Travel with Max is Moving on Up!

About three years ago, I began contributing a column to the Montague Reporter, a local newspaper that covers the small towns around Turners Falls. My column, Travel with Max, has been published in the small paper dozens of times, but I got word today of a big change for the better.

From now on, my monthly travel column will run in the Greenfield Recorder, in both its print and web editions.  This is a significant change because it’s roughly 3.5 times the circulation and a huge web reach that the Montague Reporter can’t match since they don’t have a proper website.

I am a regular subscriber and reader of the Recorder, which is based in Greenfield. I go way back with them, and I am thrilled to be a part of a paid opportunity, instead of giving my work away as I have been.

As a comparison:

Context & Reach

Montague Reporter: A grassroots publication with deep local ties and a focused regional audience. Its nonprofit status emphasizes community service over commercial scale.

Greenfield Recorder: A professionally staffed daily with broader distribution and digital reach, making it the dominant news source in the county.

Comparing platforms for publishing or advertising, the Recorder offers significantly more exposure, while the Reporter offers niche community engagement. I have been kind of disappointed in the paltry readers’ reactions to my dozens of columns over the years. I only met one person who ever said they read my travel stories in the Reporter. I hope to improve this with the Recorder column, which I will also be calling “Travel with Max.”

I plan to share details of my past trips, news updates on transportation in our region, and some new angles on travel in all of its glory. I can’t wait for my first story that will come out early February.