The Bee’s Sam McManis was recognized this month by the Society for Features Journalism in its annual Excellence-in-Features competition. A portfolio of four pieces earned McManis third place in the contest’s 2015 “Feature Specialty Writing” category for papers with circulations between 90,000 and 199,999.

The four pieces chronicled his stay in a California hostel; a flirtation with Google Glass; an odyssey along Nevada’s Extraterrestrial Highway; and a visit to an annual cowboys’ poetry slam. The articles appeared in the Bee’s weekly travel section.

McManis, a Bee staff writer, said that he tries to look beyond the usual tourist destinations. “You can write every week about wine in Napa or going to Yosemite,” he said. “But I try to do something different.”