We Are Here is here

Independent travel magazines seem to be enjoying a bit of a boom at the moment. There’s Stack favourite Boat, plus food and travel magazine Cereal, Berlin-based family travel journal Endless, and the hand-stitched Singaporean labour of love, Terroir, to name just a few.

So it’s fitting that the latest magazine to join the Stack ranks is another frequent flyer (though for their first issue they decided to stay at home). We Are Here is made by Dubai-based writer and editor Conor Purcell, and tells the story of a city by finding ordinary people doing interesting things.

For the first issue that means interviews with the ‘third culture kids’ who grew up in a country foreign to both their mother and father, an interview with Dubai’s most prolific graffiti artist, and a satirical take on the cliches writers reach for when describing Dubai. Apparently it’s important to mention the “gleaming airport”.

All photography in the magazine is either taken with a mobile phone or processed through one, giving it a lo-fi look that contrasts nicely with the shiny images of Dubai we’re used to seeing and fits in well with the editorial’s determination to tell stories from a fresh perspective.

Purcell says he will soon be heading off to Kathmandu to produce his first travel magazine on foreign soil, and I’m really looking forward to seeing what he makes of it. Look out for We Are Here making its way to you at some point in the next few months.