When I was planning my travels, I had no idea about the possibilities open to me, or how to go about organising everything I needed. I wanted to hear what experiences other have had on the road, and I asked around for advice on what kind of plane ticket I should buy and what backpack to get. Later I found out, that although several books have been written about Gap Years, there is still no one-stop travel magazine that caters for backpackers, lets travellers tell their experiences and gives handy advice. In fact, students and recently unemployed people are not even considered by most socio-economic market researchers as target audiences.
And this is where SHOESTRING comes in!
SHOESTRING is aimed at 18 to 30(-ish) year old backpackers and travellers on Gap Years or Sabbaticals, but anyone with an interest in this kind of travel is obviously welcome too, regardless of age. It is written by travellers for travellers around the world, sheding light on experiences from volunteering to Work&Travel, with information on further reading and agencies specialised in the mentioned aspect of Gap Year travel. There are interviews with everyone, from travel authors to tour guides for inspiration on what to do next, what to check out and what life on the road is really like. Every issue features advice as well, such as "How to plan a Gap Year" or "Essential packing lists" to stay under the 20kg weight limit airlines impose.
Locals introduce their stamping grounds in "My kind of town", and suggest hip, trendy, cheap and cheerful places not to be missed by budget-concious visitors. Mix all this with some local, tasty recipes, some travel news and reviews as well as "Good to know" tipps and tricks and you've got SHOESTRING!
As the travel magazine started out as a Final Project at university, Issue #1 (May 2010) was restricted to 12 pages. Now I want SHOESTRING to get bigger and better and available to a wider audience. Therefore, the magazine will be published quarterly from October 2010 onwards, as an online publication. You will be able to read the magazine on this website, and even share it, download it and print it out. This will come in particularly handy if you're on the move and only need one of the pages for advice, for example.
This website itself will carry travel news that have not made it into the magazine or happened between publications, so readers are up-to-date. Next to the news, the website will also cover some reviews, as well as the advice pages from the magazine for future reference.
I hope that you'll find SHOESTRING to be the one-stop publication you were looking for when it comes to planning budget travel. Your feedback is highly appreciated, as are experiences you might want to share!
Where you have been is not half as important as where you are going. Meet you there!
Happy Travels,
Conny Kaufmann
Editor-in-chief & Publisher
SHOESTRING Travel Magazine
