Travel Maven blog

National Geographic Traveler tops in travel

Newspapers, magazines, Web sites, blogs, writers and photographers win awards in annual Lowell Thomas Travel Journalism Competition

National Geographic Traveler wins two gold awards -- for its magazine and its Web site -- in the 2009 Lowell Thomas Travel Journalism Competition.

Among other winners announced today in Guadalajara, Mexico, sister magazine, National Geographic Adventure, takes top honors in photography and adventure writing. For the third year in a row, the Los Angeles Times earned the gold for the best Newspaper Travel Section among those with circulation above 350,000. The Boston Globe led all publications with the highest total of five awards, three silver and two bronze.

Travel Journalist of the Year is Joe Ray, a globetrotting freelance writer-photographer who is a regular correspondent for the Boston Globe. Judges cited his skill and efficiency in portraying the adventure of travel.

Bob Howells, a freelance writer cited for his focus on nature-oriented travel, wins the silver award as runner up. 

The bronze goes to Dave G. Houser, a freelance writer-photographer lauded for exceptional storytelling and reporting. Houser's work appears on TheTravelMavens.com web site.  

The annual awards ceremony is one of my favorite moments of the year, as I love to give away money -- this year more than $20,000 to North America's best travel journalists.

Judges comments and all the winners

Cruising with blogger John Heald on Carnival Fantasy

You can tell that vacationing folks are having fun when you hear the laughter, the kind of warm guffaws that follow John Heald like a soundtrack.

Heald is a former cruise director for Carnival. He has become a celebrity throughout the cruise line by establishing a web site and blogging his personal thoughts, with great humor, about his life at sea.

Since he began in March 2007, Heald's blog has attracted 4 million hits. That's a high-powered blog. Now, Carnival sells John Heald "blogging cruises," turning away additional customers because Heald, right, wants no more than 400 devoted followers at a time. More than 400, he says, and he can't give everyone the personal touch.

Heald's touch is that of a revered talk show host. But the advantage of a blog is that the audience can talk back. And they do. The impact of Heald's blog is far beyond the life of John Heald and his wife Heidi, who is now pregnant for the first time at home in England. Readers respond -- congratulating and commiserating with each other -- as a community of Healdsmen and Healdswomen continues to grow. Heidi's pregnancy is a big hit, and a shower of community gifts and advice will follow.

It turns out that the 400 John Heald bloggers on this Carnival Fantasy cruise to Mexico have plenty of opinions about cruising, Carnival ships, and life experiences, but most of these passengers do not operate their own blogs. Instead, they use John Heald as their access to the Internet world, expressing their opinions as comments on his blog.

When they meet, they can't seem to get enough of John's banter, which teeter-totters between warm and devilish. This morning, at a question and answer session, Heald told his followers about his blog: "I get it up every morning," to a chorus of ahhhs, which led to more banter and more discussion about his wife's pregnancy. 

There is an earthiness about Heald's words.

"Each morning, when I sit there in my underpants writing my blog, I know you are out there," he said.

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Molyneaux is editor of TravelMavens.net. CLICK for articles on cruising, golf, Florida, Europe, adventure and travel gear and gadgets.

Check out the travel auction

From kayaking in Peru and climbing Mount Kilimanjaro to luxury resorts and weekend getaways, travel packages with bargain possibilities are Up For Auction at a Website managed by the Society of American Travel Writers.

Each year, SATW, an association of travel journalists and public relations people in the travel business, invites the public to bid on a selection of trips and destinations donated to SATW.

The 2007 SATW Online Auction includes travel valued at more than $110,000, including such destinations as the Maldives, Bermuda, the Bahamas, Hawaii, Mexico and Costa Rica, ski resorts at Beaver Creek and Jackson Hole and a Maine Windjammer cruise.

The auction will end at staggered times between November 15-17, 2007.

Worth clicking

Good travel reads on the Internet:

Sources for travel expertise: Bob Jenkins, long-time travel editor and now Lifetimes editor for folks over 50 at the St. Petersburg Times in Florida, explains how to plan that dream trip, including reliable tour operators, guide books and Websites such as our TravelMavens.net.

Cool beans and Turkish baths: National Geographic Traveler, one of the best travel magazines, publishes one of the best travel blogs, called Intelligent Travel. August brings blogs on a coffee shop named Cool Beans in Montgomery, Ala.; Russian and Turkish baths in Manhattan; and a link to another of the Internet's top travel Websites, World Hum. In response to the ballyhooed contest to determine the new Seven Wonders of the World, Hum's editors thoughtfully devised their own wonders to demonstrate how the planet is shrinking and cultures are colliding. Their wonder list included phenomena such as the California roll.

Passport limbo: Catharine Hamm, travel editor of the Los Angeles Times, has spent months in the same stew that has infuriated thousands of Americans trying to obtain new or updated passports for foreign travel. New U.S. travel rules require passports that were not required before. Writes Hamm: You buy your air ticket and book the hotel for that overseas vacation. Oh no -- your passport is about to expire. With processing delays lasting months, will you get it in time? It can happen to anyone, even the experts. Check out her passport diary.

Molyneaux is editor of TravelMavens.net.