Go and see for yourself

Should we or shouldn’t we go to Zimbabwe? Do South Africans still travel there? Is it the right time? How much will it cost? Is it safe? As in most cases, our readers made us realise that we were asking the wrong questions. Of course people still visit Zimbabwe. After we received yet another reader story detailing a memorable family holiday there, we knew it was time to go and see for ourselves. This happens to be one of the principles upon which the go! brand is built: We go and see for ourselves. Tom Wolfe, author of books like The Right Stuff and Bonfire of the Vanities, is one of the world’s foremost journalists and novelists. The 85-year-old was recently asked what advice he had for young journalists, and he simply said: “Get out of the office!” Wolfe is right. Great writing doesn’t happen in an air-conditioned cubicle with your web browser permanently open on Google. It happens in the field where you can smell the rain, taste the dust, see a bougainvillea in bloom and look a person in the eye. In other words: Go and see for yourself. That’s exactly what Toast Coetzer did. He got in his car and drove a meandering route through the south of Zimbabwe. What did he find? Read his story on page 34… As I sit here, typing away in an airconditioned office, I notice that it’s rather quiet. That’s because the magazine’s writers, people like Toast, Sophia van Taak and Erns Grundling, are on the road. And that’s how it should be. We go and see for ourselves to give you a balanced, detailed impression of a place. Travel is expensive and the more information you have at your disposal the better. Proper information, provided by people who were actually there. Then you, too, can go and see for yourself.