KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 14 — Most mainstream travel magazines focus on a list of guides and checklists but locally-produced Musotrees talks instead about personal experiences and discoveries which make for a refreshing change. This independent travel magazine documents avid traveller Kerol Izwan and his friends’ own personal stories.
In fact, Kerol has travelled to 30 countries so far! The team behind Musotrees also includes Nita Katcharath and Lyana Ruslan as editors and Afdzal Ahmad as the art director.
“All of us are scientists and this magazine is our weekend- and night-job. We do it for fun because it is something we love to do. We had this idea for two years but we only published this magazine last May. I told my friends that we should do this because there is nothing like this yet in Malaysia,” said Kerol who is the editor-in-chief at Musotrees.
There are a lot of travel magazines in the market but these are usually homegrown ones writing about local travel. Musotrees focuses on overseas travel and the style is similar to Monocle and Kinfolk which are huge inspirations to the team. They don’t try to imitate anyone but instead write about what they feel about their travels. “We are not professionals, we don’t use professional cameras and we do it on our own,” said Kerol.
Afdzal had never done a magazine layout before prior to making Musotrees Volume 1. He comes from a science background but has worked in advertising before. Kerol admitted that in Volume 1, there were mistakes but the Musotrees team learned a lot during the process. They asked editors from other magazines for advice. This month, Volume 2 will be released and things such as content and direction will be improved.
“The design is very minimal. We get our reference from Scandinavian countries. It is different from other local travel magazines,” said Afdzal.
The name Musotrees comes from two words, “muso” stands for people who love music and ‘trees’ refer to Nature which is Kerol’s favourite subject to photograph. “Whenever I post a photo on Instagram, I use a song in the caption. All of us are music lovers. It keeps us going when we are working,” said Kerol. They hope that the name Musotrees is catchy.
All four of them have travelled together and they have also done solo trips before. Even though the travel stories go into the magazine, they travel for fun and do not think about what story to write when they are away. “We have no expectations while travelling. Everything is organic. Travelling comes first before we think about the magazine,” said Kerol.
“We are doing this as a hobby. The idea came two years ago but we only started last year. Everything is self-funded,” said Nita. The project was done not to make money but as a personal project. Kerol said that they do not have any experience in the magazine industry nor business and marketing. They have a niche market of readers but they engage with people around the world.
“Our magazine was sold in nine countries over the past six months. I feel that we are in the right direction. For Volume 2, we have to think about sustainability so we got brand ads and sponsorships but we still maintain our own way of story telling,” said Kerol.
For their first print run, they published 500 copies. To date, 80 per cent of it has been sold. The team also participates in bazaars so they get a lot of exposure besides selling online and through stockists.
“Our first issue was an introductory one but the next issue onwards, we will have a theme. We have seven contributors from around the world and we interviewed four people about their travels. In Volume 1, we had articles on six countries but the next volume will have 15 places. The contributors are keen to be part of the magazine,” said Kerol.
For Volume 2 of Musotrees, the focus will be on places that people don’t usually visit. All the photos in the magazine are taken with their mobile phones and they turned out pretty well.
Musotrees is a bi-annual magazine priced at RM58 (US$17) that is targeted at young travellers from various backgrounds.
Check out www.musotrees.com for more information.
