Congrats to Virtuoso Life for this huge honor! I am privileged to be a member of the Editorial Advisory Board and to have the opportunity to interact with the best and the brightest travel journalists and marketers in the world! Bravo, Terrie Hansen, Elaine Srnka and team!

Some of you may not yet subscribe to Virtuoso Life. If you are interested in receiving a subscription to this award winning magazine, please email barbara@greatgetaway.com with your name, mailing address (no PO Box, sorry!) and home phone number (for verification reasons). Of course, you were born before January 1, 1992, right?

Bragging rights below!

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Oct.20.09
Virtuoso Staff

VIRTUOSO LIFE magazine has recently been awarded a Bronze award for Best Travel Magazine in the prestigious Society of American Travel Writers Foundation’s Lowell Thomas Travel Journalism Competition.

As you know, VIRTUOSO LIFE is Virtuoso’s private travel magazine that features extraordinary destinations, cruising, hotels and resorts, tours and custom itineraries available through a Virtuoso travel advisor. It also shows your clients high-quality advertisements from Virtuoso preferred suppliers and tourism boards. The true mission of the magazine, according to Vice President of Marketing Terrie Hansen, is “to communicate the value of using a Virtuoso travel advisor to plan amazing experiences that are customized specifically to each traveler's needs.” Terrie adds that, “To be recognized in the publishing community for excellence in content and design, while actively promoting our corporate and network value, is a real achievement, and a testament to the talent of our editorial and design team."

This year’s competition drew nearly 1,200 entries. In the Best Travel Magazine category, the other two winners were National Geographic Traveler and Budget Travel, so clearly there some very heavy hitters in contention for an award.

VIRTUOSO LIFE Editorial Director Elaine Srnka had this to share about winning this honor. “The Lowell Thomas Awards competition is one of the most important in the publishing industry – it’s considered the Pulitzer Prize for travel journalism – so it’s truly an honor to win not just for a single article or issue, but a Bronze for best travel magazine overall. With the bar set so high, the VIRTUOSO LIFE team is hard at work to ensure that the upcoming issues in 2010 are even more impressive – and that they continue to inspire consumers to travel Virtuoso style.”

Meanwhile, a Lowell Thomas judge commented that VIRTUOSO LIFE is “My upscale favorite. The covers introduce themes and the inside articles carried them out. The pictures and the design oozed elegance. Great for the traveler who has money to spend or wishes he had money to spend.”