Travel Weekly’s editor at large, Nadine Godwin, is retiring at the end of 2009, after 37 years as a reporter and editor with this publication and 40 years in travel journalism.
She expects to remain active in the industry as an editor and writer for the website BestTripChoices.com and as a freelance writer and book author. Godwin also intends to pursue her long-standing interests in cross-country skiing, photography and travel.
"Nadine’s contributions go far beyond Travel Weekly," said Editor in Chief Arnie Weissmann. "Her reporting has had a significant impact on the entire industry. We’re going to miss her, but we’re glad she’s staying involved in both travel and media."
Godwin’s remarkable career was recognized at the Travel Weekly Readers’ Choice Awards banquet on the evening of Dec. 17 with a plaque honoring her "for 37 years of valuable contributions to Travel Weekly and the industry."
A native of Iowa, Godwin gravitated toward journalism while a student at the University of Iowa, where she worked at the student newspaper, the Daily Iowan.
After graduating, she worked at the Des Moines Register and Tribune newspapers before moving to New York, where she landed a reporting job at Travel Agent magazine and earned a master’s degree in sociology and education at Teachers College, Columbia University.
In 1972 she was recruited to join Travel Weekly. The late Alan Fredericks, who was Travel Weekly’s editor at the time, often joked that he hired Godwin because he was tired of being scooped by her.
Godwin served in a variety of roles at Travel Weekly, including as a reporter covering retail travel and technology and as the editor overseeing destination coverage. She became managing editor in 1992.
In January 1996, she began an 18-month stint in London as editor in chief of Travel Weekly U.K. She returned to New York as Travel Weekly’s editor in chief in 1997.
During her tenure as editor in chief, Travel Weekly took top honors for editorial excellence twice in the annual awards event sponsored by Folio, a publishing industry trade journal.
Since stepping down as editor in chief in 2001, she has served as editor at large, focusing on travel retailers and technology.
She is the author of two books, "The Complete Guide to Travel Agency Automation," first published in 1982 and reissued in 1987. Looking back at the accelerating pace of change in travel technology, she recently observed that the second edition went out of date even faster than the first — which was written on a typewriter.
Her second book, "Travia: The Ultimate Book of Travel Trivia," was published in 2006; a new edition appeared in spring 2008.