Executive Travel closes its doors today. In thinking about this personal milestone after more than 12 years as the magazine’s managing editor, it strikes me that ET’s tagline, “Savor the Journey,” has never been more appropriate. It’s been a heck of a ride.

We launched Executive Travel (originally named SkyGuide Go) just after the terrorist attacks of 2001 because we felt business travelers needed a deeper source of information. These travelers faced fear, hassle, and uncertainty in the air and on the ground: the painful start of airport security and its long lines; a major disruption to airline schedules, fares and procedures; and a shaken economy that meant getting out in front of the customer was more important than ever.

So four of us sat in a small conference room in San Francisco for two days and sketched out a magazine for business travelers on a whiteboard. What an opportunity to build a publication from the ground up! While we made some rookie mistakes in those first couple of years and the magazine evolved and grew over time, much of the structure conceived of in that little conference room remained intact until the end. To this day, its “lifestyle” approach (a 360-degree take on the business traveler’s life that included content not just on travel, but also on management and time off) has been one of its strongest differentiators. And that is a hole in publishing that Executive Travel will leave empty.

By necessity we were scrappy…in a good way. Our editorial and production processes required thinking out of the box. With offices in New York, my base in the San Francisco Bay Area, and our art department in Seattle, we “worked remotely” before that was even a term. This helped us be super efficient: We had no time to waste on meetings that wasted time. Unencumbered by a traditional publishing history, we were constantly asking, “Is there another way to do this?”

In the end, the goal of any enterprise is to make a useful product, while providing a wage and building a community for those making the product. Hearing from readers about what they found useful in the magazine was always a pleasure. (My most recent favorite letter: “I have developed much of my expertise in international business from articles and perspectives read in your informative magazine.”) But I personally valued most highly the community created by those of us who crafted Executive Travel.

I had the pleasure of working with incredibly talented writers, designers, copyeditors, marketers, strategists, board members, online producers, researchers, consultants and even attorneys. But most importantly, many became friends. Yes, there were a few bumps along the way—the crazy writer who threatened to ruin my career, the disaster of a coverline that we still joke about, the ongoing butting of heads over words in a mission statement, a couple of writers gone AWOL mid-story. But the warm and collaborative relationships were what made the job a joy, and I leave with deep gratitude to those good people.

I have “savored the journey” with Executive Travel for a long time now. But the thing about journeys is that they are never in straight lines. There are always the left turns, missed connections and bumpy landings that make life interesting. I’m looking forward to the next twists and turns in the journey, and I have every intention to savor those, too.