About Via

Via

Via is the travel magazine of AAA Northern California, Nevada & Utah — the member publication that has chronicled Western travel by automobile for more than a century. Founded in 1917 as The California Motorist, it began as a platform to support road construction in the early days of American motoring and evolved over eight decades and many iterations into Via, a travel magazine for drivers. Published from Walnut Creek, California, and sent to millions of AAA members across the West, it covers the destinations, road trips, and driving life of the American West. Its official website is https://www.viamagazine.com.

1917: The California Motorist

When Via first came on the scene in 1917 — known then as The California Motorist — the supremacy of car travel in the United States was far from established. America's roads were largely unpaved, long-distance driving was an adventure for the hardy, and the automobile itself was still proving it belonged at the center of American life. In that context, Motorist served as a platform to support road construction: the magazine of a motor club arguing, issue after issue, that California needed modern roads.

The founding year is a neat coincidence of AAA history: 1917 was also the year AAA began printing hotel guides, as the association built the infrastructure of information — maps, guides, magazines — that would make mass motoring possible. The California Motorist was the Northern California motor club's contribution to that project: part travel guide, part advocacy organ, part community bulletin for the region's drivers.

Eight Decades of Iterations

Over the next eighty years, the magazine went through many iterations — changing names, formats, and editorial emphases as the automobile went from novelty to necessity to lifestyle. The road-building advocacy of the 1910s gave way to the touring journalism of the mid-century, as California's highways opened the Sierra, the coast, the deserts, and the national parks to millions of motorists. The magazine chronicled the West that the car made accessible.

By the 1990s, the publication that had begun as The California Motorist was sent to 4.2 million West Coast AAA members — one of the largest circulations of any magazine in America, delivered not on newsstands but in members' mailboxes. Eighty years after its founding, it changed to its current name: Via — Latin for "by way of," the word at the root of every road trip.

AAA Northern California, Nevada & Utah

Via is published by AAA Northern California, Nevada & Utah — the regional motor club serving AAA members across Northern California, Nevada, and Utah. The club is part of the American Automobile Association federation, the national organization founded on March 4, 1902, in Chicago, when nine motor clubs banded together to advocate for roads suitable for automobiles. From its Walnut Creek, California headquarters, the club provides its members with roadside assistance, insurance, travel services, and — through Via — the inspiration to use them.

The member-magazine model gives Via an enviable position in publishing: a large, defined, demographically attractive audience delivered with every membership. For advertisers — automakers, destinations, hotels, and travel services — the magazine offers direct access to millions of Western drivers.

A Travel Magazine for Drivers

Via is a travel magazine, but one that caters specifically to drivers. Its editorial formula centers on Western travel spots easily accessible by car: the road trips, small towns, national and state parks, scenic byways, and regional cities that make the West the country's great driving destination. Where general travel magazines might send readers around the world, Via keeps its readers on the road — usually within a tank or two of home.

The magazine's longtime editor and publisher Anne McSilver articulated the editorial standard: destination stories with broad rather than niche appeal. Via is written for the mass of member-drivers, not the specialist — the family planning a summer road trip, the retirees touring wine country, the weekenders heading for the mountains or the shore. Practical service journalism — where to go, what to see, where to stay, how to drive it — sits alongside narrative travel writing that captures the romance of the Western road.

Content and Departments

Via's pages mix destination features with the practical content AAA members expect: driving tours and itineraries, coverage of the West's parks and public lands, small-town profiles, food and lodging recommendations, automotive content (new vehicles, driving tips, car care), and coverage of the club's services — from roadside assistance to travel planning to member discounts. The magazine also reflects AAA's longstanding safety mission, the association's advocacy for motorists carried forward from the road-building campaigns of The California Motorist era.

The photography has always been central to the formula: the West is photogenic, and Via's pages have showcased its landscapes — the Pacific coastline, the Sierra Nevada, the desert Southwest, the redwoods — for generations of readers planning their next trip.

The AAA Magazine Family

Via belongs to a family of AAA member magazines that together reach tens of millions of American motorists. Its Southern California counterpart is Westways, published by the Automobile Club of Southern California since 1909 (originally as Touring Topics) — a fellow centenarian of Western motoring journalism, and at various times one of the ten largest-circulation magazines in the nation. Other AAA clubs publish their own titles for their territories, from Journey in the Pacific Northwest to the various regional editions across the country.

Within that family, Via's identity is distinctly Northern Californian: the Bay Area, the wine country, the Gold Country, the North Coast, and the high Sierra, plus the club's Nevada and Utah territories — the gateway West of Lake Tahoe, the Great Basin, and the canyon country.

The Road Trip Revival

Via's editorial mission has found new resonance in the road trip's modern revival. As travelers rediscover the American road — seeking the flexibility, scenery, and spontaneity that only driving delivers — the magazine's century of expertise in Western itineraries has become newly valuable. The publication that once advocated for roads to be built now guides millions along the roads its predecessors helped create.

Print in the Digital Age

Like all member magazines, Via has navigated the shift from print-first to digital-first media. Its website, viamagazine.com, extends the print brand online with travel stories, trip ideas, and digital features — reaching members and non-members alike, and giving the magazine's journalism a life beyond the mailbox. The print magazine, meanwhile, retains the advantage that built it: guaranteed delivery to millions of members, in a medium — the glossy travel magazine — that still inspires trips better than any other.

A Century of the Western Road

Few American magazines can claim a continuous publishing history stretching back to 1917. Via's century-plus arc mirrors the history of the automobile in the West: from the road-building advocacy of The California Motorist, through the golden age of highway touring, to the modern era of experiential travel and road-trip revival. The magazine was there when the roads were dirt, when the interstates arrived, and when the road trip became an American ritual.

For the AAA members who receive it, Via is more than a magazine — it is a membership benefit, a trip planner, and a reminder of why they joined the club: the freedom of the road. From The California Motorist (1917) to Via, it has been the West's driving companion for more than a hundred years. Its official website is https://www.viamagazine.com.