Ocean Home magazine contributing writer Paul Rubio is a winner in the 2014 Lowell Thomas Travel Journalism Competition, in the ”Short Work on Travel” category for “Secret Saba” in Ocean Home‘s Dec/Jan 2014 Travel issue. In honoring Paul Rubio’s work, one of the judges said: “I had never heard of this Caribbean island before, but this story makes me want to go and explains why it is such a cool place. I want travel journalism to tell me about things that I don’t know and this does that.”
The awards are named for Lowell Thomas, acclaimed broadcast journalist, prolific author and world explorer during five decades in journalism. This is the 30th annual competition sponsored by the Society of American Travel Writers Foundation. Winners of the awards, the most prestigious in the field of travel journalism, were announced Sept. 16 at the SATW convention, held in Iceland.
The competition drew 1,177 entries and was judged by members of the faculty at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill School of Journalism and Mass Communication.
This year, the SATW Foundation presented 90 awards in 25 categories and nearly $20,000 in prize money to journalists. Since the first competition for work in 1984, the SATW Foundation has presented more than 2,100 awards and $420,000-plus in recognition of outstanding travel journalism.
Among other winners, Jill Schensul, senior writer for The Record of northern New Jersey, earned the title ofLowell Thomas Travel Journalist of the Year for a portfolio of her work in the past year. It is the third top title for Schensul, who over the years has won 29 Lowell Thomas awards for herself, and The Record travel section has taken 39 in total. National Geographic Traveler, Islands, Travel + Leisure and AFAR magazines are top media winners in 2014.
The Foundation distributes nearly $20,000 annually in prize money to individual winners. Donations by this year’s Underwriter, the Tourist Office for Flanders-Brussels, and many other supporters helped make the prizes possible.
For more information about the awards, including a full list of winners and judges’ comments, and SATW, visit www.satw.org.