Sunset (1-year)

Each issue includes sections on gardening, travel, foods, home, and even books. After you subtract the ads, gardening content is down in the 10% range. And within that small section, the magazine tries to have something relevant for all western areas, from Alaska to Arizona to Idaho to Oregon, and everyplace in between. When they omit an area, the following month you'll see a letter to the editor complaining about it.

The other sections have similar issues. The travel section has to have destinations in every region. The food section has to have regional cuisine from every region. The home section even has to feature homes in every region.

Living alone, I don't cook much, let alone prepare fancy dishes. My biggest decorating issue is keeping the clutter down. The only travel I do is the commute to work. And I'd rather read books than read about books. I also don't care much about gardens in climates vastly different than my own, so I have no interest in the obligatory tropical plants covers. That leaves only a handful of pages that interest me.

If you're a well-rounded person, with interests in more areas than just gardening, you may well find Sunset an interesting magazine. The articles are all well written. The whole magazine is the highest level of quality. They do a great job of writing about everything they write about. It's just that their scope is just far too wide to be a comprehensive guide to living in such a diverse area as the west.

If you like Better Homes and Gardens, and you live in the west, you'll love Sunset Magazine. If you're looking for an extension of their definitive books on gardening in the west, you'll be disappointed by how little relevant content you'll find each month.

One other thing to mention: Sunset Magazine has made most of their website available only to subscribers, unless you're on AOL. So if you want to get to any of their excellent online content, you might want to subscribe even if there only is enough content in the print magazine to hold your attention for the walk from the mailbox to the door.

Overall, it's a great magazine that simply spreads itself too thin by trying to cover too much for too many different people. You may even find you can finish the parts that interest you while waiting in line at the grocery store check-out counter.

On the other hand, if your interest include all of the departments (gardening, food, home, travel and books), and you're interested in all the regions that make up the western United States, then don't hesitate a minute longer. Subscribe. I'm just not that well rounded.


Out of my 16 Subscriptions this is 1 of my FAVORITES!!!!!!   July 17, 2002
Psboston7 (Upland, CA United States)
9 out of 14 found this review helpful

Okay so I'm a little excited about this one. ((smile)) I recently had to go through all of my magazine subscriptions and only keep what I truly wanted. The amount of magazines I was getting every month was becoming a fire hazard, but Hey, I'm a Director of Catering and Sales for a Convention Center and I always need new ideas for menus.

This Magazine has EVERYTHING... Places to go, Interesting Articles, Seasonal Gardening Information, How-to for Home repairs/renovations, Mouth watering Recipes.... I mean I could go on for days this Magazine has it ALL!!...

Happy Reading


Sunset Fills You With Visions of the Western U.S.   January 23, 2006
Bryan Carey (Houston, TX)
9 out of 9 found this review helpful

Sunset is a magazine dedicated to the people, culture, and lifestyle of the American west. This magazine divides its space among many different topics, such as food and entertainment, travel, recreation, gardening and more.

I have been reading this magazine for about six months now and there are several things about it that make it worthwhile. The thing that stands out the most are the photographs, and I'm not talking about just the stunning scenery one normally associates with the West (like the National Parks or the coastline). Even the ordinary pictures are striking. In the Gardening section, for example, it is common to find pictures of family homes that have beautifully landscaped yards full of blossoming flowers and colorful plants. In the Home & Design section, one can find nice photographs of home interiors, showing different designs and furniture.

One of the most unique qualities of Sunset is the fact that it is published in five different editions. There is a specially designed issue for the Northwest (Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Alaska, and British Columbia), Northern California (Northern California and the majority of Nevada), Southern California (Southern California and Hawaii), The Southwest (Arizona, New Mexico, and the Las Vegas area of Nevada), and Rocky Mountain (Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, and Utah). This is a nice idea and it's one that other magazines should consider emulating. Based on where you live or where you have an active interest, this will be the region that your issue spends its pages covering. My subscription is for the Northern California region, so I am treated each month to articles about places like San Francisco, Sacramento, Reno (Nevada), Lake Tahoe, etc.

One of the specialties of this magazine is food and it is common to find recipes throughout every issue. There is a special section set aside for food, but one can expect to find food articles and recipes everywhere as they read. Even the cover page of each issue features a food dish. And as you might guess, the featured recipes are generally those types of cuisine normally associated with each specific region of the west, with plenty of generic recipes thrown in to make sure everyone has something to cook.

One of the specialty sections of this magazine that I like is the "Value Vacation"- a subsection of Travel & Recreation. This section highlights a specific place to travel and then offers a day by day breakdown of things to do and places to see, with the cost for each itemized so you know exactly what to expect. The highlighted city or tourist area can be anyplace in the west and isn't limited to the region that your issue covers. This section is nice because it lets you see in black & white what it will cost for a few days of budget entertainment. It reminds me of some of the television programs shown on the Travel Channel.

Advertisements cover about 40 to 50 percent of the pages of each issue and they are often found in bunches in the front and back and on alternating pages for much of the rest of each issue (typical for most magazines). The ads can center on all sorts of different things. Because this is a combination travel/culture/food/entertainment/home & garden/living magazine, the ads cover a wide range of products and services, from laundry detergent to credit cards to cat food.

Overall, Sunset has proven itself an enjoyable magazine. I don't live in the western United States but this region is my favorite part of the country, so it makes sense that I would find something of value in this publication. I like the photography, the personal stories, the gardening and decorating ideas, and most other aspects of this magazine. If you're dead set in your ways and refuse to read about anything that deviates from your Eastern, Southern, or Midwestern lifestyle, then you may not like Sunset. But for the majority of people, Sunset has much to offer with pages and pages of eye- catching pictures and friendly articles about life in the American West.




feel closer to the places & people of the west!   December 22, 2002
markzero (Texas)
8 out of 8 found this review helpful

I first came across Sunset after moving to Oregon and seeing it in a local store. Wanting to immerse myself in all things related to my new home, and hoping this was the regional equivalent of Southern Living (which Amazon[.com] also sells and which I recommend heartily), I bought the current issue. After looking through the copious pictures, travel news, and recipes, I immediately sent away for a subscription, and I've not been disappointed by any issue I've received.

Every month, I've seen places in the area that I wouldn't have known about, or maybe wouldn't have had time to take a trip to see. The recipes every month have also sounded very tasty, though until now I haven't actually tried to use any of them. The only weakness I see is that, for a regional monthly magazine, it's a little skimpy in its listing of upcoming local events, even for "large" cities like Portland. However, over the long term that won't matter much - these are magazines you'll want to keep long after those lists are stale.

I've just had to relocate away from Oregon for employment reasons, but this subscription is like a monthly present from the area, reminding me why I moved there in the first place, and bringing bits and pieces across the country into my new home. Just writing this has got me anxious to try a recipe or two, as I'm sure they, like the magazine, will bring back the "flavor" of the region for me once more.