Travel Journalism

Development

In the broadest sense, travel journalism has been around since the written word began. Explorers, after surveying new land, would come back with tales of new cultures and places. Marco Polo's Il Milion was widely popular among thirteenth-century Europeans, and publications from missionaries and explorers were published for those who remained at home (and who often financed the voyages). In later centuries, tales came back to the old country extolling the beauties and abundance of the new American continent. Early-nineteenth-century writers became famous with tales of their voyages: notable authors like Herman Melville gained fame with his chronicles of voyages as a sailor (A Narrative of Adventures on the South Seas), as did Robert Louis Stevenson (In the South Seas), James Cook (The Journals of Captain Hook), and Paul Theroux (The Happy Tales of Oceana).

As technology expanded during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, making faraway destinations less expensive and quicker to reach, greater accessibility allowed travel writing to rapidly develop. Early publications like National Geographic (first published in 1888) began as research journals but slowly changed to allow armchair travelers—those who read for entertainment value with no intention of traveling to the destinations covered—to go to remote, foreign locations. Although the magazine was published irregularly for the first decade of its existence, it had become a monthly magazine by the late 1800s. Initial readership was low but quickly escalated with the introduction of photography—most notably color photographs of the natural world by 1910. The boost that color photography, maps, and in-depth articles gave to National Geographic as it lengthened the magazine in the 1950s indicated that the thirst for travel coverage among the public was large. Many other publications stepped into the growing market. Travel and Leisure (introduced in 1971) targets budget-minded travelers, while Conde Nast Traveler (introduced in 1987) caters to higher-end travelers, although both claim to appeal to both demographics. Travel and tourism is ranked as the third largest retail-sales industry in the United States, so it is no surprise that the travel writing featured in books, magazines, and newspapers is so popular.

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