We’re thinking big for travelling in 2017 – and so should you. Will we see you sunrise at Java’s 9th-century Borobudur Buddhist temple, across the table at Reykjavik’s newest restaurants or swimming side-by-side with humpback whales off Western Australia’s coast?
Snow and surf
Snow and surf
Ever dreamt of heli-skiing atop a dormant volcano in the Arctic Circle? Deplar Farm’s team of Icelandic and American guides specialise in extreme adventure in the wild peaks and remote valleys of Iceland’s northern Tröll Peninsula. Double-black-diamond and backcountry runs from peaks of 1,500 metres are generally accessible from March to May. In summer, thrillseekers use Deplar Farm as a base to kayak along the Arctic Ocean coastline, ride horses to geothermal pools, and detour to a satellite cabin on the Holkna River to cast for Atlantic salmon. Built on a former sheep farm and opened this year, this modern Nordic lodge by luxe retreat group Eleven Experience has its own helipad, theatre, steam room, saltwater pools, and 12 guestrooms with mountain views. After thrilling days, guests recharge in Deplar’s outdoor sauna, dine on local cod, lamb and wild goose, and snuggle under Icelandic woollen throws as the Aurora Borealis shimmers overhead.
Best in Train
Best in Train
Pack your bags, trainspotters. The pick of next year’s train journeys includes the much-anticipated début of Belmond’s Andean Explorer, South America’s first luxury sleeper train, which will ply the high altitudes between Cusco and Lake Titicaca in Peru. The stylish locomotive Al Andalus travels the length of Spain, from Seville to Santiago de Compostela, on a nine-day journey in September. And for obvious reasons we’re keen to board Belmond’s Royal Scotsman when it teams with the Scotch Malt Whisky Society in April, June and October on four-night tours taking in landmark distilleries.
belmond.com/belmond-andean-explorer
Mornington Magic
Mornington Magic
Jackalope – it’s a mythical hybrid jackrabbit-antelope, and the name of a 46-room hotel opening early next year at Willow Creek Vineyard on Victoria’s Mornington Peninsula, with former Hotel Hotel GM Tracy Atherton in charge.
Aeolian hopping
Aeolian hopping
Drift from breakfast at Lipari to lunch at Filicudi to cocktails at Panarea – or divert to any of the other film-set Aeolian islands off Sicily – in the smart 16-metre Barca Jost with charismatic captain and cook Pierre Zucchi. Guests hike to volcanoes, dive for sea urchins and forage for wild capers, which garnish meals served while moored in deserted coves or near the volcanic fireworks on Stromboli. Italian specialist Bellini Travel arranges carefree days at sea and nights in new suites at Hotel Signum on the bucolic island of Salina.
Meerkat manners
Meerkat manners
The Kalahari Desert in Botswana – so harsh, so superficially lifeless – is perversely teeming with creatures in the presence of Ralph Bousfield, dream guide, master tracker, fourth-generation African explorer and co-owner of élite safari outfit Uncharted Africa. Among the world’s most extraordinary wildlife encounters is a dawn walk with meerkats. Several troops living near Bousfield’s four chic desert camps have been slowly habituated to humans to allow scientific research and strolls with camp guests. Guests watch the meerkats group-hug to warm up and follow them as they forage for insects. So non-threatening is human presence that when someone sits nearby, the sentry scampers atop human shoulders, then head, for a superior vantage. Unforgettable.
Copenhagen calling
Copenhagen calling
Admiralgade 26 is the hospitality equivalent of the difficult second album. Christian Nedergaard and Sebastian Rind Nellemann relied on gut instinct seven years ago when they opened their wonderfully personal wine bar, Ved Stranden 10, on a canal opposite Christiansborg Palace in Copenhagen. They’re serious about wine but otherwise so relaxed the bar feels like home, albeit a super-stylish one with Zalto glasses, collectible modernist furniture and a full house of passionate imbibers from all over the globe. But for their first restaurant, Nedergaard and Nellemann went soul-searching. “We sat down and thought on a more existential level about who we are and what we want to do,” says Nedergaard, adding the “brutal” 18-month-long exercise had nothing to do with other restaurants. “It’s one long conversation with the room and the period and ourselves.”
The result is a magic space in an old theatre on the same street as their wine bar, celebrating the aesthetics and craftsmanship of the early 1900s, when the double-height room was created in the 1796 building. The co-owners mixed pieces by Kaare Klint, Jean Prouvé and Giò Ponti with futuristic light fittings and ikebana. “All these details are like totems and reminders about craft and hopefully they create a certain ambience,” says Nedergaard.
The restaurant, which opened in June, is beyond convivial, or hyggelig, as they say in Denmark. Breakfast segues to lunch, lunch to dinner, and even after the kitchen closes at 10pm, obliging cooks will rustle up a snack. The well-crafted menu is “eclectic in a good way” says Nedergaard, including a Japanese-inspired breakfast and what he calls “advanced staff meals” such as hash with fried egg and pickled beetroot.
Admiralgade 26, 1066 Copenhagen K, +45 3333 7973, admiralgade26.dk
Ceylon’s Finest
Ceylon’s Finest
Greet the day properly with a cup of Field No 7 Broken Orange Pekoe tea delivered to your four-poster bed at Taylors Hill, a stylishly restored tea-planter’s bungalow in Sri Lanka’s central highlands, about an hour’s drive from Kandy. Hike to the neighbouring estate where James Taylor grew the island’s first commercial tea in 1867, and return for textbook afternoon tea beside the croquet lawn.
High and dry in Chile
High and dry in Chile
The Atacama Desert is a favourite foraging ground for chef Rodolfo Guzman, who scours the driest non-polar region in the world for rare plants to serve at Boragó, his acclaimed restaurant in the Chilean capital of Santiago. Despite its perpetual state of drought, this high plateau west of the Andes sustains a rich variety of flora. Guzman covers dainty cuchufli sweets with fragrant dried petals of roses that bloom only once a year, and he gathers parasitic buds that sprout for a few weeks on the quisco cactus for an ice cake of tolilla (a daisy cousin), miso and seaweed. To follow in Guzman’s footsteps, Bespoke South arranges treks out of San Pedro de Atacama to explore Salar de Atacama, a series of turquoise salt lagoons, the lunar landscape of the Salt Mountain Range and the sublime stargazing summit of Cerro Toco. Guests stay at the adobe-and-stone Awasí Atacama lodge, and ride Atacameñan horses for treks into desert canyons
What Zecha did next
What Zecha did next
At 83, visionary hotelier Adrian Zecha is about to make a comeback in Luang Prabang, the UNESCO-listed former royal capital of Laos. Zecha, who was ousted from the helm of his Aman empire in 2014, has teamed with Malaysian investors to open Azerai Luang Prabang, a four-star, 54-room hotel in a prime position opposite the city’s night market. It’s just two blocks from the French colonial estate of Amantaka where Zecha has hosted several of his birthday parties. Aman alumnus Ross Lusted, chef-owner of Sydney’s The Bridge Room, helped secure the hotel’s exec chef: his former sous Ben Faker. And a former Amantaka GM, Australian Gary Tyson, will manage the property, expected to open next month.
Bhutan’s royal flush
Bhutan’s royal flush
When your brother-in-law is king and you decide to build a circuit of hotels in Bhutan, they need to be exceptional to earn the royal seal of approval. That’s the challenge facing Dasho Sangay Wangchuk as he oversees the construction of five new lodges in the Dragon Kingdom scheduled to open in April next year. Royal connections and his family’s own landholdings secured the five spectacular sites in the kingdom’s major valleys of Thimphu, Punakha, Paro, Gangtey and Bumthang. In the capital, Thimphu, Wangchuk is conjuring “a palace in the sky facing the city’s newly completed 52-metre golden Buddha.
The lofty setting, formerly part of his own family’s apple orchard, will feature a private dining area with cocktail bar (“This I have done mainly for His Majesty,” says Wangchuk), a 100-metre pool built to reflect sky and mountains, and views across the roof of the Himalayas to infinity – or at least to Tibet. Travel between the lodges will be by helicopter or luxury four-wheel drive.
Wangchuk, a Columbia University graduate and one of the country’s leading entrepreneurs, had no shortage of suitors to partner with in the ventures. He chose the Bangkok-based hotel group Six Senses because, he says, its ethos best aligned with Bhutan’s own vision for a sustainable future.
Over the moon
Over the moon
The 21st-century space race is well and truly under way. Some of the world’s most ambitious entrepreneurs – among them Paypal and Tesla Motors founder Elon Musk, Amazon pioneer Jeff Bezos and irrepressible Virgin founder Richard Branson – are vying to launch civilians into space. Bezos and Branson are racing to realise suborbital flights (more than 100 kilometres above sea level) by the end of the decade, while Musk’s Space Exploration Technologies Corporation (SpaceX) has its sights set on Mars. Yet another company, US-based space tourism outfit Space Adventures, is shooting for the moon, with seats on lunar circumnavigations priced at an astronomical $130 million.
Offshore Colombia
Offshore Colombia
Jetsetters alternate days spent wandering in Cartagena’s splendid Old City and the emerging barrio of Getsemaní with daytrips to nearby Caribbean islands. We’ll be making a beeline for a new hangout on Tierra Bomba called Blue Apple Beach House, a private members’ beach club (join for $65 a day), restaurant and six-room guesthouse. Catch Blue Apple’s speedboat from Cartagena for the 25-minute trip to a cabana-strewn beach and the promise of grilled catch of the day and Med-Colombian share plates.
Next-gen travel
Next-gen travel
How to inspire the next generation? Take them with you. Travel pushes boundaries and turns out global citizens. Seeing a place through their eyes may give you a new perspective as well, whether on safari in Rajasthan’s Ranthambhore National Park to spot tigers (sujanluxury.com), on a road trip across the American West towing a classic Airstream (airstream2go.com), trekking across valleys between mountain lodges and Buddhist monasteries in Bhutan (aman.com, sixsenses.com), taking tango lessons with a master tanguero in Buenos Aires (carloscopello.com) or hula classes on the island of Oahu (royalhawaiiancenter.com). The farther afield, the more their spiritual and intellectual universe expands. And then let’s hope the next generation do the same when their turn comes.
Tamil immersion
Tamil immersion
Dedicated Indiaphiles have long been drawn south by the elaborate artistic traditions and festivals – and incendiary thalis and dosas – of Tamil Nadu. One of the state’s richest cultural sites is the World Heritage-listed Great Living Chola Temples in the city of Thanjavur, now even more appealing for travellers with the opening of a boutique hotel. Designed and decorated by husband and wife Krithika and Sumanth Subrahmanian, the 38-room Svatma is built around a century-old family home and the experience is one of total Tamil immersion, from vegetarian cooking classes and Vedic chanting to specialist tours of the city’s astounding 11th- and 12th-century temples.
No-neutral New York
No-neutral New York
There’ll be nothing neutral about The Whitby Hotel, due to open next month in New York’s Midtown in serious retail territory and a few blocks from Central Park. We’re expecting a kaleidoscope of colour and a mash-up of pattern by design director Kit Kemp, who has styled the light-filled public spaces and 86 guestrooms, all with floor-to-ceiling windows, many with private terraces, in “dozens” of colour schemes and with best-of-British artworks. A new-build like its sister hotel Crosby Street in Soho, it’s the 11th in Kit and Tim Kemp’s Firmdale Hotels portfolio in London and New York.
18 West 56th St, New York
Hands-on Chanel
Hands-on Chanel
“Beauty treatments should begin with the heart and the soul; otherwise cosmetics are pointless,” said Gabrielle Chanel. Thus customised treatments at the new Chanel spa in the elegant basement of the Ritz Paris begin with a “soul diagnosis” in one of five suites styled in signature beige and black, accompanied by an “apéritif” of apple juice infused with cinnamon. A fragrant choreography of warm towels and foot massage follows and, of course, monsieur or madame’s choice of Chanel product and face or body ritual from a short menu – with matching soundtrack. Guests emerge with an application of light make-up to ensure they’re ready for a stylish entrée at the Ritz’s legendary Bar Hemingway. Oui, s’il vous plaît.
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Miami Nice
Miami Nice
The gaze of contemporary art curators, collectors, artists and voyeurs will be trained on Miami Beach next month for the annual Art Basel, part business exchange, part outrageous social whirl. Opening just in time are three additions to the city’s state-of-the-art Faena District designed by Pritzker Prize-winning architect Rem Koolhaas: the curvilinear Faena Forum, envisaged as a showcase of works from the arts, sciences, technology and urbanism; Faena Bazaar, housed in the historic Atlantic Hotel and featuring boutiques and pop-ups on quarterly rotations; and Faena Park, a high-tech subterranean car park, perfect for storing the convertible while you promenade along South Beach.
Moon bathing
Moon bathing
High-end spas are checking their lunar phases. Estrella Spa at California’s Avalon Hotel Palm Springs offers “moon magic rituals” based on lunar cycles, while guests at The Palms, on the Caribbean island of Turks and Caicos, can have moonlit massages on the sand. And the legendary Mii Amo destination spa, in a red-rock landscape in Sedona, Arizona, lists two new treatments performed only on the new moon and full moon.
Meet Mongolia
Meet Mongolia
It’s the long way around on the Trans-Siberian railway, but arriving overland in Mongolia aboard the Golden Eagle luxury train allows travellers to witness the changing landscape from Moscow to Ulaanbaatar. Disembark here and continue on horseback through the Gobi Desert with multilingual guides from Nomadic Expeditions. We fancy a stay at Three Camel Lodge, a modern Mongol camp within the Gurvan Saikhan National Park. This remote wilderness is home to rare wildlife: Bactrian camels, Gobi bears, bearded vultures and snow leopards. Explore Flaming Cliffs rich in dinosaur fossils, and the towering sand dunes of Khongoryn Els. The lodge’s Bulagtai Restaurant serves traditional dishes – khuushur (fried dumplings), lamb horhog- in an oversized ger. And if you can time your trek for the next Golden Eagle Festival (1-2 October 2017), detour with Nomadic Expeditions founder Jalsa Urubshurow to the Altai Mountains of Mongolia’s westernmost province to witness a revived practice. Competitors gather to show off their skills with these magnificent birds, in a tradition dating back to Genghis Khan.
Land of the Faroes
Land of the Faroes
The Faroe Islands, between Scotland and Iceland, are so remote and sparsely populated that Google mapping images of the islands are now being taken by sheep with 360° cameras strapped on their backs. The renaissance of Nordic cuisine has sparked keen interest in the Faroes, whose doughty residents have evolved a distinctive food culture shaped in part by the absence of trees and sparse resources for livestock. Salt, too, has always been scarce so the Faroese developed unique techniques of air-dried fermentation and preservation. These traditional processes are celebrated at Koks, where chef Poul Andrias Ziska has created a restaurant that’s not so much new Nordic as old Nordic reinvented. Dishes might include a seabird called fulmar with beetroot, or deep-fried lichen and mushroom cream topped with pungent raestkød, an unsalted lamb that’s hung for several months in a drying house swept by sea winds. “It has some of the same notes as blue cheese because it has some of the same bacteria,” Ziska says. Koks moved this year to a traditional Faroese black-timber hous with turf roof in the village of Kirkjubøur on the main island of Streymoy, not far from the main town of Tórshavn. Tórshavn has a handful of fine-dining restaurants, boutiques selling handknits made from local wool and the lovely Hotel Foroyar, mixing Scandinavian lines with low-key Faroese hospitality.
Grand tour
Grand tour
It’s so 007. Twelve days from London to Baden-Baden to the Côte d’Azur to Paris by private jet, staying at Oetker Collection’s grande-dame hotels, and a black book of introductions and private audiences along the way. Oetker launches its European indulgence in April, from $100,500 per person.
More space, please
More space, please
Tall travellers get into the habit of memorising the location of their favourite seats in economy cabins. On Emirates’s A380s, for example, seats 68A and K are comparatively spacious because there are no seats in front on the bulkhead. Seat 12F on Swiss’s Airbus A321 sprawls into the cavity behind the jump seat (the one used by flight attendants). In airline-speak, legroom equals seat pitch, the distance between seat anchors. We’re not alone in thinking a 31-inch seat pitch – more or less standard across Australian airlines – feels cramped. Some carriers are stretching out. Air New Zealand coddles basic-fare passengers with a generous 35 inches of wriggle room on some long-haul sectors, as do some KLM, United, Delta and Sri Lankan Airlines cabins. Rather than charging for extra-row seats, we long for the day when airlines acknowledge the human race is getting bigger, and adjust seat plans accordingly.
Borobudur at dawn
Borobudur at dawn
Well before dawn and soon after the day’s first calls to prayer echo competitively from neighbourhood mosques, travellers begin the climb to nirvana by torchlight, to the ninth platform of Borobudur. This 9th-century Buddhist temple is the jewel of Central Java, hailed as a masterpiece by UNESCO. They wait and watch as the serene faces of hundreds of Buddhist statues blush at sunrise, illuminating the misty plain below and the temple-like resort of Amanjiwo nearby. The name Amanjiwo means “peaceful soul” in Javanese, and the prevailing air of Buddhist tranquillity and Aman cool extends from daybeds by private pools to limestone colonnades directing the gaze to the wedding-cake tiers of Borobudur.
Each tier is clad in exquisite friezes, a vast religious storybook in stone. These open-air galleries are Borobudur’s chief glory, each tableau, every flagstone salvaged from a mountain of volcanic ash and jungle and returned to its original place after the temple was abandoned in the 14th century and forgotten for 500 years.
Descend to earth in time for breakfast, Amanjiwo-style. On a grassy bank overlooking the confluence of the Elo and Progo rivers guests find a market umbrella shading a picnic bed with cushions, a watercolour set and bamboo bento boxes full of tropical fruit, nasi goreng, pickled vegetables and banana cake. Butterflies levitate in the humidity and on clear mornings the peak of dormant volcano Merbabu rises from a wreath of cloud.
Melbourne, but not as we know it
Melbourne, but not as we know it
This latest expression of Melbourne style is bold without being OTT , distinctive without being clichéd. Opened in September on the site of the old Greater Union cinema in Russell Street, QT Melbourne already feels like the city’s best base for urban exploration and a destination in its own right.
The 11-storey, 188-room hotel features prominent displays of installation art, décor that references its privileged location near the city’s Paris End and prominent real estate devoted to eating and drinking. Add the sheer novelty of being the first new boutique hotel in the city for years and there’s plenty to get excited about.
Though it’s less overtly exuberant than other QT properties, QT Melbourne is hardly minimalist – as neon installations in the double-height lobby, and costumed and bewigged Directors of Chaos at the copper-clad front door indicate. But the guestrooms have a clean-lined elegance imparted largely by oak floors and natural light, and design flourishes are tastefully restrained: a bespoke rug here, a wall sculpture there. Beautifully appointed bathrooms sit behind sliding panels of rippled glass; deep bathtubs in Executive King rooms are positioned in the main room, screened by sheer curtains.
There’s fun to be had eating and drinking here. Climb the lobby’s blue-carpeted stairs to Pascale Bar & Grill, which occupies the entire first floor with an open kitchen, glassed-in wine cellar and myriad seating options, from plushly upholstered armchairs to stylish, stay-all-night bar stools. Pascale’s Euro-bistro menu is designed by QT creative food director Robert Marchetti and realised by executive chef Paul Easson, formerly of Melbourne’s Rockpool Bar & Grill. There’s a lobby café and aperitivo bar called The Cake Shop, the Japanese-Korean Hot Sauce bar in the lane around the corner, and beside it a shop selling handcrafted Japanese knives.
With a playful minibar (puzzles, children’s books and quality booze), lifts that farewell guests in a variety of accented female voices and a rooftop bar, QT Melbourne wears its mix of louche and luxe with ease. In fact, it feels perfectly at home.
133 Russell St, Melbourne, Vic, (03) 8636 8800, qtmelbourne.com.au
Vamos a Cuba
Vamos a Cuba
Everywhere in Havana, Cuban street culture is rich and vibrant, from pickup baseball games in Habana Vieja and vintage cars parked on Paseo del Prado to small coffee windows called ventanillas and late-afternoon promenades on the Malecón. Gaining insider access to private galleries, artist studios and rehearsal spaces, however, still requires certain introductions. With the recent launch of commercial flights from mainland US and hotel development looming, Cuba really is on the cusp of change. Still, there’s plenty of time for malanga fritters, ropa vieja and Mojitos at rooftop bars and paladares, the island’s home restaurants, before the Americans arrive in droves.
On our dream itinerary, with help from an insider concierge such as US-based GeoEx, we’d watch a rehearsal of Laura Alonso’s prestigious ballet troupe at Prodanza, and another with contemporary dance troupe Malpaso, led by choreographer Osnel Delgado Wambrug. There’d be jazz by Denys Carbo and Jazz en Trance at a new bar in Vedado owned by Cuban jazz giant Lázaro Valdés. We’d chat with artists at Fototeca de Cuba, the leading photographic guild in Cuba, and at 331 Art Space, the shared studio of Adrián Fernández, Alex Hernández and Frank Mujica. And we’d visit the workshop of Alexis Leiva Machado, known as Kcho, whose works are sprinkled through international exhibitions. Café culture in Havana is growing – El Escorial and O’Reilly are the best places for carajillos and cafecitos – but don’t pass up a dinner invitation with chef Alberto Gonzáles, who owns Centro Habana bakery Salchi Pizza. With the right introductions, he’ll prepare a private seven-course haute Cuban meal.
Saffire setting
Saffire setting
Picture this: standing thigh-deep in pristine Great Oyster Bay on Tasmania’s east coast, shucking just-lifted oysters, mist rising, glass of riesling at hand. It’s still one of our favourite moments among many at Saffire Freycinet.
Burma by boat
Burma by boat
Myanmar’s Mergui archipelago, a scattering of 800 islands in the Andaman Sea off the country’s west coast, has precious little in the way of tourist infrastructure, but no one comes here for the social life. Accessible only by sea, the Mergui is a rare pocket of seclusion in the heart of Asia, with empty white beaches and jungle islands. Burma Boating pioneered Mergui itineraries five years ago and offers trips from five days to five weeks aboard its fleet of small, fully crewed vessels. At the top end of the island-hopping hierarchy is the 14-berth, 65-metre Lamima, billed as the world’s largest timber yacht. It’s yours for $32,500 a night, with unlimited diving and onboard spa.
Night moves
Night moves
World-class diving off the teeming house reef at Baros Maldives gets psychedelic at night as divers head out with lights emitting bio-fluorescence (blue light) and a barrier filter fitted to their masks. Marine life – from gardens of coral to pods of sleeping parrotfish – absorbs part of the blue light and emits a crazy kaleidoscope of fluorescent colour. “Imagine your own Avatar movie,” says dive manager Karin Spijker. “Corals burst into fire, blazing with fluorescent blues, golds and greens in the darkness.” There are 30 top dive spots within an hour’s boat ride of the resort in North Malé Atoll, an easy 25 minutes by speedboat from the capital, Malé. But the beauty of Baros, one of the first resorts to open in the island nation, in 1973, and still family owned, is the proximity of its spectacular house reef – less than a pool length from its overwater villas.
Hot in Reykjavik
Hot in Reykjavik
Don’t turn up at Dill, Reykjavik’s top new Nordic restaurant, hoping for a last-minute cancellation. Like the geothermal bedrock beneath Iceland’s capital, this tiny dining room is hot. Chef Ragnar Eiriksson even has trouble squeezing in rock stars headlining at Harpa, the city’s stunning concert hall, hungry for the wild Arctic ingredients – dried guillemot, pickled angelica, stewed crowberries – on his seven-course tasting menu. Backup plan? Equally talented Gísli Matthías Auðunsson has updated Icelandic comfort food (salt cod croquettes, malt-pickled carrots, smoked trout) at Matur og Drykkur in a converted fish-processing plant near the city’s old harbour. His roasted whole cod’s head, lacquered with chicken stock, is a dish worthy of his Viking ancestors. Progressive baker Ágúst Einpórsson is turning out gorgeously scorched loaves at Brauð & Co, while island-crafted microbrews are on tap in a secret attic speakeasy at Hverfisgata 12. To really eat like a local, skip the lamb hot dogs and putrefied shark for salted liquorice ice-cream at Valdis, where the line snakes out the door even on bitter winter nights.
Salute the sun
Salute the sun
It’s true, we can practise our warrior pose almost anywhere. But some places really know how to roll out the yoga mat in style. Remote Clayoquot Wilderness Resort, a glamping pioneer on Vancouver Island in Canada’s British Columbia, delivers guests (and their private vinyasa instructor) by helicopter wherever they fancy saluting the sun: the summit of a nearby mountain, perhaps, a private-island beach, or amid the calming energy of an old-growth forest. On the romantic, windswept coast of Maine in the north-east US, guests aboard the 29-metre Windjammer Angelique spend their time sailing and stretching, with yoga and meditation sessions on deck. Equestrians, meanwhile, will thrill to the combination of yoga and horse-riding at the women-only Big Sky Yoga, a cowgirl ranch in rugged Montana.
Your luggage, sir
Your luggage, sir
These days you’re nobody if you’re not met straight off your flight and chaperoned through immigration and customs like a visiting VIP. And baggage? We’ll take care of that, madam. Premium passenger services are booming as security hassles and airport congestion take the fun out of flying, and airports seek new ways to make money. Paid meet-and-greet services are now readily available at airports from Bangkok to San Francisco. Royal Airport Concierge, which operates at 500 terminals worldwide, is typical of the new breed of airport butlers. And Plaza Premium, pioneer of the paid airport lounge, now offers a concierge service for smooth take-off and landing at destinations on five continents.
And there was light
And there was light
The majesty of Uluru and the beauty of the central Australian desert are reasons enough to revisit the landmark at any time, any season. But the year-long blossoming of one of the world’s loveliest light installations near the rock seals the deal. Until 31 March next year, Field of Light, Uluru by British artist Bruce Munro appears as a huge twinkling paddock of 50,000 frosted, solar-powered bulbs atop flexible stems that move with the wind and cycle through a desert-palette of colour. The installation is on land owned by Ayers Rock Resort, about 18 kilometres from the north side of Uluru, and its ephemeral beauty has been a huge draw since it opened in April. Three evening tours accommodating 350 people a night have been almost fully booked since it opened at the beginning of April. Visitors can arrive at the installation by camel or chopper, and there are dune-top visits at sunrise and sunset. We love the idea of strolling through the illuminated “flowers” instead, accompanied only by desert silence.
Highest tea
Highest tea
Tea lovers aspiring to learn the minimalist aesthetic of a ceremony dating back to the era of samurai and shoguns can immerse themselves at Kyoto’s highly ritualised chanoyu houses. The “way of tea” is best learned from a master, who can explain the proper etiquette, preparation and service of this revered drink. In Miyagawa-cho, home to many apprentice geisha, ex-pats Tyas Sosen and Stephen Soshun conduct workshops at Kafu, a modern school near Kiyomizu Temple. Dressed in an elegant yukata robe, Atsuko Mori performs her gracious version at Camellia, her atelier off the delightfully atmospheric Ninen-zaka pedestrian lane. Ceramics expert Robert Yellin displays rare and antique tea utensils at Yakimono Gallery. And don’t miss high tea at the Ritz-Carlton, Kyoto, where guests can savour matcha-and-black-sesame macarons by French pâtisserie house Pierre Hermé.
My shaman and me
My shaman and me
Machu Picchu’s crowd-drawing appeal becomes even more compelling when seen through the eyes of a shaman. These traditional healers are active and revered in many indigenous cultures, and the subject of increasing curiosity among world-weary travellers. In Peru, for example, the newly renovated Sumaq Machu Picchu Hotel in the town of Aguas Calientes has an in-house shaman. The genial and wise Willko Apasa performs rituals and weddings, and leads tours of nearby Machu Picchu that focus on the site’s spiritual and mystical significance.
Meanwhile, spurred by the growing popularity in the US of ayahuasca, a tea-like brew made from hallucinogenic plants found in the Amazon Basin, transcendentally minded travellers are seeking the guidance of trained shamans in Peru, Brazil and Ecuador, and ayahuasca ceremonies are also gaining popularity in destinations as far flung as San Francisco and Bali.
Gone fishing
Gone fishing
Dedicated anglers know the barrier islands off the coast of Belize’s southernmost district are home to the Big Three – tarpon, bonefish and permit – and catching even one of this trio is considered the ultimate test of fly-fishing skills. Belcampo Lodge pairs guests with top local guides Scully and Oliver Garbutt on a seven-metre Super Panga skiff to troll the turquoise shallows. “This area is world-famous for permit,” says Belcampo’s fishing manager Todd Calitri. “And those islands are held together with bonefish.” After a day of catch-and-release challenges while drifting over tidal flats, return to a jungle suite at the lodge, which sits high above a bend of the Rio Grande. Chef Renée Everett uses tropical ingredients from the kitchen gardens and sustainable seafood; catch shrimp, snapper, or lionfish and she’ll turn it into your dinner.
Private audience
Private audience
Exclusive experiences are the most sought-after souvenirs in the age of ultra-luxury travel. On Fiji’s wildly expensive Laucala Island, guests fly in on the owner’s private jet and have a submarine on standby for exploring the coral underworld. Fancy a private tour of the Vatican Gardens and the Sistine Chapel? Rome’s Cavalieri Waldorf Astoria will oblige, complete with a “secret” entrance to St Peter’s Basilica. And at the élite French ski resort of Courchevel, guests at the luxe hotel L’Apogée can perfect their schussing and carving with French champion and Olympic medallist Florence Masnada.
Mighty Aphrodite
Mighty Aphrodite
Next year belongs to Cyprus or, more precisely, to its south-west harbour town of Paphos. Better known as the birthplace of the Greek love goddess Aphrodite and a family-friendly holiday escape for generations of Britons, Paphos next year becomes Europe’s Capital of Culture. Which means 300 artistic and cultural events (one for each day of sunshine received by the almost perpetually sunny region, perhaps?) in a town with plenty else to show off: ruins of ancient Hellenistic and Roman tombs, theatres and mosaics, for starters, and no less than 10 World Heritage-listed churches full of Byzantine frescoes. Expect open-air concerts in the medieval Castle Square, beachside cinema screenings and exhibitions popping up in unlikely places.
Blue-chip London
Blue-chip London
Churchill used to sleep here. Mountbatten, too. And soon mere mortals will be settling into suites. London’s grand Admiralty Arch, regarded as the gatehouse to Buckingham Palace and overlooking The Mall, is set to open as a 100-bed hotel and spa and private members’ club. The 1912 memorial to Queen Victoria, once home to Britain’s First Sea Lord and the naval administration offices, will be transformed by architects Blair Associates (whose previous gigs include The Connaught and Claridge’s) and noted interior designer David Mlinaric (The Royal Opera House, Victoria & Albert Museum). The completion date is yet to be announced, but the hotel operator will be chosen next year; a dozen blue-chip hotel groups are reportedly vying to hang their shingle in the ceremonial heart of London.
Encore for shore
Encore for shore
Designer Adam Tihany promises private-yacht features and “a sense of spontaneity and exhilaration” aboard Seabourn Encore, setting sail next month on a 60-day maiden voyage from Athens to Sydney. Most exotic ports? En route the débutante ultra-luxe Seabourn ship will stop at Muscat, Mumbai, Mangalore and Fort Cochin.
Sultanate style
Sultanate style
A new adventure in Oman takes travellers from a hammam on the Arabian Sea to a canyon-top shisha lounge at 2,000 metres, along ancient frankincense trade routes. Anantara has just opened two five-star resorts in the sultanate, and they’re a study in contrasts. In the subtropical southern province of Dhofar, Al Baleed Resort Salalah by Anantara sits between a long beach and a freshwater lagoon near the city of Salalah, known for its souks and heritage sites bearing the imprint of Oman’s former East Africa territories. In the remote north-east, two hours’ drive from the capital, Muscat, past forts and wadis, Anantara Al Jabal Al Akhdar Resort is set high on a canyon in the vast Saiq Plateau. From this eyrie, guests can abseil, hike, set off on mountain bikes or salute the sun from their private clifftop.
All that jazz
All that jazz
Musically minded travellers looking to brush up on their jazz appreciation make their pilgrimage to the genre’s birthplace, where legends such as Jelly Roll Morton and Louis Armstrong himself shaped the singular New Orleans sound. The glory of traditional jazz is still celebrated nightly at Preservation Hall, but the new generation improvises in the clubs on Frenchmen Street. More than one member of the Marsalis clan performs regularly at Snug Harbor, Kermit Ruffins holds sway at Blue Nile, and Meschiya Lake and the Little Big Horns headline at the Spotted Cat. When you can’t dance another step on Bourbon Street, catch the St Charles streetcar and ride uptown to the historic Pontchartrain Hotel (Frank Sinatra and The Doors were once guests here). Newly updated suites are named for the Muses with a musical bent, and a Steinway awaits in the classic Bayou Bar for anyone who feels a tune coming on.
Modernist India
Modernist India
For design aficionados, the tranquil city of Chandigarh in India’s north is a pilgrimage par excellence: legendary Swiss architect Le Corbusier was commissioned to introduce his singular vision to the Punjab capital in the 1950s, resulting in a city full of lakes, boulevards and modernist masterpieces. A fine base for exploring the city, whose Capitol Complex was named a UNESCO World Heritage site this year, is the new Oberoi Sukhvilas Resort & Spa. Set in 3,200 hectares of the Siswan forest on the outskirts of the city, the resort features Mughal-inspired gardens, and villas and tented suites echoing traditional Indian architecture. The family-owned Oberoi group envisages Sukhvilas as part of a circuit – along with its Shimla properties The Oberoi Cecil and Wildflower Hall – that revives a historic trail from Punjab to the Himalayas.
Theatre of the absurd
Theatre of the absurd
The Catalan character, renowned for its mix of seny i rauxa (sanity and madness, roughly translated) is in full flight at Barcelona’s newest dining sensation. Opera Samfaina combines the king-sized talents of visual artist Franc Aleu, chefs Jordi Roca and Albert Adrià and other local luminaries in a basement restaurant-cum-theatrical extravaganza beneath the Grand Theatre Liceu on La Rambla. Beyond its elements of the absurd – the singing cow, the dragons, the drunken Zeus – Samfaina is a celebration of Catalan cuisine and culture.
Vertical limits
Vertical limits
When the Flexenbahn cableway opens between St Anton and Lech this month it will extend Austria’s Arlberg ski region to a massive 305 kilometres of slopes with more than 80 lifts, making it one of the world’s largest winter playgrounds. The smartest way to experience these great snowy outdoors is to book into Haus Hannes Schneider, a new boutique hotel named after the 1950s skiing star who lived here as a child. (Ski pros will also know Hannes Schneider as the creator of the stem turn and the Arlberg squat.) Located at Stuben, one of the villages served by the Flexenbahn, the 20-guest chalet blends original mid-century charm with a fine balance of art and antiques and such modern comforts as a cinema, spa, concierge and butler.
Lucky break
Lucky break
On Indonesia’s remote Sumba Island the only thing more exclusive than the Nihiwatu resort is the surf. Each day just 10 guests are allowed to tackle Occy’s Left, reputed to be the largest left-hand break in the southern hemisphere and certainly the most élite. Surf’s up between May and October and, if well-heeled waxheads miss out on a spot at Occy’s, there are plenty more waves in the Sumba sea to suit all levels of aptitude.
Safari Nights
Safari Nights
The only thing more thrilling than being on safari is sleeping out on safari. A handful of top African camps have set up “star beds”, among them Loisaba Tented Camp. Set on an escarpment in northern Kenya’s Laikipia plains, Loisaba is back in business after a fire a few years ago, and its pioneering star beds – four-posters wheeled out each evening onto timber platforms with valley and waterhole views – look more alluring than ever. Each of the 10 private cottages at Kenya’s Ol Donyo Lodge have roof terraces where beds can be made for starlit sleepovers; guests wake to views of Chyulu Hills and nearby Mount Kilimanjaro. In Botswana’s teeming Okavango Delta, Abu Camp, owned by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, features king-size netted beds directly above the boma where the camp’s rescued elephants spend their nights. Also in the Okavango, guests can watch wallowing hippos from “sky beds” and “star baths” on private decks at the five-suite Sanctuary Baines’ Camp. Wallowing is taken seriously at nearby sister property Sanctuary Chief’s Camp, recently reopened after a high-luxe makeover. Ten apartment-size pavilions have private plunge pools facing a tranquil lagoon, as well as deep bathtubs and outdoor showers under jackalberry trees.
Fantasy islands
Fantasy islands
The idyllic archipelago off Cambodia’s south-west coast has an off-the-radar quality – and long may it be so. A handful of islands have a handful of low-key lodges, and then there’s Song Saa Private Island resort, which set a new benchmark for remote, barefoot luxury based on “triple-bottom line” sustainability principles when it was opened by Australian couple Rory and Melita Hunter in 2011. The archipelago’s jungle-meets-beach beauty has lured another pair of high-profile newcomers. Alila will open a resort on Koh Russey, aka Bamboo Island, by mid-next year. And by late next year Six Senses will open a 40-villa resort with an observatory on Krabey island.
Whale tale
Whale tale
If fringing reef and wintering whale sharks aren’t enough, Exmouth now offers a huge new Ningaloo attraction: swimming with humpback whales. From June to August the WA coast is a thoroughfare for “humpies” steaming north towards their breeding grounds. Eleven licensed boat operators started patrolling the blue highway this year, not so much looking for whales (they’re everywhere), but locating those that are suitably relaxed. Once the light is green, it’s into the water with a chest full of adrenalin and a semitrailer-sized mammal on approach.
Mexican waves
Mexican waves
Dedicated spa travellers are warming to a couple of Mexico’s traditional healing rituals being revived for a new generation. Temazcals are pre-Hispanic domed sweat lodges, often set by the ocean and incorporating an invigorating post-ritual plunge into the waves; and there’s renewed interest in the beauty of cenotes, the unique limestone caves and pools that dot the Yucatán Peninsula, part of a vast underground river system. To experience the latter in lavish style, the much-anticipated Chablé Resort opens this month, a hacienda-style hideaway set in jungle near the city of Mérida, where the spa’s centrepiece is a magnificent natural cenote. Just as exciting will be food by Jorge Vallejo, of the highly regarded Quintonil in Mexico City.
Next Noma
Next Noma
Our suspicions have been confirmed. René Redzepi’s next – and apparently final – Noma pop up will be an open air restaurant in Tulum, the Mexican beach resort town on the Yucatán Peninsula on the Caribbean coast, from 12 April to 28 May. Joining Noma will be former sous chef Rosio Sanchez, as well as a version of her Copenhagen tacqueria Hija de Sanchez. Read more.
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