Is Travel Journalism Finally Taking Its Subject Seriously?

In the evolution of the travel media, we are entering an interesting time. Throughout recent history, the travel pages of newspapers and magazines have been hard-news-free zones, presenting travel as an escape from reality rather than a part of it. For the past 50 years or so, they’ve shaped our approach to our holidays for the worse, boosting aspirational leanings, cultivating elitism, and turning travel into a performative flex, all the while ignoring its detrimental effects on so many environments and local communities.

But today, glimmers of dispassionate reporting on the topic of travel have emerged. Whispers of investigations into its economic, environmental, and social impacts can be heard, if we’re listening carefully. The media are no longer ignoring completely the problems that travel as an industry has created. They’re covering some of the downsides of being a traveler. They’re even, in some cases, becoming political. We still aren’t spilling nearly enough ink depicting travel and tourism as the absolute global economic juggernaut that it has grown into. Nonetheless, there’s some reason to believe that travel writing could be in the midst of growing a spine.