Transitions Abroad Magazine July/August 2002 Vol. XXVI, NO.1

From the Publisher

We mark the start of our 26th year with some minor changes in appearance and news of more significant changes to come. It has long been my goal to link the magazine to our website. Subscribers should have easy access to our enormous database of opportunities for work, study, living, and immersion travel abroad. At last its happening! Thanks to my son's redesign, the website will (after August 1) have one main entrance and all the rooms will be clearly marked. Once you're inside, you can get directions on where to find information and access what you need.

Which is not to suggest that those of us who remain addicted to print — and view the Internet as a useful but frequently irritating tool — will be sent to cyberspace for answers to our questions. Not at all. I promise that as long as I'm around the essential information on Transitions Abroad-style travel will also be available in print.

In the issue you now hold there's very little in the way of armchair travel. ("Armchair travel" to me is an oxymoron: I want to take my own trips, not someone else's.) Almost everything here is carefully selected practical information for those who make their own travel plans. So why not just put all this data on the website and let people find it?

The key phrase is "find it". When I pick up a copy of our new Alternative Travel Directory or Work Abroad, I know where to find what I'm looking for. Both books have tables of contents and indexes. Turn to the page and you have it. That's how the new website will be.

The problem we have with the magazine of course is that we can't fit everything into it that we want to print, and much of what does fit soon becomes dated. The website, on the other hand, is updated daily; it contains everything we couldn't fit into the magazine and every issue we've published since 1998. So now subscribers can go to www.transtionsabroad.com, which will now also be a portal to other useful websites, and find whatever they need, whenever they need it.

I'm off to Europe and Africa to report on volunteer opportunities, among other things, for the September/October issue, which will focus on work abroad — volunteering in particular. Sian Wu will be sitting in for me here. If you haven't renewed, please do it now. We have a very special gift for you. If you have friends who are real travelers, please show them Transitions Abroad.

— Clay Hubbs