Why Most Travel Magazines Don’t Speak to You

You won’t read about this $14 room in a magazine…

I wrote a post back in 2006 about how magazines don’t really like budget travelers. It was the year I launched PerceptiveTravel.com, partly in response to the folding of nearly every publication geared to those of us looking for value.

At that time the magazine Budget Living had folded, despite having one of the most fanatical fan bases among mag readers. I noted that this probably had something to do with the fact that advertisers want to reach the aspirational, free-spending, debt-to-their-eyeballs folks, not people who are careful with their money.

Sure enough, a trade mag then published this quote from the old Budget Living editor, taken from a conference panel discussion.

“The name ‘budget’ worked great with readers,” he said, “but it was a hurdle for advertisers. The name was a mixed blessing.”

Not long after, the magazine Budget Travel went online only after watching its advertiser base keep dwindling. A few more that appealed to value-oriented independent travelers fell one at a time like bowling pins. It’s not that readers are scarce for budget traveling info, but we’re too fragmented and independent. We don’t follow the herd and we don’t overspend on travel for one week a year only. Chain company advertisers don’t like our kind.

Some point to Afar as the one later launch that has found some success, but there too you’ll be hard-pressed to find articles that mention low prices or savings strategies. It’s hard to attract those cruise companies and luxe hotel chains if that’s your slant.

If you’re looking for articles about traveling on a frugal budget, pickings are slim in the print world—and among their online offshoots. It’s not because of a lack of readers: after all, most people aren’t jetting off to five-star resorts when they go on vacation. But the advertisers don’t want to reach the commoners among us. They want to reach the ones who look at travel choices as just another way to show off their wealth.

The Massive Growth of Budget Travel Blogs

When this blog first showed up on a list of the top-50 in the world by traffic, I was getting around 60,000 unique readers per month and was halfway down the list. Now I consistently get 80-90,000 a month and I barely make the list. Some of the top travel bloggers are reaching more people than the websites of National Geographic Traveler or Outside.

If anyone is looking for a reason why travel blogs have exploded in popularity over the past decade, one simple fact can explain most of it. Travel bloggers can write about whatever they want. They don’t have to please the advertisers with the most money to spend.

They can do posts every week about the best travel values, the vacation bargains, or where to stay on Lombok for $6 a night. They can write about cheap travel hacks and how to travel for free. They don’t have to pretend everyone is staying at chain hotels and flying in business class.

Even when they’re covering a sponsor, it’s likely a place normal people go or travel gear normal people use.

A lot has changed in the 11 years since I first wrote about the budget travel stigma. On the print side it has actually gotten worse, but for every luxury-obsessed magazine, there are 1,000 travel blogs and websites covering travel for the other 98%. Find the ones you like and follow them. They’re writing for you.