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Brevity is not the plus that other reviewers suggest it is
For $5.99 an issue, TravelAmerica ought to offer more than the kind of advertising copy it does. For instance, in the August 2004 issue, you get a list of 800 numbers for casinos in the South--a useful addition, but certainly not when the article including them skimps on other details that are NOT readily available online. And what real traveler needs to know that you can find "a shrunken head and six-legged cow" at the Wisconsin Dells Ripley's Believe It or Not Museum.

Worse, the magazine looks and feels cheap. The colors in photographs are off and the paper is low quality, if slick. With ten full pages of ads, and a number of quarter and half pages, you really don't get what you pay for.

Let's Hit the Road, with Travel America
Travel America is a short magazine published every two months. Each issue is exactly 58 pages in length and carries a high cover price of $5.99. It's a magazine that covers travel in the 50 United States, and it can be counted on to include many out of the way places, as well as some of the better- known tourist destinations.

The strongest point of this magazine is the fact that it includes lesser- known points of interest. Unlike other travel magazines that stress the more popular tourist sites, the expensive resorts, and the first class flights, Travel America keeps things simple. It finds unusual and unique places to visit, most of which the average person has probably never heard about and most of which are affordable and relatively easy to reach.

With such a short amount of space, Travel America is forced to offer mostly shorter articles in order to still be able to include a wide variety of travel possibilities. Because of this, the articles often do not cover everything as completely and thoroughly as some readers might prefer. Most of the articles just try to cover all the basic facts necessary to whet your appetite to pay a visit. Any other fact- gathering is up to the reader.

To help readers learn more about a possible destination, Travel America tries to include web sites and phone numbers with most of its articles. This is useful because, like I stated before, the articles themselves are usually very short and they don't cover everything that can/should be talked about. This often makes it imperative to check the web site or place a call to get more information.

Travel America isn't the greatest travel publication in existence. The short length of each issue can get a little frustrating and the price per issue is rather steep. But it does a nice job in pointing out new and often unusual places to visit. It can help tremendously when it comes time for your next family trip.

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over all nice mag
"Cruise Travel" is a magazine about cruising, and is generally informative and interesting. Though it seems to mainly pertain to an older reading audience and the photos are not always as interesting or as amazing as the other main cruise travel magazine "Porthole" I am generally pleased with the content of the magazine.

The Best Cruise Magazine I Have Seen
'Cruise Travel' is the best cruise magazine that I have seen, and though a fairly thin magazine, is packed with great useful information. I particularly enjoy the Cruise of the Month, Port of the Month, and especially the Ship of the Month features. They also have monthly news updates, and letters to the editor that are normally well selected to give diverse viewpoints, and have frequently brought up issues I had never considered. The number of ads is very reasonable, and they all relate to the subject matter and are therefore not objectionable, like in some other publications I have seen.

I appreciate the attempt to cover all bases and levels of cruising, from the biggest suites on the 'Queen Mary 2' to any party on the sea by Carnival. I am a devoted Celebrity customer, and find the reporting on Celebrity to be spot-on accurate, so I am assuming that it is with other lines that I am not familiar with, too. I especially enjoyed the recent June 2004 issue in which Celebrity's beautiful 'Summit' graced the cover as Ship of the Month.

This magazine is a great resource for anyone considering a cruise, from a first timer to an experienced cruiser. I highly recommend 'Cruise Travel'.

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Uninformative Articles, Questionable Subscription Practices
I subscribed to T+L for one year.My wife and I found the magazine to be uninformative and of little value when planning our travels.Most of the magazine seems to be centered around places to go shopping and the photos that accompany the articles are artistic photos, usually of models wearing $1,000 outfits, instead of informative photos of the resorts or hotels.The recommended travel products tend to focus on $1,200 designer duffels which, while perhaps within reach of the target demographic, are unlikely to survive many trips through a major airport.

In addition, my subscription came with an unrequested automatic renewal.I didn't enjoy the magazine and nearly every copy was in my recycle bin within 15 minutes of receiving it.However T+L decided that I would somehow like a renewal although I certainly never requested one.In my book, those are questionable and perhaps unethical business practices.

Dreams of how the "leisure class" vacations, perhaps lives
This reader thoroughly enjoys the photos and articles about 'exotic' vacations in Europe, Asia, the Southern Hemisphere (New Zealand] and Central or South America ... one can dream ... and possibly one day live the dream. One learns of vacations in out-of-the-way unique locales. For instance, in the July 2004 issue, there is a feature article on "Puglia' dubbed "the next Tuscany". There one can rent space in a 15th century convent or room at the most modern resort. In either case, one can taste the finest Italian cuisine, fresh food, grown and raised in the region.Another adventure which appeals to this reader is "perfume tours in Provence".

This reader is in love with Mayan ruins, so reading about how Richard Hansen, an U.C.L.A. archeologist, has worked for 25 years to excavate and preserve, El Mirador, one of the largest mayan cities, is of great value. This reader shares his dream to designate the region a national monument and turn it into a living outdoor museum. It would become a top tourist attraction, such as the Tikal National Park (Guatemala's most popular). Another fascinating article featured "Shanghai". Here one learns of where to shop for silk slippers and the beautiufl blue and white porcelain for which it is famous. A person can have designer clothes copied by tailors at huge savings ... The contrast of ancient and modern China is amazing. Going antique shopping would be most satisfying ... Featuring, Ming Tsai, a Chinese chef and owner of "The Blue Ginger" Restaurant in Massachsetts is quite the perfect ending to a wonderful magazine. He is often featured on PBS channels sharing his recipes and techniques for Chinese cooking. This reader enjoys every article and looks forward to each monthly issure. Highest recommendations. Erika Borsos (erikab93)

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Image vs. Content
I'm not sure who's at the helm of this operation but I'd be willing to bet they don't get Outside too often. Not to be too cynical about it, but I just don't find this mag to be as USEFUL as it was before. If you like LOTS of articles on who the coolest extreme sports stars are, how they got their abs, and what gear they're wearing, subscribe NOW. The magazine looks amazing, the photography is top notch and they still manage to come up with a thorny article on the environment periodically. But for my money, it just feels like the editorial staff has been plucked from New York image mags that do one thing really well - SELL. I read National Geographic Adventure, and unlike Outside, I USE IT for information because it has CONTENT.

Informative Mag for the Adventurous
I've been a subscriber to Outside magazine for several years, and it seems to go through its ups and downs in terms of the strength of its editorial content, especially regarding the political side of environmentalism. It is still easily the most informative magazine out there for lovers of the outdoors, but just note that the focus is on active, not armchair, appreciation of nature. Beyond the occasionally great and always heavily knowledgeable product reviews, the key strength of this magazine is the well-written and strongly researched articles on outdoor issues of concern, not just in America but around the world. An outstanding recent example, among many, concerns the economics of environmentalism in the conservative Western U.S. This is the type of strong conservationist reporting that can usually only be found otherwise in books. Other more whimsical articles are just fun to read for those with off-kilter interests, such as recent pieces on urban rock climbing or sauna fanatics in Finland.

Many other articles could be classified more as travel/tourism than adventure, but the accompanying photography is always top-notch, and the editors have a knack for finding out-of-the-way hidden treasures around the world that are ripe for discovery by the adventurous. (But on the other hand, the magazine could be faulted for contributing to the recent trend of hyping previously unknown outdoor paradises that have since become crowded, such as Molly Sods Wilderness in West Virginia.)Personally, I would like to see a little less focus on expensive vacations that extreme sports fanatics can take in hard-to-reach nations, and more on what folks with more realistic means (and amounts of free time) can do in humble parks and forests near home. But despite its habit of losing its focus at times, I will continue to be a fan of Outside for years to come, and might just travel to some of those hyped exotic adventure locations. [~doomsdayer520~]