First Issue Review: Escape Routes
The latest offering from Emap, Escape Routes, is the first UK brand to launch simultaneously in both print form and as an e-commerce-enabled website. Dubbed ‘the ultimate travel and leisure guide’, the magazine has features and ideas for forthcoming trips which can be booked immediately online via www.escaperoutes.co.uk.
Available quarterly, the first edition of the magazine is jam-packed full of ideas for an autumn holiday. It caters for all tastes and circumstances from solo travellers to families. Insider guides to Thailand and Barcelona are compiled by experts and locals and provide detailed overviews of chosen destinations, including historical and cultural information, places to stay, food and drink and shopping and tips for the area. Holiday offers were available to both destinations which can be booked through the website. Alternatively, separate accomodation and flights were suggested for independent travel with all telephone numbers included.
Further magazine features include a New York shopping trip, French escapes, Peru and English gardens courtesy of celebrity gardener Charlie Dimmock. The regulars section gives last-minute suggestions, trade secrets to get the best travel deal, health and beauty tips and celebrity holiday choices. Most articles are well-researched, informative and inspiring. Although many seem aimed at those with a large travel budget – a sample holiday in the Grenadines costs £3,150 for a week – the overall balance is maintained with budget and youth hostel holidays included in the mix.
It is more downmarket than its nearest market rival Condé Nast Traveller, which is aimed at the discerning, and very rich, traveller. Indeed, Escape Routes has discovered an untapped market niche in the independent, open-minded, female traveller with or without baggage. It is also a cheaper read at £2.40 a copy.
The website has more features including holiday horoscopes, online experts to answer tricky travel problems and checklists for packing. The booking system is fine for special deals mentioned in the magazine but limited in other respects. Holiday Finder only finds holidays which have been previously recommended and does not allow you to search, for example, for what’s available within a country. Instead the categories are limited to type, setting and accomodation with little variation.
Overall, then, Escape Routes is an innovative addition to the travel genre and fulfils a previously untapped niche.