In its first issue of 1 Nov 1934,[2] the editorial, signed by Charles (Chas) Lloyd Jones, chair of the board of David Jones and acting chairman of ANTA, proclaimed its aim to educate its readers thus:[6] in publishing "Walkabout," we have embarked on an educational crusade which will enable Australians and the people of other lands to learn more of the romantic Australia that exists beyond the cities and the enchanted South Sea Islands and New Zealand.This first issue with its cover by internationally known photographer Emil Otto Hoppé set the benchmark, with profuse illustrations by others in the articles; 'Coming Down with Cattle', by Arthur W. Upfield; 'Undiscovered New Guinea' by editor Charles Holmes; 'The Kimberleys' by Ion Idress, a pictorial section titled '...And The Cities' with four uncredited images; 'Tahiti To-Day' by Charles Chauvel; 'The Maori', by Eric Ramsden; with "Our Cameraman's Walkabout", a pictorial section on the 'British Solomon Islands Protectorate'.

Its curtain wall street façade of horizontal rows of framed glazing and vertical mullions in a grid and materials such as aluminium distinguish its Post-War Modernist style.

Its 16th board meeting, held in Sydney in May 1934, passed a motion to employ a staff photographer for the purposes of improving "the quality of 'arresting pictures' that were being forwarded to overseas papers and magazines".

[23] It became an outlet for, and promoter of, Australian photojournalism through photographers, men and women, some famous, like Frank Hurley who contributed seven Walkabout articles in 1939–40, and a cover image in 1956,[8] and others lesser-known, like Heather George, whose careers were launched in the magazine.

Walkabout magazine sheds light on how white Australians navigated their relationships with the country in both physical and emotional dimensions and necessarily encompassed landscapes that held significance through Aboriginal occupation and affiliation.

Deborah Bird Rose defines the Aboriginal notion of "country" as a dynamic entity that spans the past, present, and future, possessing awareness and a drive for life.

Thus, labeling a travel magazine of the 1930s Walkabout signifies an increased interest in and a positive assessment of Aboriginal culture by certain settler Australians of that era.

It was taken (on Palm Island) by German-born British photographer Emil Otto Hoppé (1878–1972) who in 1930 was commissioned to document Australia's "true spirit" and toured extensively throughout the country, including Tasmania.

"Jimmy" was Gwoya Jungarai, a Walbiri man, but when his image, cropped to head and shoulders,[34] appeared on the 1950 Australian stamp it was captioned just "Aborigine", a term many now consider an offensive and racist hangover from Australia's colonial era.

[38] Specialist essays, written for a general audience, covered topics including:[8] Ion Idriess, Mary Durack and Ernestine Hill in their frequent writings for the magazine present complex and ambivalent attitudes to Aborigines.

Despite their familiarity with First Nations people, they saw them as "vanishing"[39] due to unexplained causes and agencies of which even the victims themselves were ignorant, and to an insufficient birth rate to sustain their population, explained as an instinctual "racial suicide".

Ursula McConnel's three articles, all in successive issues during 1936 and drawn from fieldwork she had undertaken in Cape York from 1927 to 1934, provided particular insights into the impact on Aboriginal people experiencing the transition from traditional practices to mission life,[45] frankly identifying ideological failures of policy by the missions' and government administrations and advancing several remedies to the damage she saw being caused to Aboriginal lives and cultures by "civilisation".

[8] Early articles by anthropologist Donald Thomson were based on his fieldwork in Cape York, northeast Arnhem Land and the Great Sandy Desert,[46] and from 1949 he also contributed a series of 'Nature Diaries' on Australian flora and fauna, but he also expressed passionate advocacy for indigenous people out of his frustration with how they were treated and general contempt for them as little but savages, and his sympathy and deep respect for them and their cultures,[8] writing that he "felt that [he] had more in common with these splendid and virile natives than with my own people".

[47] The magazine reviewed more enlightened literature as early as 1952, including poet Roland Robinson's studies of traditional Aboriginal knowledge Legend and Dreaming as related to Roland Robinson by Men of the Djauan, Rimberunga, Mungarai-Ngalarkan and Yungmun Tribes of Arnhem Land (1952, with a foreword by A. P. Elkin)[48] and children's literature dealing with Indigenous subjects, such as Rex Ingamells's Aranda Boy (1952),[49] the latter being praised for its readability and its politics in showing "that the Australian Aboriginal is not merely a 'native'.".

In the column "Our Authors" James Devaney's popular historical novel The Vanished Tribes (1929), is described as "the first really successful treatment in creative prose of our Aboriginal theme, but it is as vitally human and beautifully written a book as we possess".

[50] By the sixties outrage in the Australian community at the injustice of apartheid in South Africa and consciousness of other social movements for civil rights changed attitudes[51] to the Indigenous population.

Parliament, with all-party support, had already extended the franchise to them, and the Commonwealth Conciliation and Arbitration Commission had delivered an historic judgment that, in three years, will equalise the pay of white and Aboriginal workers in the pastoral industry.

[60]In an essay in the June 1968 issue, author Margaret Ford[61][62] asks: Does the idea of "citizenship" in the Aboriginal mind overstress the right to unrestricted drinking?

[63]Articles from this period more even-handedly acknowledged the colonial massacres[64] alongside more sympathetic, though still somewhat patronising, stories on the remote desert tribes,[65] and more in-depth and academic discussion of the complex issues appeared,[66] though much ink was devoted to debate over whether 'aborigine', 'Aborigine', or 'Aboriginal' were correct English usage,[67][68][69][70] the first two of which are now considered by many as offensive and racist.

While Walkabout outlived LIFE by two years, both magazines – amongst many others – finally succumbed to increasing publication costs, decreasing subscriptions, and to competition from other media and newspaper supplements.