This, unfortunately, is only for those who understand Portuguese, but if you're into excellent graphic design, this Sao Paulo-based magazine is also for you. Trip magazine was founded in the 80s by some São Paulo surf nuts and has grown into a beautifully designed and utterly admirable publication. The magazine is not a lad mag, nor a style mag, or a surfing magazine, or a lifestyle magazine - it's all these things but overall, it's just Trip.

Trip was the magazine that inspired me to give up smoking by refusing to accept tobacco advertising and, for a change, challenging the usual boorish magazine standpoint on how to live by encouraging surfing and good health rather than a Loaded-style agenda espousing a rampantly hedonist culture. Part of their anti-smoking campaign featured a 'Frankenstein's Monster', a montage of pictures of ciggie-ravaged body parts.

Trip also houses the wonderful Gonzo-inspired writer Arthur Verissimo, now a television reporter and famous in his own right in Brazil, whose amusing escapades include going from São Paulo to Rio de Janeiro - not the short distance you'd imagine - using only municipal bus tickets for the poor and students called Vale Transportes.

Then we have the 'Trip Girls' and 'Show It' sections, which some European sensibilities might not like - 'Trip Girl' is what it says it is: a section in which a young model is tastefully photographed partially clothed (ok, partially undressed); the 'Show It' section shows off the alpha females of Sao Paulo's elite in their habitats on the state's social scene or on the beach. Both sections, however, simply reflect the sensual and relaxed Brazilian attitude to the body beautiful.

One issue a year features the female staff of Trip itself in an artfully-shot edition of their own. The women get their own back in the form of TPM - or 'Trip Para Mulheres' (Trip For Women). TPM is Portuguese for PMT, by the way - you can't fault their humour ... can you? Add to this the various columns of entertaining intelligence from founder and editor Paulo Lima as well as various correspondents in Brazil, the USA and the Old Continent and you get a slice of the confident, brash but very wordly vibe that makes São Paulo the city you'd be best advised not to underestimate, even less patronise. Should you go to Brazil, this magazine alone is a reason to learn Portuguese.

It's available all over Brazil from good newstands ... but Trip is a São Paulo state of mind.
www.revistatrip.com.br

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