Their quality declined a lot, in terms of what I wanted. The balance of articles shifted (at least in my perception) from a magazine about the world and its cultures to a magazine about American geography and popular science. They had always had all three of these, but the cultural anthropology aspect went down, probably because US-based stories were much cheaper to produce, but I just wasn’t interested in the feature on Zip Code Whatever.
I have seen issues in doctor’s offices in recent years. I saw it every month growing up. My father took me and my brother to a presentation by an oceanographer at the Society headquarters in DC.
I have many National Geographic memories but I think my favorite was a story told by a photographer would had been in the bush for a long stint in Africa. After a long hard day of travel the crew stopped in a remote village in time to join in a communal meal at a large outdoor table. The locals brought out large bowls of cold limp white grubs for the dinner. The photographer tells how another visitor to the village for dinner there at the table must have seen his spirits sag at the sight of the food and leaned over to him and whispered “I know how you feel. The grubs are much better back home in my village too”.