On this episode of Adventure Calls, I spoke with Laura Bartlett, the founder of House of Coco, a luxury print travel magazine sold on the newsstands in London. During a time when the world became overrun with travel Instagrammers, Laura chose to go in the opposite direction, launching a print magazine, with the goal of creating a platform that allowed her and her team to travel and live their best lives. It definitely worked. Today, Laura has over 50 creators who create content for the magazine, inspiring readers to see the world and step out of their comfort zone. 

Born in Leeds, England, Laura started a few different magazines and had an unsuccessful pitch on an episode of Dragon’s Den, the show that inspired the US show, Shark Tank, before landing big with House of Coco. She is a larger than life example of failure breeding strength, and the tenacity it takes to make it in the world of publishing today. 

In this call, we discuss the role of travel magazines in the current climate of COVID-19, and how she thinks print magazines will fare in the future, once  the world starts back up traveling again. 

Note: This next Adventure Call took place roughly four weeks ago, the world has changed yet again, and it wouldn’t be right to continue without acknowledging that. There is a second pandemic that has erupted since the deaths of George Floyd, Ahmend Aubrey and Breonna Taylor, among others. The disease of racism has always been there, and has now come to light with millions marching around the world. In March, when I realized that travel, as we knew it, would stop for a while, part of what made that chill run down my spine has nothing to do with the money and jobs that are lost. Travel opens our minds and our hearts to each other in a way that no other action can do. You meet strangers and people who don’t look like you at a time when you are not bogged down with work, or chores, and your spirit is open and ready to receive new information. “Vacation” is a trojan horse that lets light in to our fear of the ‘other’. 

In the words of Mark Twain, “Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.” Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry and narrow-mindedness. That is what drives me and what makes me passionate about helping people explore the world. You can not generalize when you know so many specific cases. You can not stereotype all black people, all latinos, all asians, all white people, when you have seen, with your own eyes, the different ways in which all humans live, the different societies in which different people thrive. I stand with the Black Lives Matter movement and I stand with the protestors. 

This episode can be found at www.jessicadrucker.com/ac7
All Adventure Calls episodes can be found at www.jessicadrucker.com/adventurecalls

Adventure Calls is produce, edited and hosted by Jessica Drucker. Follow @jessicavdrucker / @jessdrucker / Jessica Drucker