Sick of all the political ads? You could always take a vacation abroad. Don’t wait too long or you’ll still be here for the robo-calls.
If the campaign is getting to you, try a little escapism courtesy of National Geographic Traveler. Its cover story touts the slow-lane life of Italy’s Piedmont wine region at the Swiss border. Your greenbacks might also carry a bit more clout there with the euro crisis squeezing money-changers. If Russia’s politics of Putin-forever don’t bother you, the mag suggests St. Petersburg as a classy treat and alternative to Moscow’s hustle and bustle. Another surprise in the issue: actor Andrew McCarthy makes his debut as the mag’s travel essayist in a self-discovery voyage around world. He’s now on the masthead.
Condé Nast Traveler remains the hip rag for the well-heeled, jaded jet-set crowd. Having finally left Tuscany behind, Traveler this month focuses on Istanbul and Portland, Ore., two of the trendier travel spots in recent years. Portland doesn’t have a lot to offer besides good people and great food, so the magazine has page after page of the sumptuous Northwest wilderness. Istanbul, in contrast, is jammed with sights, sounds and history. Traveler’s panoramic overview of the city and its golden mosques at twilight is all you will need to want to hop on the next plane.
Dear Travel + Leisure: We know you’ve been everywhere and seen everything and, that being the case, are eager to reinvent the travel magazine as a lifestyle read, but we want grand narratives about places, not people. We don’t care for filler features listing the hottest travel agents. You can keep the folks on your “global vision” awards for eco-tourism to yourselves. We’re hoping for great places to experience autumn or a wish list for the holidays. What do you give us? Lederhosen and a cruise along the Danube.
AFAR offers a new approach to travel, which is more than a catalog of places to visit and stay. The mission is more bold, with stories meant to impart a greater sense of place and cultural experience. The editors seem to understand that travel is more than a list of hot spots and is also about the people and traditions of a destination. It is a lofty ideal that AFAR sometimes falls short of. Still, the mission is admirable. Let’s hope they live up to it.
New York magazine is all about politics, with features on what the Clintons get out of supporting President Obama, what Mitt Romney and Obama each have planned for the first 100 days and why the Tea Party will ultimately succeed. Then there are mind-numbing time lines and polls. Better is the profile of Kathleen “Kick” Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s daughter, who tries to look Lower East Side “street” and apologizes that she could not make a prior interview with the reporter because she got a flat leaving Hyannis Port, Mass.
New Yorker goes a bit against the grain by not reporting much on the presidential election. Its alternative approach is a cover article on the H. pylori germ, which causes ulcers but which may have benefits. Impressive coverage, too, on the largely uncovered Harmony Express train disaster in China.
The real election we should be watching is in China, where Xi Jinping is about to become its leader, Time reports in its cover story. Great topic and Time makes a convincing point that how he handles unrest in his country will truly affect the world. An analysis of how American wages will continue to lag until unemployment falls below seven percent is another good angle. But Time’s long-standing love affair with Congressman Paul Ryan disappoints. Running a feature “Ryan the Phenom” days after most analysts believe he lost the vice-presidential debate is questionable.
Newsweek provides a strong political issue. Former Reagan budget director David Stockman smokes private equity in a feature that says private equity titans like Romney “strip-mine cash from healthy businesses.” Romney, he claims, made “windfalls from gambling in markets that were rigged to rise.” When Stockman ran his own private equity firm, Heartland Industrial Partners, it collapsed. He was accused of cooking the books, making him not the most credible witness, but his scathing criticism of an industry that employs one of every 10 Americans is worth reading.