When we hit pause on Adventure.com last March, we had no idea what the remainder of 2020 had in store for us. And we certainly had no idea we’d have to wait almost a year before we could share the news that, against all odds: we’re back.
You might be asking yourself: “What the hell is a travel publication going to talk about at a time when the vast majority of people around the world can’t travel?!”
To which we’d reply: The same things we’ve always talked about—people, places and experiences—but with more clarity and purpose than ever before.
Our aim as a publication has always been to be a home for people who are curious about the world and everything in it: Culture, food, drink, history, music, tradition, people, beliefs, ideas and everything in-between. That curiosity isn’t quelled by pandemics, border closures or travel bans.
If anything, the events of 2020—from the bushfires to the pandemic to the US presidency to the potency of the Black Lives Matter movement—has intensified our curiosity, and our desire to tell stories that explore new perspectives and possibilities.
Much has been written about the need for us to ‘rebuild travel’ in the post-pandemic world. And while Adventure.com has always sought to champion responsible and ethical travel, we must now reassess everything we think about travel and tourism—from the ground up.
The uncomfortable truth is that mainstream commercial travel, before the pandemic, was unsustainable (a landmark 2019 report claimed that transport-related emissions from tourism were expected to account for 5.3% of all man-made emissions by 2030).
As well as being an environmental calamity, travel and tourism also wrought havoc on many communities and countries around the world. It did a lot of good, too, but that good was often outweighed by the footprint it left behind. So we need to keep finding and celebrating and exploring alternative ways of traveling, and to keep holding the industry—and ourselves—to account.
