5 Travel Guides You’ll Want to Pick Up
How delivering content in engaging features is changing tourism marketing.
By Ellen Ranta Olson
Insider’s favorite spots. Sweeping photo spreads. Practical — but delightful — trip tips. Magazines have long since been a trusted and sought-after resources for travelers planning their next getaway. After all, who doesn’t love flipping through a travel magazine?
Smart destination marketing organizations and tourism offices are following suit. Gone are the days of printed guides that are light on photography and heavy on alphabetical listings. Now, depending on the destination, potential travelers are likely to browse magazine-style travel guide publications with in-depth features and clever editorial packaging. In fact, you can barely tell the best of them apart from the city’s or state’s lifestyle publications. And that’s the point.
These tourism offices and DMOs are creating guides that travelers happily read — and help them plan in the process.
Niagara Falls USA
We love: The masterful integration of print and digital products. Destination Niagara USA’s online content hub, The Source, feels like a natural extension of its print guide, with a robust collection of audience-specific editorial features and itineraries, cohesive design elements and creative CTAs that drive to supporting content.
Travel Portland
We love: How the publication marries form and function. Back for the first time since 2020, Travel Portland’s 2024 printed Visitors Guide offers both magazine-worthy design and skimmable pages that make it easy to find just what you’re looking for, with clear accessibility information, family-friendly suggestions and must-visit places sprinkled throughout. Bonus: Included itinerary bookmarks and packing lists simplify the trip-planning process.
Travel Wyoming
We love: The expansive — and realistic — road trip itineraries. With more than 97,000 square miles of ground to cover, plus two of the nation’s most-visited national parks, road-tripping through Wyoming requires a bit more planning than simply filling the gas tank and stocking up on snacks. The state’s travel guide deftly accomplishes this with detailed itineraries of popular routes that help users visualize the journey ahead. Interactive maps, traveler reviews and supporting video content add to the appeal.
Virginia Is for Lovers
We love: The simplicity — a magazine-style design refresh can do wonders. Photo-heavy and featuring true insider’s perspectives, the Virginia Travel Guide’s feature well is on par with national publications like Travel & Leisure and AFAR. Well-positioned QR-code CTAs make it easy for readers to discover more online, where trip-planning tools are organized by region and traveler type.
New Mexico True Adventure Guide
We love: The stunning photography and streamlined organization. The Adventure Guide from the folks at the New Mexico Tourism Department is a masterclass in creating a sense of place through the use of imagery — peruse a few pages and you’ll instantly get a glimpse of New Mexico’s otherworldly landscapes and vibrant culture. Combined with clear and concise section headers that make it easy for readers to find the topics that interest them, the Adventure Guide is a trip-planner’s dream.
A Travel Guide That Compels Action
We can help you create a magazine-style guide that encourages travelers to dream about their visit — and book it.
Ellen has created content for a plethora of brands, publications and websites, ranging from The Ritz-Carlton to Vanderbilt University Medical Center. A former editor of Southwest travel magazine Dorado, she has managed content marketing programs for various destinations, including Visit Tucson, Visit Charlotte and Discover Gilbert.
Outside of work, Ellen loves to watch her kids play soccer and go hiking with her dogs.