Travel is a great time to catch up on reading, especially the old-fashioned kind that isn’t done online. Even hardcore technology fans have to shut down devices, including e-books, during takeoffs and landings.
Most of us carry our own collection of books and magazines, however sometimes we need to buy something new at the airport. Some airport bookstores are better than others when it comes to bestsellers, but my suggestion for a particularly inexpensive reading option is the local newspaper.
Yes, the newspaper, that dying breed. Many newspapers are hurting, some have folded, and others will no doubt follow. But they are still a relative reading bargain, especially in the age of $15 paperbacks and $5-and-up magazines. Even the Sunday New York Times usually tops out at $5. Plus, newspapers can use the money from news-stand sales.
I realize it is a little ironic for a blogger to push newspaper sales, but even online readers are reading articles originally written by newspaper or other print media reporters. If the papers fail, that content goes away. (And many writers do both, including Tripso editor Chris Elliott.)
Plus it can be fun to get local angles on stories and read a different style than your normal news source for a change. A local Cincinnati paper today had one of the clearest and simplest explanations of banking woes in this country I have seen, as a sidebar to a story on their local banks.
Newspapers can be particularly interesting right now, because Americans are conflicted about the President’s stimulus package and worried about “pork” in his budget. A local paper will often write specifically about how important some money will be to their area, proving over and over that “pork” often simply refers to money spent anywhere else.
The Sunday travel sections often have a particular regional flavor, with destinations your hometown paper might never have imagined. Sometimes too, the travel sections have promotions you can use, but might not have seen advertised otherwise.
If the newspaper isn’t interesting, you’ve lost a dollar or two at most. And the flight attendant will recycle it for you. Plus there’s another bonus for especially cost-conscious travelers who purchase those more expensive Sunday papers — they’re full of national coupons.
