2021-22 SATW Foundation Lowell Thomas Travel Journalism Competition
108 Foreign Travel ( Travel Audio-Podcasts and Guides,Travel Audio-Radio,Travel Magazines,Travel Coverage in General Magazines,Newspapers)Back
Place Name: First Place Contestant Name: Outside Entry Title: The Fellowship of the Chainring Entry Credit: Tom Vanderbilt Judge Comment: Writer Tom Vanderbilt takes readers on a cycling odyssey as bikers walk and hoist their two wheelers over streams, boulders and other obstacles for more than 20 miles. The arduous journey climbs almost 3,000 feet over mountains in Scotland. Fascinated by a 1950s group of Brits who formed the "Rough-Stuff Fellowship" to explore the wilderness, the writer introduces some of its original members, then joins six others to ride the pass, an experience he describes as “bonkers.”
Place Name: Second Place Contestant Name: Leon McCarron Entry Title: The Marsh Guide and the English Explorer Entry Credit: Leon McCarron, Mohammed Al Sarai Judge Comment: Instead of the sights, hotels and food of typical travel writing, the writers explore the unique relationship between two men, an Arab and an Englishman, at a critical time in Iraq’s history. In the 1950s, the two men spent seven years exploring the country’s Mesopotamian marshes and the floodplains at the confluence of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. Politics severs their bond and over the next decades, pollution, drought and climate alter the region and its people. As the writers find the Arab marsh guide in his 90s today, they weave an engrossing, engaging tale of change, unexpected events, of aging and ultimately of life.
Place Name: Third Place Contestant Name: Travel + Leisure Entry Title: Veracruz Entry Credit: Michael Snyder Judge Comment: Through the author’s lens, readers learn why food and culture are so inextricably linked. From region to region, he introduces the cultures that make up this varied Mexican coastal state. The prose plants a seed in readers’ brains that continually whispers, “Visit, visit, visit.”
Place Name: Honorable Mention Contestant Name: The New York Times Entry Title: Why Is Everyone Going to the Dominican Republic? Entry Credit: Heather Murphy Judge Comment: The Dominican Republic became one of the most sought-after vacation destinations for simple reasons: its sun and ease of travel as a destination that requires neither proof of vaccination nor quarantine. Heather Murphy explores the experience of people who risk COVID to regain their freedom and staffers who welcome and fear these vacationers.
