Walkabout (magazine)

Walkabout was an Australian illustrated magazine published from 1934 to 1974 combining cultural, geographic, and scientific content with travel literature. Initially a travel magazine, in its forty-year run it featured a popular mix of articles by travellers, officials, residents, journalists, and visiting novelists, illustrated by Australian photojournalists. Its title derived from the supposed ‘racial characteristic of the Australian aboriginal who is always on the move" [1].

Ostensibly and initially a travel and geographic magazine published by the Australian National Travel Association (formed in 1929), Walkabout : Australia and the South Seas was named by ANTA director Charles Holmes and first issued on 1 Nov 1934 . The income they derived from its sale provided for the Association's other activities in promoting tourism, 'to place Australia on the world's travel map and keep it there.' It was assertively Australian, aiming to help 'Australians and the people of other lands [...] learn more of the vast Australian continent and its nearby islands,' and came to resemble the popular magazines that were to appear after World War II, such as the United States' National Geographic Magazine.

From August 1946, Walkabout also doubled as the official journal of the newly formed Australian Geographical Society (AGS), founded with a ₤5,000 grant from ANTA, its banner subscript reading 'Journal of the Australian Geographical Society'. This role is now filled by Australian Geographic magazine. Later it became ‘Australia's Way of Life Magazine’ when supported by the Australian National Publicity Association and later the Australian National Travel Association.

Modern dynamic layouts and more lively captioning under the editorship (1960-1969) of Brian McArdle (1920-1968) saw a brief increase in circulation due to more liberal, human-interest and cultural content, emulating the American Life magazine (1936-1972) and the French Réalités (1946-1979).

In accounting for its demise, Max Quanchi writes '...it finally struggled against mass circulation weekly and lifestyle magazines in the early 1970s...'. In fact, Walkabout outlived Life by two years, which also succumbed to increasing publication costs, decreasing subscriptions, and to competition from other media and newspaper supplements.

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