Travel Reading Recommendation: Boat Magazine

Boat Magazine is a bi-annual independent travel magazine that focuses on one city per issue. Around ten features are presented in each, mostly essays but also some photography, cooking, and interviews, created by both resident editors and locals from the city spotlighted. I discovered Boat around year ago and have since become a loyal devotee – it’s the only thing I’ve ever pre-ordered. Boat changed the way I thought about publishing in the travel industry, and how I present my own travel writing.

Boat uproot their team every six months, moving to a new destination for the next issue. To date, nine cities have been featured: Sarajevo, Detroit, London, Athens, Kyoto, Reykjavik, Lima, Los Angeles, and Bangkok. I think what really resonates with me is that Boat shines a light on a destination without trying to become local themselves. ‘We go in as outsiders and we leave as outsiders,’ founder and editor Erin Spens elaborates in an interview with Need Supply. ‘We go in to ask questions and to listen, but never to ‘figure the place out’… our only role in each city [is] to be a microphone.’

Pictured above: Moby’s interview, Boat LA issue

A healthy dose of that ethic is what I think every good travel writer needs. A pet peeve of mine is when a writer tries to assimilate themselves into the place of a local, right into their shoes. I think that’s a natural route writers take when they first begin – I’ve been guilty of it in the past – but as I’ve learnt more about writing, I now find the most compelling stories are when the writer acts as a bystander, relaying information back to the reader from the perspective of an onlooker. Boat is made up of ten features created by, as Erin put it, holding up a microphone and listening in. On top of all that, presentation is clean, fresh, and as eye-opening as the writing.

While I haven’t managed to get my hands on every issue (I’m dying for a copy of Kyoto if anyone has one going spare), I do have five, and I tend to devour one at a time over the space of a weekend. The first one I read – and without doubt my favourite to date – was Detroit. Technically I’ve been to Detroit but only in the sense that I was in the bus station for an hour at 6am once (on this journey), so my knowledge of the place only really goes as far as knowing there are a load of ruined factories there, and reading Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides.

To my delight, Eugenides actually wrote the first article in the Detroit issue of Boat: in it he heavily discourages readers to believe that Detroit is only good for its ‘ruin-porn’, one of the sole reasons people visit the city. I’m a sucker for locals setting the story straight, so this article drew me in and I was engaged in every word. What followed in the rest of the issue changed everything I had ever thought about Detroit, exposing the culture of the city well outside its decline in industry.

The Bangkok issue was released just a couple of weeks ago, and my copy arrived on my doorstep around the same time. Last weekend I dived into the Lima issue, so this weekend I’m letting Boat guide me through BKK and reading cover-to-cover. I suggest you do the same.

New issues of Boat cost £10, back issues are £8 (plus delivery charges). Subscriptions and supersaver packs are available at a reduced rate – see Boat’s shop or subscription pages for details.

Pictured above: Photo spread in Boat’s Bangkok issue

What are your favourite indie travel magazines?
Leave some recommendations below in the comments!