The 100th ever issue of Adventure Travel Magazine landed on my doorstep with a dull thud that sounded a bit like the happy, spent, arrival of an over-stuffed duffle after an epic foreign trip. You know, the home and satisfied moment when you finally ditch the pack in your own front room and look back at the past few weeks with a tired but indelibly happy grin.
Which to me is always what AT has been about. I'm biased, of course, I used to write for the thing. Back in the late 90s I came home from almost a year of bumming around South America climbing, trekking and just soaking in the weird loveliness of the place and was looking for an outlet for that material.
I came across AT in a newsagents - remember them? - dashed off a letter, yes, remember them, to editor, publisher and founder Alun Davies and the rest is history.
Back then AT was a bit of a kitchen sink effort held together by string and bits of old packing tape, but what made it stand out was a proper grass roots feel and a genuine love of, well, adventure travel really - trekking, via ferrata, random trips by odd means. It never took itself seriously and it didn't talk down to its readers. Sure, it was a little rough around the edges, but it was put together with love.
Fast forward 75 odd issues and the magazine's slicker, thicker, heavier, glossier and perfect bound too. There are interviews with the likes of Rannulph Fiennes and that floppy-topped Ben Fogle fella, a whole bunch of musings on the past - including a random bloke with the same name as me reminiscing about clubbing in Namche Bazaar with some Tenzing chap - and AT's pick of the 100 best treks, but underneath it all, that love for adventure, 'authenticity' if you like, is still going strong.
There are still features by real people, readers, doing slightly extraordinary things with matter of fact passion. And there's still a lovely sense of a magazine that doesn't take itself too seriously - yep, underneath it all, it's still the same old AT and all the better for it.
So big congratulations to editor Rosie Fuller, the inimitable Alun Davies and the rest of the team on a cracking issue and best wishes for many more.
If you've not come across a copy, check it out. There's a web site at www.adventuretravelmagazine.co.uk and you can also buy the magazine in shops.
