Much of travel media comes with a kind of sheen to it. A gloss. Whether you are traveling Italy with a hungry celebrity or cruising Alaska in the pages of a magazine, the photos are big and Photoshopped, the text kind of breathless. And while Afar has plenty of both, it just feels a bit different. It is not a magazine that puts a focus on consumption but on feeling. On the experience of travel.

Julia Cosgrove has been atop Afar’s masthead from the beginning. She comes from a magazine and journalism family. And despite their warnings about the industry, she joined the family business anyway because what kid listens to their parents? When the founders of Afar Media plucked her out of ReadyMade magazine and told her that no other travel magazine felt experiential to them, she understood and joined the team.

Travel media has changed a lot over the years. One has to ask what moves a media consumer more: a magazine article about a beach in Croatia or the TikToks of numerous influencers on that same beach, extolling its virtues, reaching their millions of fans?

Afar doesn’t care. Because it believes in its mission and marches on, now in its 15th year, inviting its readers to experience the world, by diving in.