NOW!HERE is going places.
Juliana DeVries, CC ’11, started the online travel journal last year as a reference spot and creative outlet for other Columbia students stricken by wanderlust. The Columbia International Relations Council and Association oversees its production.
The journal’s name, NOW!HERE—pronounced “now here”—came from something DeVries’s friend said while canoeing down the Bonnet Plume River in the Yukon: “We’re not in the middle of nowhere, we’re now here!” DeVries added that she is from New Hampshire, “which people often also call ‘the middle of nowhere,’ but which locals sometimes call ‘Now Hampshire’ as a counter to this.”
This semester, DeVries is studying abroad in Istanbul, Turkey, entrusting the title of editor in chief to Lauren Argenti, CC ’12. Argenti was the Travel for Leisure editor, and she took last year off to travel in East Africa and South America. Argenti thinks that the journal’s title “goes along with what we want—people living in the present and seeing what they can do.”
One of the reasons NOW!HERE began was the slight frustration DeVries felt in deciding where to study abroad. “I used to study Japanese, but I knew I didn’t want to study in Japan ... It took me a long time to explore my other options and decide, and I didn’t always know where to look for information,” she said.
Argenti added that another underlying cause was the feeling that “Columbia kids don’t get out of the bubble enough. ... People don’t remember that there are fifty states and the rest of the world.”
The relatively small staff works hard to accept and put together articles, art, and creative writing that is both informative and inspiring. Argenti notes that involvement with the journal is “a huge time commitment.” Indeed, weekly staff meetings are necessary for brainstorming, pitching, and editing.
DeVries noted that she “was especially surprised by the above-and-beyond dedication of my editing board. I was incredibly lucky to find a group of people last semester who really took this project on as their own and ran with it.”
NOW!HERE’s status as a new online publication seems to work in the group’s favor. “Getting to work on something new is exciting … because it seems almost like anything is possible. If someone on the board has a new idea, they put it out to the group. If something’s not working, we change it,” DeVries said.
Argenti added, “The first issue was really awesome—so much better than expected. The result that we got was so positive that it really propelled us. … Everyone was so psyched last semester. We’re trying to keep that going.”
The journal is broken up into four parts: Travel for Leisure, Features, Study Abroad, and Creative Writing and Art. The first section deals primarily with students’ adventures outside of an academic realm. Articles from the last issue ranged from a story “myth busting” a Cancún spring break to a piece praising Austin, Texas. Argenti said that NOW!HERE was very conscious of its collegiate audience and wanted to focus on affordable options for travel, which can be seen in the piece entitled “Less than a Benjamin” in the Travel for Leisure section.
A Features piece spoke of “Jack Kerouac as a Travel Writer” while the Study Abroad section contained thoughts on Columbia’s Reid Hall program in Paris as well as the availability of study abroad options in Africa. The last section is a writing portfolio and photo gallery.
While the staff’s goal so far is simply to stay the course, Argenti does want to emphasize that “one of the founding principles of the magazine is that it’s about traveling and going and seeing cool things, but it’s also about giving back. ... [It is] not only about telling people things, but helping people.”
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