Getting On Travel (GOT) won recognition as a top travel blog, receiving a Silver Award in the 2021 Lowell Thomas Travel Journalism Competition. In recognizing GOT, the judges noted that the authors “get right into the reporting. From dog-friendly trips to international travel to Florida and the Pacific Northwest, this blog has everything for anyone 50-plus looking to travel.”
Edited by Irene S. Levine and Hilary Nangle, GOT is a multi-authored digital publication with an international roster comprising 50 contributors. All stories focus on the over-50 traveler. Photography and advice accompany each story.
“We couldn’t have achieved this without our talented contributors, many of whom have won individual recognitions in journalism competitions over the years,” says Founding Editor Irene S. Levine. “They seek out the insider intel and the telling details that make a story shine.”
The non-profit Lowell Thomas awards are the most prestigious in travel journalism, overseen this year by 27 judges associated with the University of Missouri School of Journalism. The Society of American Travel Writers (SATW) announced the award winners at its annual meeting on October 4, 2021.
By any standard, this was an unusual year for travel writers. In the press release announcing the awards, the SATW Foundation noted that this was a year with “no road map” as writers “struggled to make sense of a travelscape turned upside down by the pandemic.”
With international travel brought to a virtual halt and some contributors personally affected by pandemic losses and climate disasters, GOT contributors pivoted. They produced engaging stories about their hometowns and regions, hyper-local escapes, specialty foods and wines, and dream destinations for armchair travelers.
GOT’s editors are especially proud of contributor Jennifer Bain, who won a 2021 Lowell Thomas Gold Award, the highest recognition in the Cruise Travel category for her award-winning article, Explore Greenland Aboard an Expedition Cruise, published on GOT. This highly competitive category drew entries from glossy magazines to news services.
This year’s Lowell Thomas competition drew 1,278 entries for awards in 27 categories. SATW has published a complete list of winners, also shown on YouTube (below).