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At the risk of inverting priorities, let me begin this review with a word of disclosure about the reviewer:
I love travel, am on the road half the time for professional reasons, travel to all the continents, have lived on three of them for extended periods of time, and nurture a quiet reservation about people who ‘get to know’ faraway places by the convenience of a short visit to an affluent resort.
However, I have also seen both the good that tourism has done for local economies and the blinkered understanding of the world too often suffered by those who cannot or choose not to travel. So my reluctance should not be construed as resentment.
OK, enough of that. Given these caveats about high-end travel, Condé Nast can be a fascinating read. Some of it (‘Escape from the Airport. Passenger power saves the day’, Dec 2006) is valuable for air travelers on almost any budget.
Yet the real value of this magazine will be mined by those whose circumstances allow them to travel anywhere they want. For that kind of affluent tourist, Condé Nast can be a gold mine of opportunities that would otherwise be overlooked.
In my judgement, Travel and Leisure beats Condé Nast Traveler by a nose in this sector’s competition, but either one will do you. If you had, say, five years of high-end travel in front of you, you’d do well to toss in some coins for subscriptions to both.
Frequent travelers on a business or economy budget are likely to hold out for browsing in the dentist office waiting room or—as I do—snagging subscriptions to both via frequent flyer miles.
Bon voyage!
Canter Bridge 
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