National Geographic Traveller – A Review

Lifestyle blogger Michelle from The Purple Pumpkin Blog tells us how the National Geographic Traveller is making her want to reach for her passport right now...

In this digital world, where we’re constantly staring at some sort of screen, holding a magazine in your hands and leafing through the pages is a real pleasure - especially when it’s a magazine full of amazing photography.

From beginning to end, National Geographic Traveller magazine was full of photographs – people, places, food, culture, wildlife – even the advertising was beautiful, and felt like a natural part of the magazine, including a pull out booklet about Costa Rica. The tropical green frog of the cover is stunning.

As a visual person, I always leaf through a magazine first, stopping to pour over the images on each page before turning to the next. Only then do I go back through it and start reading the articles within.

I'm not a ‘read from the front cover to the back cover’ kind of girl, and I prefer to read magazines quite haphazardly. So the first thing I read was an article towards the end of the magazine called Capturing The Cold, about an Arctic photography expedition on Somerset Island in the far north of Canada. What stopped me in my tracks initially was the photo of a beluga whale, which is one of my favourite animals.

I have always wanted to go on a photography holiday. I mean, I know I take photos wherever I go, but I want to go with that sole purpose of capturing something completely different, and learning along the way really does appeal to me too. Strangely, as much as I dislike the cold, visiting one of the poles has always been on my wanderlust list. I love wildlife photography, and having nothing but that to capture on my camera would be absolutely amazing.

The magazine has many of the usual features – reader's mail, with a prize for the star letter, and competitions including a travel writing competition and another to win a trip to Mexico. There is also a monthly readers’ photography competition called Your Pictures. Each month there’s a theme and this month it's space. I loved the winning image, an isolated lighthouse surrounded by the blue of the water and the sky.

The cover story, I Heart My City, was an interesting read, with a selection of writers telling you about a city they love. There were feature length articles as well as shorts, which you could continue to read at length online. I love London; it was where I was born and raised and it will always hold my heart, no matter where in the world I live.

At the end of each article in the Destinations section of the magazine, there is an Essentials guide, which provides travel info: when to go, where to stay, further reading ideas, and things you need to know before you go, like visas for example. It also gives you a price guide, which I thought was really handy, as it makes you feel like something could well be within your reach.

For me, a magazine like National Geographic Traveller gives me a glimpse into places in the world that I may never get the opportunity to visit… but wow, does it make me want to pick up my passport right now and travel. I can't wait for the next issue to fall through the letterbox and to see where I get to go next!