Travel + Leisure

About Travel + Leisure

Travel + Leisure is an American monthly travel magazine published from New York City and one of the world's most widely read travel publications. First published in 1937 as U.S. Camera and Travel, it assumed its current name in 1971, shifting from travel photography to travel coverage in general. Today it is published by People Inc. under a long-term license from Travel + Leisure Co., the timeshare company that owns the trademark. Known for its travel photography, its covers featuring models in upscale settings, and its journalism by novelists, poets, artists, and designers, it runs the annual World's Best Awards — a reader survey rating airports, cities, cruise ships, hotels, and islands every August since 1995 — alongside the T+L 500 list of the world's top hotels.

Founding as U.S. Camera and Travel

The magazine was first published in 1937 under the name U.S. Camera and Travel, reflecting its origins as a photography magazine that also covered travel and culture. Its predecessor titles focused on travel photography, serving an audience of camera enthusiasts who documented their journeys. For more than three decades the magazine lived at the intersection of photography and wanderlust, publishing images and stories from around the world. In 1971, it was renamed Travel + Leisure, a change that signaled a decisive shift toward travel coverage in general and positioned the magazine for the mass-market travel boom of the jet age.

The Travel + Leisure era

Under its new name, Travel + Leisure became the preeminent voice for the sophisticated traveler, capturing the joy of discovering the cultural pleasures the world has to offer — from art and design to shopping and style to food and drink. The magazine specialized in leisure travel and often featured articles written by novelists, poets, artists, designers, and non-travel journalists, giving it a literary and visual flair its competitors lacked. It became known for its travel photography and for covers featuring models lounging in upscale environments, an aspirational visual signature that defined the brand for decades — a natural inheritance from its origins as a photography magazine, and one that made the title's Instagram and digital platforms a seamless extension of its print identity. In 2021, the magazine marked 50 years under the Travel + Leisure name with a special collector's edition.

Ownership history

The magazine was long published by American Express Publishing, which built it into a luxury-travel powerhouse. On October 1, 2013, Time Inc. purchased Travel + Leisure — along with Food & Wine — from American Express Publishing. Time Inc. was subsequently acquired by Meredith Corporation, and in 2021, Wyndham Destinations acquired the Travel + Leisure brand from Meredith, renaming itself Travel + Leisure Co. (NYSE: TNL). The magazine itself is published independently by People Inc., a subsidiary of IAC, under a long-term license agreement with Travel + Leisure Co., which also licenses the trademark for other products. Its main competitor throughout the modern era has been Condé Nast Traveler.

World's Best Awards

The magazine's World's Best Awards, an annual reader survey rating airports, cities, cruise ships, hotels, and islands, have been announced every August since 1995. Readers' votes recognize and reward the finest in global travel, and the awards have become one of the industry's most influential honors, closely watched by hotels, airlines, cruise lines, and tourism boards worldwide. The franchise has expanded into live events: the brand hosts the annual World's Best Summit in New York, bringing together travel industry leaders for conversations on the trends shaping the future of global travel, and has added an inaugural London edition.

The 2026 World's Best Awards continued the tradition of showcasing the top travel destinations, hotels, and airlines as chosen by readers, with the awards announcement generating coverage across the travel industry. The summits reflect how the franchise has grown from a magazine reader survey into a year-round platform connecting the brand, its audience, and the travel trade. For the industry, a World's Best win remains one of the most commercially valuable endorsements a hotel, airline, or cruise line can earn.

T+L 500 and America's Favorite Cities

Other annual features include the T+L 500, a list of the world's top 500 hotels as voted by readers, and America's Favorite Cities, in which readers rank U.S. cities across categories from food to culture to friendliness. These franchises give the brand year-round editorial tentpoles and provide the travel industry with benchmarks that carry real commercial weight: a high T+L 500 ranking or World's Best win is among the most coveted accolades a hotel can earn.

Editorial approach

Travel + Leisure's editorial voice is celebratory and immersive, aimed at passionate travelers seeking expert intelligence on where to go and what to experience. Its features blend destination reporting with coverage of hotels, food and drink, style, and culture, and its commissioning of novelists, poets, and artists as travel writers has given it a distinctive literary texture. The magazine is led by editor-in-chief Jacqui Gifford, who oversees the U.S. flagship from New York. Under her editorship and that of her predecessors, the title has maintained its position as the only monthly consumer travel magazine in the United States, publishing 12 issues a year while its competitors publish less frequently — a cadence that keeps the brand in constant conversation with its readers.

Audience and circulation

Travel + Leisure is published 12 times a year, with total circulation reported at 955,897 in 2024 and some 4.8 million readers according to its corporate media kit. The broader Travel + Leisure media portfolio reaches an audience of more than 30 million across the U.S. flagship magazine, travelandleisure.com, newsletters, the Let's Go Together podcast, the World's Best Awards franchise, social media, and international editions. The brand describes itself as the only monthly consumer travel magazine in the U.S., a position that gives it unmatched frequency in the category.

International editions

The brand's global footprint includes the U.S. flagship and six international print editions, with editions published in markets including China, India, Mexico, and Southeast Asia. These editions adapt the brand's formula — authoritative hotel rankings, destination features, and luxury-travel service journalism — to regional audiences, extending the World's Best franchise and the T+L 500's influence to travelers around the world.

Digital presence

Travelandleisure.com is the brand's digital hub, publishing travel news, destination guides, hotel reviews, and awards coverage to a large online audience. The site is supported by newsletters, the Let's Go Together podcast, and an extensive social media presence that carries the magazine's photography and travel inspiration to millions of followers. The digital operation works in concert with the print magazine's awards calendar, with the World's Best Awards generating major annual traffic and engagement.

Challenges and outlook

Travel + Leisure has navigated the full arc of modern magazine consolidation — from American Express to Time Inc. to Meredith to the split ownership between Travel + Leisure Co. and People Inc. — while maintaining its position as the highest-circulation monthly travel magazine in America. Its future rests on the same assets that built it: the authority of the World's Best Awards, the visual splendor of its photography, and a reader relationship measured in decades. As travel rebounds and evolves, the brand's bet is that expert curation and trusted rankings matter more than ever in an age of infinite, undifferentiated travel content.