Introducing ROAM: Why Australia’s new digital travel magazine is different

Land snorkelling.

Yes, it’s a thing. Well, it’s certainly something I, ahem, waded into it the other week working across some reading and thinking about what we’re set to unfurl here with ROAM.

Allegedly conceived by US artists Carol Guzman and Clyde Aspevig, at its core land snorkelling involves being present. It asks us to pay attention to the details being nuzzled and held within the now. Like you do when snorkelling and floating in the wonder of the water and considering the sights that swim beneath — be it sea grass or, hopefully, something a little more exotic.

It’s a concept that neatly aligns to ROAM — bienvenue to The Nightly’s authoritative new premium travel voice — and the way we both go about and look at things.

See, there’s too much clutter in the world of travel media. Too much clicky-click-click clickbait.

Read the first edition of ROAM by The Nightly here.

The concept of presenting a well-informed singular story has for the most, been lost.

And I appreciate why that is — but in doing something new, let’s not look to mirror the obvious and the lazy as presented elsewhere.

Let’s pull back a little and be considered and explore via a layered approach that starts with storytelling. Let’s deliver an approach to travel that not only excites and informs and inspires, but prompts you to sit within that sense of the present in its consumption.

I’m not about to ask you to come on a journey with us at ROAM — because that’s cringingly clichéd and precisely what we are not. No, we’re for the unique — be it the destination, experience, adventure or the illuminating and vigorous way we get stuck in and deliver it.

There’s a reason The Nightly’s found a robust and ascendant audience since launching 18 months ago. It’s unafraid to stand apart in its pursuit of doing things differently. It’s happy to own an opinion. And it places journalistic rigour as the lens across all it does.

ROAM is no different. As seen with a debut issue that moves from an insightful (and persuasive) piece exploring the rightful drive of indigenous tourism and why you should embrace the beauty and power of this unique domestic sector, through to time with travel agent to the ultra rich, Olivia Ferney, and how the arguable ridiculousness of her clients and some of their demands — not to mention itineraries — has gifted her a social media reach measured in the millions.

Elsewhere, we explore wellness tourism through a singular colour, talk the energy of Uganda with British supermodel David Gandy and explore some rather cool new happenings in Sydney’s Newtown as served up by the award-winning Porteno team.

There’s more of course. So, reach for the flippers, slap on the mask and dive on in.