The Connected Traveler, one of the world’s first web travel magazines, was also a pioneer of podcasting and video on the web.
“It is all about telling stories, in whatever medium that works best,” says editor-publisher Russell Johnson. "We're not afraid of being a bit 'off the wall.'
A PIONEERING WEB SITE
Russell Johnson founded The Connected Traveler in 1994 on The Well, the pioneering online c
ommunity founded by Steward Brand and Larry Brilliant. Johnson became inspired while researching a documentary on the future of travel, which took him to tech publisher O’Reilly and Associates in Sebastapol, California. O’Reilly had just introduced the Global Network Navigator, which would become the world’s first commercial web magazine. Seizing the challenge to develop his own magazine, he became one of the world’s first travel bloggers, long before the term blog was invented. Early editions of The Connected Traveler featured guest authors including Jan Morris, Pico Iyer and Peter Mayle. Two of its original “podcasts,” before that term was invented, offered a story recorded by travel writer Georgia Hesse as she scrunched through the snow at the North Pole and Johnson’s own interview with Arthur C. The Connected Traveler was a “Cool Site of the Day,” garnering an unprecedented 230 thousand viewers on a single day in 1995. It was runner up to Lonely Planet in the Best of the Web competition and has been the subject of scores of articles in books, magazines, newspapers and web sites including CNN, CBS,the BBC, Time Magazine, USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, the Guardian and the London Daily Telegraph. National Geographic named it as a resource on sustainable tourism. The Connected Traveler was featured in Time Magazine when it offered the web’s first online charity auction, in support of heritage and nature conservation.
