make simple mistakes that can ruin their vacations: The questions we never think to ask; and the things we know we should do, but neglect due to over-confidence. Motter offers a practical checklist of things that cause a good cruise vacation to go bad.

Looking for a romantic escape

That man, the one who stabbed my wife repeatedly and who hissed, "Darn, I missed the heart," was I.

I  am guilty as charged in the Dallas Morning News.

If you want to know more, take a look at the travel article on romantic escapes, written just in time for Valentine's Day by Judi Dash.

Check out the travel auction

From kayaking in Peru and climbing Mount Kilimanjaro to luxury resorts and weekend getaways, travel packages with bargain possibilities are Up For Auction at a Website managed by the Society of American Travel Writers.

Each year, SATW, an association of travel journalists and public relations people in the travel business, invites the public to bid on a selection of trips and destinations donated to SATW.

The 2007 SATW Online Auction includes travel valued at more than $110,000, including such destinations as the Maldives, Bermuda, the Bahamas, Hawaii, Mexico and Costa Rica, ski resorts at Beaver Creek and Jackson Hole and a Maine Windjammer cruise.

The auction will end at staggered times between November 15-17, 2007.

Worth clicking

Good travel reads on the Internet:

Sources for travel expertise: Bob Jenkins, long-time travel editor and now Lifetimes editor for folks over 50 at the St. Petersburg Times in Florida, explains how to plan that dream trip, including reliable tour operators, guide books and Websites such as our TravelMavens.net.

Cool beans and Turkish baths: National Geographic Traveler, one of the best travel magazines, publishes one of the best travel blogs, called Intelligent Travel. August brings blogs on a coffee shop named Cool Beans in Montgomery, Ala.; Russian and Turkish baths in Manhattan; and a link to another of the Internet's top travel Websites, World Hum. In response to the ballyhooed contest to determine the new Seven Wonders of the World, Hum's editors thoughtfully devised their own wonders to demonstrate how the planet is shrinking and cultures are colliding. Their wonder list included phenomena such as the California roll.

Passport limbo: Catharine Hamm, travel editor of the Los Angeles Times, has spent months in the same stew that has infuriated thousands of Americans trying to obtain new or updated passports for foreign travel. New U.S. travel rules require passports that were not required before. Writes Hamm: You buy your air ticket and book the hotel for that overseas vacation. Oh no -- your passport is about to expire. With processing delays lasting months, will you get it in time? It can happen to anyone, even the experts. Check out her passport diary.

Molyneaux is editor of TravelMavens.net.