Alistair: 0:00

Matthew Pike, and I. Decided to do what we called New Zealand's Worst Tramp. It's truly miserable you've gotta go through a whole bunch of cutting grass to get there. And when you reach it, it's just a big swamp and absolutely no view. It's completely pointless.

Peter: 0:18

So

Speaker: 0:25

Kiro and welcome to the Tramping Life, a podcast about hiking in outro New Zealand, or as we call it here, tramping. I'm jt, and in each episode I chat with people who share passion for exploring this incredible country. We'll hear about the tracks they love, the huts they return to, the lessons they've learned, and what keeps them heading back into the bush.

Jonty: 0:45

My guest today is Alistair Hall, the publisher and editor of Wilderness Magazine. Since 1991, wilderness has played a significant role in documenting the unique culture tramping and outdoor recreation in out Aurora, New Zealand. I'm delighted to welcome him to the podcast so what are your first memories of being outdoors?

Alistair: 1:01

I grew up in Wellington, so we spent a lot of time as a family. Hiking the hills. Proper hiking. I think I started that at school. The school camps that you go on. Year 10 we had 10 days down in Tonga National Park. It was a suffer fest, it was definitely type two fun because we were all very young and most of us hadn't done anything in the outdoors, of any serious nature. And we struck some absolutely appalling weather. but our teachers didn't seem to care. we climbed mountain pe, and white out. And, rain, freezing cold. we camped in South Crater, and, massive storm came through Every tent was absolutely flattened and destroyed, during that storm. It was misery. But also, looking back on it, it was my first experience with type two I actually look back on it really fondly and I realized that we endured some pretty tough things, but we came through it and it sets you up for many other outdoor adventures, doesn't it?

Jonty: 1:57

I'm amazed that you went back on another tramp after that experience.

Alistair: 2:00

Yeah, I know.

Jonty: 2:01

Did you do like tramping university or tramping clubs

Alistair: 2:04

I really regret not joining a tramping club at university. I think that would've been really good for me. In terms of meeting. Other trampers and doing more trips really, and experiencing a lot more. But I did it with friends. We would just go off I went to Wata Uni. We did trips Wata, Moana, Pia, those kind of things. Then I went overseas straight after uni. And I started to get into hiking. Big time over there. I spent a month or so traveling around Alaska, tramping and hitching. Been in Europe, Sweden, Spain. And I spent a long time in England about six years, and I hiked there a lot. I love England. I think it's a a magnificent place for, walking and, access to the outdoors. How did the new, when you returned, It was hard, to be honest. It was a lot harder than what I had become accustomed to in the uk. It's completely different, isn't it? In the UK it's all a very modified landscape. Whereas in New Zealand we're looking at, much rougher tracks. We've got very dense bush in places. It's a much different experience and enjoyable for different reasons,

Jonty: 3:11

What was the most challenging trip that you've done

Alistair: 3:14

in New Zealand? I did the Southern Circuit on ura, and that was really hard. That was tough. Very physical, it's that classic URA mud that you hear about. It came up to my thigh in places. And you've gotta haul yourself out of that. And then the next steps just as deep. I would say that is the toughest tramp, but that was also probably the most rewarding tramp. You're not looking at, glorious mountain vistas or these deep luscious valleys. it's a different experience. It's a wonderful bush. It's a remote coastline. I love that place. It was probably another type two fun trip, wasn't it? But they stand out in the memory and very special, experience. overseas, I did, a very difficult trip in in Spain or Destin National Park in the nee. And my goal there was to actually walk to France. But, I was very inexperienced. I didn't really know much about navigation. I had a map but. To be honest, I probably didn't know how to use it the first day I was following the trail it was very clearly marked trail. It was obvious where I had to go. There was sign posts even at various places, so that was fine. But the second day, terrible conditions rolled in white out and I was, aiming for this gap. It's quite a famous gap, the brush to roll on I got through it, but on the other side, just a lot of gray cloud, not much visibility, and I became completely lost. I ended up walking around in circles sheltering for the night in a little rock crevice. Woke up the next morning, snow everywhere. Completely changed landscape from this rocky, dry landscape to a winter wonderland, and still completely baffled. didn't know where I was or where I was going, but wandered on and after a long day, I ended up back where I started two days earlier. You can laugh at it now. I honestly thought for a second there, I'd made it into France, but no, I was back in Spain

Jonty: 5:08

so none of the scene looked familiar. You went oh, maybe this looks like I've seen this before.

Alistair: 5:13

I, because I came a different route, I stayed on the tops instead of retreating back through the way I'd come, I basically circled the top of the valley. So I, without having taken out my compass to even determine which direction I might have been traveling in, I convinced myself I was going the right direction. It's just one of those stupid things you do when you're not thinking clearly and you don't take a minute to look around you and really try to figure out where you're, yeah, I hear, I've heard about it a lot happening to other people and I commiserate it happens.

Jonty: 5:42

I thinking back to New Zealand, what are some of your favorite huts or campsites?

Alistair: 5:46

Huts I would go to, It's probably not on everyone's list, but I really love Pinnacles Hut and the Cora Mandle, it's 80 bunk, so it's not the remote and isolated experience that some people may be searching for, but I've had some great experiences there over the years. one trip I had there that is, extremely memorable was, my old colleague and a very good friend, Matthew Pike, and I. Decided to do what we called New Zealand's Worst Tramp. And that was to climb a table mountain. It's truly miserable you've gotta go through a whole bunch of cutting grass to get there. And when you reach it, it's just a big swamp and absolutely no view. It's completely pointless.. Why go there? I dunno. except to say you've done New Zealand's worst tramp, Later on at Pinnacles that was the first overnight trip I did with my daughter. It's a great introductory hut for, families she had an absolute blast up there at the It was so exciting and such an adventure. So I remember it for those reasons

Jonty: 6:50

and I remember that article the the Worst tramp in New Zealand and friends of mine, they were like, oh, this looks awesome. We are gonna go do that. I was like, you guys can do it by yourself. And then they showed me the photos and it lived up to his reputation. So I think you may have encouraged a few people with that article. Was your father a tramper? Because did he not set up a magazine?

Alistair: 7:09

Yeah, David, my dad, he started the mag. It was back in 1991, one of his staff had a bit of quiet time that he said, what can I do? I'm just gonna be sitting around doing nothing. And so they asked him if he could see if there was a niche in the market, is there a magazine that's not been done yet? So he went away and did his research and. Came back saying, there's no tramping mag and it seems to be a pretty popular pastime. Maybe we should look at that. And so they did. they started, it started out being bi-monthly for two issues,. It really took off, very quickly. And, it became a monthly title very shortly after. but no, I don't think David would classify himself as a tramp. He was a businessman, a magazine publisher. And he saw, there was a gap in the market At what point

Jonty: 7:56

did you become involved with wilderness?

Alistair: 7:59

Actually, if you go back to some of those old issues, you'll see me and my siblings and cousins and other people roped in to model various outdoor gear for photo shoots. So I had a kind of unofficial role probably as far back as like 1993. But then I traveled overseas after uni and I spent a long time over there as, I worked in journalism there newspapers in Oxford and comms type roles in London. I developed my writing and my editing while overseas and. Just talking to my dad, decided one day that it was time to come home and they had room for me in the company. That was about 2003, came back. We had a lot more magazines back in those days. So I worked across a range of our titles. But Wilderness was always the main one. It was monthly, had the highest frequency Colin Moore was the editor back then. he was a great man, a fantastic travel writer. And so I worked under him and learned a lot, from him as well, for a few years. And it wasn't until 2007 I became editor. Still doing it now. It's been quite a while.

Jonty: 9:07

Can you give us a bit of a behind the scenes insights into what's involved in producing the magazine?

Alistair: 9:13

Yeah, it's a pretty intensive process. It takes hundreds and hundreds of hours, when you add up all the hours, everyone does. it usually starts with, me and Lee, my deputy editor, and, mark, our gear editor, having a chat. We try to start having the conversations now for our January, February and our March issues. There's a big buildup to each issue and we commission stories from people. some we do, from our. Editorial discussions. We will then approach a writer and ask them if they're interested in, writing this story for us. We get pictures from, other writers, whether they are professional freelancers or they might be hobbyists, trampers, who also want to write, share their photos. just on a side note, I always welcome more writers. We always wanna hear from people who are interested in writing. the interest in writing is the most important thing for me. the interest in tramping is also important, but we require, people who really wanna hone their writing craft, above all else, I never, ever tire of seeing the magazine get published. It's always a thrill to look over it and see, what we've created as a team. I'm very proud of every issue. I honestly am. it's a great effort from a lot of different people.

Jonty: 10:36

Is AI used at all in the production process?

Alistair: 10:39

I did use it once to my, regret. Every April we do a feature. we had a great story on the different types of walker you can meet. It was really fun. Just a bit of a laugh really. but we had nothing to illustrate it. How do you illustrate, the person that carries everything and pots and pans hanging off their pack type thing. And, my usual illustrator, Rachel Davies, she actually lives in Canada and I asked her at the last minute and she couldn't do it. I said, okay, what's this AI stuff I've been hearing about? I found an AI image maker and entered a few keywords and anyway, it spat out a few Okay. Looking illustrations, and yeah, we thought we'd use it and it was obvious they were AI and boy did we upset some people. we got a lot of feedback about, we should be using Kiwi illustrators. we shouldn't be putting this kind of stuff in the magazine. And they were right. They were right. We shouldn't have put it in the magazine. It was wrong. I should have planned way further ahead. I should have given more notice. It takes time to do these things well. And yeah, so that was a lesson on AI that I haven't forgotten.

Jonty: 11:45

Do you have an extensive bucket list of article ideas or sometimes is it a bit more of a challenge to have enough?

Alistair: 11:52

it does get hard, I think, to keep that fresh. I say we do a Toyota Rowa feature every April, that's a little bit predictable, and how do we keep that fresh? But we know what the content's gonna be a year in advance, and we also have a great walk special issue that we do in September. There's a challenge in there about finding ways to, tell stories about, these trails and tracks, in a fresh way that doesn't. Bo our regular readers, but that also excites the itinerant people who are browsing the bookstand, some of these features and especially so with the Great Walks, it is about new stand appeal. We want people to see us and recognize us on the news stand and the Great Walk Cell magazines. There's no two ways about it. It helps. you've gotta look at that commercial aspect too when you're planning an issue or a feature. as to the original question, do we have a big bucket list of ideas? Yes, we do. We have periods though, where we do, and we have periods where we've run out of those ideas, and, as I say, we're always, two or three issues ahead. So we've got some breathing room and we always come up with something

Jonty: 13:09

What's your split between retail sales on stands versus subscription sales?

Alistair: 13:14

Subs are the lifeblood of the magazine. So we have 5,000 subscribers at the moment, and we probably average around 17 to 1800 retail sales each issue.

Jonty: 13:26

Generally the content world is focused very much on New Zealand, and I guess that's a conscious decision to focus just on New Zealand tramping.

Alistair: 13:33

Yeah. There is still so much New Zealand stuff we can do. We don't have enough room in the magazine for an overseas one, we would've to drop something that we've already got in the mag, I'm not really that open to it because travel, it's a side issue. it's not core to what we do. It's not the reason people are buying the magazine. They're buying the mag because they want to know about tramping in New Zealand. That's, tens of thousands of pages of New Zealand stories. And, there's still more to go. It's infinite. It doesn't end.

Jonty: 14:06

How did Walk 1200 come about and what was the impact of that on the magazine?

Alistair: 14:11

That was back to my old mate, Matt, who I did the worst tramp in New Zealand with. he left Wilderness and he went and worked at country walking in the uk. We were working on our 30th anniversary issue back in, 2021. I asked Matt, have you got any ideas about what we can do here? It's a pretty big milestone He just said we've been running this walking challenge, why don't you look at doing something like that? So I looked into it and it just seemed that's a great idea. This is something we can actually do with our readers. This was something that looked forward and it was positive. as I said, a chance to do something with people, not, talk to them. That was the idea was walk 1200 kilometers in a year sign up, become part of a community. And ultimately it's led to a much greater awareness of wilderness. We are much more visible, in terms of, people are hearing about us, not just seeing us in the new standard hearing about us through what. People are doing like these thousands of walkers, pounding their pavements outside their home or going for walks in the bush, wherever they're doing it, they're part of our Walk 1200 community. They're talking about it and sharing their, experience. And they're really positive things that happen when you make walking part of your daily life because, to walk this distance it's so achievable. But to do it, you really need to make a habit out of walking. And that means daily walks or, several times a week kind of walks. We've actually seen a shift, from, wilderness being a mainly male red magazine to now mainly female red. We've been doing reader surveys for donkeys, and it's always been 55% men, 45% women have read the magazine. After the first year of doing walk 1200, that it was 55% women and 45% men or thereabouts. It was, yeah, I was just stunned. I now see there's a lot of women's walking groups around and there's woman only guided, trips being done. I don't know why is it just happening now or if it was always there, but women are really getting outdoors. It's great. So we're part of that kind of movement too, I think. so it's been extremely positive for the magazine. As I said before, we're at a inflection point with media around the world and there's no hiding. The fact that wilderness is in a gradual decline as most traditional kind of print style media is, and this turned things around. it gave us a real boost. I wouldn't say we're out of the woods or, we're not struggling to find more readers and subscribers. Of course we are. But it's definitely put us in a position where we can perhaps have a fighting chance. I think we've got this thing outside of wilderness and I think a lot of wilderness readers don't do Walk 1200 because, it's a bit softer and wilderness has this reputation. I think a perception of being a. It's more difficult or we cover like the hardcore stuff and it's not true. it's definitely not true. but that's a perception. I do hear from some subscribers that we publish too much walk 1200 content. it's not for me because you're talking, front country tracks or even neighborhood walks and that's not for me. But at the same time, it's opened the wilderness, the parks and the natural environment to a whole bunch of people who thought it wasn't for them. but it's, and Wilderness is a family magazine. it's not a hardcore magazine at all. and I'm really pleased it's a family magazine because we've got the last weekend pages where readers send in photos of what they've done and so many of them are parents proud as punch that their kid is with them in the outdoors or bag their first heart or grandparents have taken their kids for a walk in a park, national park and that's the future man. there's still a thrill and something special about having your photo published in a magazine. But I don't think you can get from, social media or online in quite the same way.

Jonty: 18:06

A final question on the magazine side of things. How things have changed in the media landscape and about the impact of social media and how have you seen that play out with wildness?

Alistair: 18:15

I guess we have a love hate with social media. Our social media game is pretty poor, I think. We aren't good at it. Our focus has always been about trying to own our audience, reach them through our platforms and that means the mag or our newsletter. And so that's where our focus is really in, in those two areas. I accept there's a lot of good with social media I went for a walk the other day with a bunch of social media natives, influencers and people with a really big profile. And I may have been dismissive of these people in the past, but the woman I met there, very smart, intelligent people. They've got their audience too. they're talking to their audience in a way that I don't know how to, they're used to it but they're also, business people and they're running a business just the same way as I'm. they're just reaching people in a different way and, I am, the old guy crashing the party in a way. but I came away from that walk. with a completely different view, of the people that, I've seen just through photos comments or, videos on reels and what have you. they're doing the same thing. We are just a different way. One thing that, when I was thinking more about this thing, like what's the biggest threat To wilderness, is it these social media platforms or is it New Zealand Post, and I've decided that it's New Zealand Post because they're not gonna be a post company for much longer, they're transitioning to a courier company. when that happens and it costs$8 to deliver an issue of wilderness, it's gonna be a problem. And, there is, a competitor, I suppose with DX Mail that might, help slow that transition to a courier company. But it's coming. And, it's the big talk of the town here for magazine publishers in New Zealand. How do we handle this? And no one's got an answer at the moment. They're what keeps me up at night, not the social media. Guys one thing about having a print mag is. Offers a chance to get away from social media because I think whether we admit it or not, we probably all spend too much time on our devices, whether it is social media or we're working and we're looking at a screen, in a magazine like Wilderness offer a respite. It's a chance to get away from, that endless scrolling which I come away from feeling deeply unfulfilled and not knowing really anything that I didn't know before. I've gained nothing. I've just wasted a whole bunch of time. With a magazine. Every page is a surprise. It's a gorgeous publication and, it gives your eyes, it gives your body, your mind, whatever a break from that screen. And that's, probably the strongest benefit we've got with print, I think. And a story that we should be trying to tell those of us in the industry, it's much better for you. to pick up a mag and read that. Then hurting your eyes on those bright screens all the time.

Jonty: 21:05

Agreed. And just to finish up with what's on your tramping bucket list,

Alistair: 21:09

I really wanna walk Milford Track. That would be one with the family, I think back to when I traveled overseas and I had those months of not working, no responsibilities, and I just tramped and I explored the world that way, and it was just really nice. I love the idea of just waking up, tramping, waking, sleeping, waking up, tramping. Would like to try ra trail one day. I would love to do some long overseas trails too, my wife's Turkish and, we go to Turkey a lot. so there's a long path there called the Ian way. and that's village to village. I just love that idea. walking these ancient roots and, staying in small villages, along the way, meeting the locals.

Peter: 21:50

So

Speaker: 21:53

Thank you so much for listening to the Tramping life. If you've enjoyed today's episode, please follow the podcast in whatever app you use. Tell a friend about it and consider leaving a rating or a review. It really helps more people discover the show. you have any questions or feedback, I'd love to hear from you. Drop me an email at the tramping life, one word@gmail.com.