Last week, on the Outside blog, which is linked in the blog roll in the right hand column, I learned that National Geographic's Adventure magazine is shutting down. I have to confess that at first I was indifferent about this news, but I was interested to see how the journalists that write for Outside reacted to the loss of a competitor (turns out that some of Adventure's editorial staff had worked at Outside in the past), and finally I felt compelled to post a comment.
I wrote, “Some aspects of the magazine had grown on me, mainly gear reviews, but I wasn’t a subscriber," and then I followed up with an excerpt of a July post from this blog:
“I am not a frequent reader of “National Geographic Adventure” magazine. It tends to be a little over the top for my taste – adventure is healthy, but too often this magazine is talking about a safari to Africa, a guided hike to Machu Picchu, or a cruise in Alaska – all trips that cost in the range of $3,000 per person and up.
“I fall squarely in the demographic of their readers, but I am not after one of these “once in a lifetime” excursions that are probably just that because of the cost. I’ll take my adventure a little bit at the time, like biting an apple, thank you very much. Besides, I’ve never been fond of that kind of touring, preferring to come and go as I please, based on research I’ve done ahead of time on my own.”
(For the rest of the post, follow this link.http://hawksbillcabin.blogspot.com/2009/07/nine-secrets-to-longer-life.html - as I was writing the original post, a little black bear strolled through the yard and interrupted me.)
I have passed by this month's edition of the Nat'l Geo Adventure magazine on the newsstand a couple of times. Even since learning it is the last issue, it just doesn't attract me to pick it up. Whether that is because I'm in overload from all the media I consume and I just can't regularly pack one more print outlet into my 18-hours of waking moments, or this one just missed the mark for me, I can't decide.
The other journalists that were posting comments on the Outside blog offered respectful requiems for Adventure, and I began to think maybe I was a bit turgid in my comments. Until this morning, when I took another look. Today there was this comment from "Greg," which echoed my point of view (much more succinctly):
"Well,I prefer Outside. NGA was floating around on the NG brand. Ultimately I don't define the "Adventure Life" as paying thousands for trip and pretending that makes you an athlete."
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