Travel Leisure USA June 2021

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1971

2021

Celebrating 50 Years

Fondé à St-Tropez en 1971


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EVERY

LU X URY
INCLUDED
C O N T E NT S

Departments
8 Letter from the Editor

12 Discoveries
Learn what “locally
sourced” really means
at four chic farm stays;
check out hotels in Capri
and Washington, D.C.;
celebrate 50 years of
Vilebrequin swimwear;
and more.

Experiences

30 PARADISE AND PROSE


A storied literary retreat
opens in Greece’s
Peloponnese.
36 AT YOUR OWN PACE One
writer captains a boat
along the Erie Canal.
40 MURDER MOST NORDIC
Tracking down the real-life
settings of Scandinavia’s
beloved crime novels.
42 CHARMED, I’M SURE
A couple gets a fresh A restored vintage yacht in
perspective on two Watch Hill, Rhode Island
(page 42).
Victorian-style Rhode
Island hotels.
46 NATURAL TENDENCIES
A taste of Burlington,
Features
Vermont’s wine and
craft-cocktail scene. 70 ABSOLUTELY ÎLE DE RÉ 92 BETWEEN THE PINES
Fresh seafood, ice cream AND THE PACIFIC Oregon’s
50 LIVING ON THE EDGE
cones, and lazy bike rides untamed coastline and
An adventurer hurls
beckon on this sun-soaked endless forests set the
himself into coasteering,
French island. scene for the perfect
a sport popular in Wales.
summer road trip.
78 SMALL TOWN, BIG HEART
52 JEWELS IN THE SAND Three Celebrating the diversity
glamorous new lodges
and irreverence of 104 Your Best Shot
offer access to Namibia’s
Provincetown, a summer
vast Sossusvlei salt pan. Reader Darrell Sano snaps
sanctuary for the LGBTQ
a tuneful moment at the
community on Cape Cod.
Mosque-Cathedral in
56 Intelligent Traveler 86 THESE ARE THE DAYS OF Córdoba, Spain.
Everything to know about MIRACLE AND WONDER
avoiding vacation rental In search of signs from
scams, booking a high- above on an eclipse-
CH RI S MONGE AU

end train journey, joining spotting adventure ON THE COVER


A wish-list spot: Foneas Beach in
an exclusive travel club, in the foothills of the Kardamyli, Greece (page 30).
and more. Chilean Andes. Photograph by Marco Arguello.

4 T R AV E L + L E I S U R E | J U N E 2 0 2 1
C O N TR IBU TOR S

1.
City. “And I was pleasantly
surprised to find a high
AB S OLUTELY Î LE DE RÉ
number of women in
(P. 70)
the profession.”
Although the Paris-based
writer was familiar with 4.
the south of France and its
Atlantic coast, the joys of AB S OLUT ELY ÎLE DE RÉ
the Île de Ré came as a
surprise. “The island is Last September, the
very different from the photographer traveled
other places I’ve been in from his home in Paris to
the region,” he says. “I was the Île de Ré, and enjoyed
expecting something its slow pace and bikeable
colder, but the sunlight scale. “I loved cycling past
was brilliant. It felt like a the amazing salt marshes
quintessential summer.” and beaches,” Obadia-
Wills says. “Plus, the
seafood was so delicious
2.
I could hardly think of
S MALL TOW N, BIG HE ART
(P. 78 )
anything else.”

Kisner left N.Y.C. to visit 5.


the LGBTQ-friendly BE T WEEN TH E PIN ES AND

CLO C KW ISE FROM TOP LEF T: D O MI NIQ UE NAB O KOV/C OURT E SY O F T HOMA S W IL L I AMS ; EB RU Y IL DI Z / C OURTE SY OF JORDAN K ISN ER ;
Provincetown, on Cape TH E PACIF IC (P. 92 )

C O URT E SY OF MANUEL O B ADI A-W ILL S ; C O URT E SY O F TONY LUO NG; C O URTE SY OF CEL E STE N O C HE ; C OURTE SY OF W ENDY L E S SER
Cod, over the busy
summer season. “I fell for Portland, Oregon–based
the singular, small-town Noche relished the oppor-
atmosphere,” says the tunity to shoot her home
writer. “The flowers in the state on assignment for
front gardens! The dunes T+L. “There are so many
1 2 outside town! The wind! I moody, stunning beaches,”
grew up in a small surfing she says. “The road trip
town, so returning to the was a great reminder that
rhythms of summertime you don’t always have to
by the seaside was a joy.” get on a plane to explore
someplace new.”
3.
MURDER MO ST NORDIC 6.
(P. 4 0) S MALL TOWN, BIG HE ART

Lesser has taken 10 trips Luong, who lives in


3 4 to Scandinavia since 2018, Boston, felt safe and
when she first went to welcome while photo-
explore the settings of graphing Provincetown
her favorite crime novels this past September. “I
for her own book, Scandi­ was so impressed by the
navian Noir: In Pursuit of community’s COVID pro-
a Mystery (FSG). “I’ve met tocols,” Luong says. “The
some seriously interesting measures allowed every-
homicide detectives,” says one to enjoy the town—
the writer, who splits her and the social freedom
time between Berkeley, it represents—during
5 6
California, and New York the pandemic.”

6 T R AV E L + L E I S U R E | J U N E 2 0 2 1
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for reaching sales targets or other goals and may provide incentives to our travel consultants. For more information
visit www.americanexpress.com/travelterms. California CST#1022318; Washington UBI#600-469-694
LE T T ER

T
HIS SUMMER COULD SEE you taking your first
proper vacation in more than a year. Proper in
the sense that you may reunite with and hug a
loved one. Or you may take a road trip and feel
comfortable dropping in to a local restaurant,
on a whim. Or you may listen to music—any
kind of music should do—at a bar. Yes, a bar.
With the world upended and our priorities reordered,
there’s been a back-to-basics effect when it comes to
travel. I’ve felt it on my recent trips. Every experience—
conversations with strangers, smells in the air, the clarity
of the stars—puts a new spring in my step. Vacations give
me a boost in a way that they never did before.
Every story in this June issue is brimming with hope,
with this sense of promise. Jordan Kisner journeys to
Provincetown, the LGBTQ-friendly destination on Cape
Cod, and is won over by the inclusive culture and the
rhythms of the sea. John Bowe flies south to Chile to
witness a once-in-a-lifetime solar eclipse, and meets other
travelers in search of a higher purpose. Richard Godwin
discovers he’s a natural at the adventurous sport of Jacqui in the entrance hall of the Mayflower Inn & Spa,
coasteering, along the magnificent shores of southwestern in Washington, Connecticut.
Wales. James Hannaham falls in love with two Rhode
Island resorts that, though close to home, give him all the
sense of escape he needs. And Eleni Gage immerses herself
in the life of Patrick Leigh Fermor, the celebrated travel FROM MY TRAVELS to lose yourself in
A road trip took me when you look up
writer, whose inspiring home in Kardamyli, Greece, is now
to Litchfield County, and try to zone out
available for rent. Connecticut, and for a little bit.
This new era of travel is far from perfect: there are still the just renovated Other highlights:
flight delays and lines at airports to contend with (and Mayflower Inn & the food, which
now, of course, testing and quarantine requirements). But Spa, Auberge sings and nour-
Resorts Collection ishes thanks to
more than a year into this pandemic we, as travelers, are (aubergeresorts. chef April Bloom-
starting to find our sea legs. I still long for the days when com; doubles from field (please order
I could lose myself in a big, joyful, outdoor crowd. To me, $890). This once- the thick-cut
that says summer. A few years ago, my family and I did a traditional country bacon for break-
inn is now a riot of fast, the fried
one-night stay in Zurich and participated in Züri Fäscht:
color thanks to chicken for lunch,
a massive outdoor celebration of carnival games and designer Celerie and the Flint &
food vendors, aerial shows and fireworks. This beautiful Kemble, who added Steel cocktail—
lakeside city was alive with laughter, and so were we. Züri wicker chairs, tequila and lime
Fäscht happens every three years. Count me in for one wallpaper from juice, topped with
Sister Parish a splash of
raucous party in 2022. Design, and scotch—a little
ceramic Penny later on), and the
Morrison lamps, spa, which had
among other warm great bones to
C O URT E SY O F JAC Q UEL I NE GI FF O RD

touches. Our room begin with but now


had a massive four- has excellent pro-
poster bed, a gramming courtesy
holdover from the of the Well, a health
past, draped with a club based in New
blue-and-white York City. The Full-
toile curtain that Body Reboot gave
Kemble gave a me a much-needed
@jacquigiff jaunty chartreuse 90-minute physical
[email protected] trim. This is a fabric and mental break.

8 T R AV E L + L E I S U R E | J U N E 2 0 2 1
Dorado Beach: A Ritz-Carlton Reserve
Dorado, Puerto Rico

IT’S TIME TO PLAN FOR PUERTO RICO.


It’s time to remember what anticipation feels like. To look forward to rising with the embrace of the sun and
nodding off with the help of a warm Caribbean breeze. To stroll endless beaches beneath infinite blue skies.
To stop dreaming of a luxurious escape, and start experiencing one again. It’s time to take care of yourself by
letting us take care of you. Learn more at DiscoverPuertoRico.com/Info/Travel-Guidelines
E DI TO R I N C H I E F S E N IO R V IC E P R E S I D E N T, G R O U P P U B L I S H E R

Jacqueline Gifford Giulio Capua


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10 T R AV E L + L E I S U R E | J U N E 2 0 2 1
THIRTY YEARS FROM NOW, SHE MIGHT BE FISHING FOR BROWNS
IN THE BATTENKILL, OR HUNTING THE HIGH HILLS OF MONTANA.
BUT SHE’LL ALWAYS LOOK BACK ON THESE MINI-ADVENTURES
WHERE YOU HELPED HER CATCH THE BUG.

MEN’S RIVER GUIDE TECH SHIRT

T H I S F AT H E R ’ S D AY ,
GIVE ORVIS NOT ORDINARY
Cotton-rich, soft fabric for next-to-skin comfort

UPF 30 blocks over 96% of harmful UV rays

Stretches to move with you whether you’re


hauling gear or reaching for a cold one

OutSmart® Fresh fights odors so


everyone enjoys the ride home

OUTDOOR OUTFITTERS, INSTRUCTORS, AND APPAREL MAKERS. SINCE 1856.


T R A V E L + L E I S U R E

A G LO BE TR OT TER ’S GU I D E TO T HE L ATE ST I N TR AVEL


Edited by EL I Z ABE T H CANT RELL , S IOBHAN RE I D, an d HANNAH WALH O UT
Down to Earth
From forest foraging to garden-
fueled dinners, new farm stays
encourage guests to look beyond
their plates—and better understand
where their meals come from.
BY KRI ST IN B RA SWEL L

WHEN THE PANDEMIC disrupted


supply chains and restaurant models,
the idea of being “rooted” at home
took on a different meaning. Many
in the U.S. began looking for more
conscious ways to connect with the
earth and the food it provides. Now
travelers can see this philosophy
come to life at food-focused
properties around the country,
where meaningful (and delicious)
experiences are drawn, quite
literally, from the soil.
One notable debut is Sagra, a
hospitality start-up that partners
with sustainable farms to set up
boutique agritourism stays on their
properties. Cofounders David Rust,
Kathryn Arffa, and Jason Grauer all
have a background in farming. Their
first getaway, Sagra at Stemple Creek
Ranch (sagrafarms.com; doubles
from $209), in Tomales, California,
offers immersive experiences like
natural dye-making and helping out
in the vegetable garden. The cabins
and tents highlight locally sourced
materials—the Coyuchi duvets
are filled with wool from Stemple
Creek’s very own sheep. Ingredients
AUST IN ME YER/C OURTE SY O F SAGRA AT ST EMPLE CREEK RANC H

for meals are procured on site and


prepared by chef Alan Hsu. “Beyond
sustenance, a meal is a gathering,”
says Hsu. “The food will highlight
where I come from as a Taiwanese
American and a California native,
and emphasize the practices we
want to live by.”
After supplying New Jersey hotels
The rolling hills of and restaurants with sustainably
Stemple Creek grown ingredients for more than a
Ranch, in Marin decade, Beach Plum Farm (cape
County, California.
resorts.com; cottages from $1,800),
in West Cape May, has opened its

T R AV E L A N D L E I S U R E . C O M 13
D I S C O V E R I E S

doors for guests. More than 100 varieties of


fruits, vegetables, herbs, and flowers grow on its
62 acres. Visitors can experience this abundance
firsthand during one of Beach Plum’s culinary
retreats, which include botanical-cocktail
classes and private farm dinners in the fields.
Five cottages and barns, some dating back to
the late 17th century, are stocked with produce
from the property and can accommodate up to
12 guests—making this an ideal getaway for
groups with an appetite.
At the edge of Hiawatha National Forest
on Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, Chicago chef
Iliana Regan and her wife, Anna, have opened
Milkweed Inn (milkweedinn.com; from $750
per person for two nights), which is surrounded

Chef Travis Milton introduces a farm dinner at Nicewonder Farm &


Vineyards, in Virginia’s Blue Ridge Mountains.

F RO M TOP : C O URT E SY OF K IN DLER ST UDIO S ; C O URT E SY O F CAPE RE S ORTS PHOTO ; KEN DRA STAN LE Y -MIL L S
by 150 wooded acres. The experience at this
exclusive wilderness B&B—which is open
on summer weekends—includes activities
like kayaking and hiking. Guests can refuel
with meals foraged and prepared by Regan:
whitefish with berries; fresh radishes with
cultured butter; fire-roasted wild apples.
Accommodation options include the three-
bedroom main cabin, an Airstream trailer, or,
for the more adventurous, a wood-floored tent.
The Blue Ridge Mountains are the backdrop
to Nicewonder Farm & Vineyards (nicewonder
farm.com; doubles from $293), a 400-acre
refuge in Bristol, Virginia. At the on-site
restaurant, Taste, chef Travis Milton celebrates
Appalachian cuisine and traditional techniques
like canning and curing. Hearty dishes include
cabbage stuffed with beef from nearby Wolf
Hills Farm and served with Milton’s version
of chowchow, the ubiquitous Southern relish.
(Pair it with a Merlot from Nicewonder’s 10
From top: The produce stand at New Jersey’s Beach
Plum Farm; chef Iliana Regan, right, and her wife,
acres of vines.) You can spend the night at one
Anna, forage in the forest around Milkweed Inn, on of nine new glamping yurts; a luxe 28-room
Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. inn will open later this summer.

14 T R AV E L + L E I S U R E | J U N E 2 0 2 1
Unlimited double miles.
Unlimited destinations.
With the Capital One Venture card, you can earn
unlimited double miles wherever you shop and
redeem them on any travel purchase.

Redeem rewards for any recent purchase we identify as travel based on information provided by merchants. Credit approval required. Offered by Capital One Bank (USA), N.A. © 2021 Capital One.
REMEMBER
THE FUTURE
The corners of the world that make your heart sing
– and those you have yet to experience.
The fine flavors of the world you’ve savored
onboard and on your explorations
– and those you have yet to taste.

It’s all ahead of you.


#RememberTheFuture

E XQ U I SI T ELY C R A F T ED C U I SI N E . C U R AT ED T R AV EL E X PER I EN C E S . S M A LL S H IP LU X U RY.


C ALL 855- OCE ANIA ( 855- 623-26 42) | VISIT OCE ANIACRUISES.COM / TL | CONTAC T YOUR TR AVEL ADVISOR
D I S C O V E R I E S

Face Forward
The best new beauty products
harness the power of sustainable
farming. BY SIOB HAN RE ID

CULTIVATE APOTHECARY AWAKEN


REJUVENATING DAY SERUM Organic
calendula, comfrey leaf, chamomile,
and lemon balm form the backbone of
this powerful anti-inflammatory elixir
from the beauty brand at Stonegate
Farm, in New York’s Hudson Valley.
cultivateapothecary.com; $135.

TATA HARPER SUPERKIND RADIANCE


MASK This face-brightening treatment
is one of three products in the
Vermont-based company’s new
Superkind line, designed to fortify the
skin’s natural barrier. Lactic acid

F RO M TO P : ROMA IN REGL ADE /C O URT E SY O F H OTEL L A PALMA , CAPRI; HOTEL L A PAL MA , CAPRI/ C OURTE SY OF OE TKER C OLL ECT ION ; C OURTE SY OF
gently exfoliates while lavender,
alfalfa, borage, and other botanicals
from Tata Harper’s 1,200-acre farm
heal and protect. tataharper skin
care.com; $65.

RHUG WILD BEAUTY CLEANSING


LOTION This antioxidant-rich cleanser A guest room
contains dandelion extract and at Hotel La Palma,
hawthorn flower from Rhug Estate, in in Capri, Italy.
Wales. Other powerhouse ingredients Above: Capri’s
include papaya extract (to regulate Faraglioni
sebum production and reduce rock formations.
inflammation) and organic olive oil.
rhugwildbeauty.com; $35.

Island of Dreams
In Capri, a former playground to the stars gets a modern makeover.
BY S C OT T BAY

IN THE 1960 s, Hotel La Palma, Capri’s oldest hotel (opened in 1822)


was the place to spend a sun-soaked summer holiday; its guests
MAT TH E W BEN S ON F OTO ; C O URTE SY OF TATA HARPER

included Hollywood A-listers like Audrey Hepburn and Grace Kelly.


Now the 199-year-old property is ready to welcome a new crowd:
next April, it will reopen after a top-to-bottom refresh courtesy of the
Oetker Collection (which owns other landmark beach retreats, like
Eden Rock, in St. Bart’s). Designed by Rome-based Delogu Architects,
each of the 50 rooms—including 18 suites—will come with its own
private terrace or balcony. But the real action is at the glamorous
Purple coneflower, beach club, where yachts can pull up for lunch, or the rooftop
which revives dull
skin. Right: Tata
restaurant Bianca, which overlooks the Tyrrhenian Sea. You’re here,
Harper’s Superkind after all, not for solitude, but for Capri’s sparkling social scene.
Radiance Mask. oetkercollection.com; rates not available at press time.

18 T R AV E L + L E I S U R E | J U N E 2 0 2 1
Campagna Finanziata Ai Sensi Del Reg. UE N. 1308/2013.
Campaign Financed According To EU Reg. NO. 1308/2013. .

Uncork Responsibly. Imported by Santa Margherita USA, Miami Beach, FL.


D I S C O V E R I E S

CLO C KW ISE F ROM TOP LEF T: C ÉD RIC V IO LLE T /C O URT E SY O F V ILEBREQ UIN ; CHAO C UI/ C OURTE SY OF V IL EBREQ UIN ;
The boldness paid off. Prysquel got the girl, a

C O URT E SY O F T HE V I LEBREQ UIN ARCH I VE S ; C HAO CUI/C OURT E SY OF V ILEBREQ UIN


local shop owner named Yvette, whom he later
married. But he (and Yvette) also changed the
course of bathing suit history by launching the

Making a Splash
swimwear brand Vilebrequin based on the
success of that first pair of trunks. It’s a story the
company’s current CEO, Roland Herlory, relishes
For its 50th anniversary, French swimwear label telling. “Our origin is all about love,” he says.
Vilebrequin has unveiled a collection inspired by its To celebrate the brand’s 50th anniversary,
Herlory and his team created 50 collector’s-
storied heritage, and made a pledge of environmental edition trunks. Some are revivals of old prints,
sustainability for the future. BY S IOBHAN RE ID while others are modern interpretations of
archival styles. There are psychedelic flower
patterns from the 70s, graphic motifs from the
80s, and an electric-blue pair emblazoned with
sea turtles from the aughts.
It’s been half a century since automobile journalist Fred Vilebrequin has also doubled down on its
Prysquel donned a pair of provocative swim trunks in commitment to responsible fashion: by 2022,
St.-Tropez while attempting to woo the woman of his 80 percent of its garments will be made from
dreams. Back in 1971, Prysquel’s knee-grazing shorts of his recycled fishing nets, plastic water bottles, and
own design were unlike anything the Côte d’Azur had ever other discarded materials. “Because we have
seen. They combined the easy movement of California a long history, we have strong roots,” Herlory
board shorts with the bright patterns and traditional waxed says. “Those roots allow us to dream big.”
fabrics he had spotted on a trip to Senegal. vilebrequin.com.

20 T R AV E L + L E I S U R E | J U N E 2 0 2 1
Opposite, clockwise from top left: Marlon denim swim shorts; a
1984 beach bag and towel; modeling the 2011 collection; 1984 swim
trunks. This page, clockwise from top left: A vintage postcard; 1998
trunks; 1972 linen shorts; founder Fred Prysquel, left, with French
actor Jean-Louis Trintignant in St.-Tropez in 1976; embroidered
Mistral trunks; Plage d’Argent, in Porquerolles, France.
C LO CKW I SE FROM TOP RIGHT: C HAO CUI/ C OURT E SY O F V ILEBREQ UI N; CÉD RIC V IOL LE T/C OURTE SY OF V IL EB REQ UI N; C OURTE SY OF THE V IL EB REQ UI N ARCHI VE S/FRED PRYS Q UEL ;
C HAO C UI /C OURT E SY OF V I LEBREQ UIN ; MA S SIMO V I TAL I /C O URT E SY O F V I LEBREQ UIN; C OURT E SY O F T HE V IL EBREQ UIN ARCHI VE S/ FRED PRYS Q UEL

T R AV E L A N D L E I S U R E . C O M 21
D I S C O V E R I E S

Global Kitchen
A new book immerses readers in the home Clockwise from left:
kitchens and neighborhood restaurants of The Greek island of
Turkey, Greece, and Cyprus to illuminate the Ikaria; author Yasmin
Khan, left, with Musa
region’s shifting culinary landscape. Dağdeviren, chef-owner
BY L IL A HARR O N BAT T I S of Çiya, in Istanbul;
a spread of imam
bayildi (stuffed roasted
eggplant), mücver

CLO C KW ISE F ROM TOP LEF T: MAT T RUS SELL/C OURTE SY O F W. W. N ORTON & C O., IN C.(2); TOM JA STR AM/SHUT TER STO CK .C OM
(zucchini-and-feta
“ I BELIEVE FOOD is like language—it’s constantly fritters), and more.
evolving and changing,” says human-rights
campaigner turned food writer Yasmin Khan.
That’s why Khan’s new cookbook, Ripe Figs
(W. W. Norton & Co., $35), delves into not only SPICE-RACK ESSENTIALS
the traditional dishes of Turkey, Greece, and “A lot of dishes in Cyprus and Turkey use dried mint—it’s
Cyprus but also those introduced more recently so different from fresh mint, kind of bright and earthy
by the Syrian and Afghan refugees who have at the same time. Sumac is astringent, and pomegranate
resettled across the eastern Mediterranean. molasses is sweet and sharp. And pul biber—known in
“My aim was to inspire a conversation about the U.S. as Aleppo pepper—is a mild pepper flake that
migration in the twenty-first century,” Khan adds a fruity flavor as opposed to a fiery heat. If you have
explains. “I think food is a great way to all those things, you’ll be set.”
understand an issue, and there’s no better
place to have that conversation than over a BOWLED OVER
dinner table.” Here, the London-based author “Greek yogurt is famous all over the world, but yogurt is
shares some tips on bringing her favorite used in savory main-course dishes in Turkey and Cyprus
Mediterranean flavors home. as well. Hot yogurt soup, yayla çorbasi, is one of my
favorite recipes in the book—such a game changer! It’s
LIQUID GOLD an incredibly easy dish that you can whip up in fifteen
“Olive oil is the unifying ingredient of the minutes, but it feels so luxurious and comforting.”
Mediterranean. I tend to have three different
bottles going: a very light oil I can use for TOAST OF THE TOWN
frying, another with a medium body to use “Whenever I do avocado toast, I always have sumac,
for cooking, and one good-quality oil to use za’atar, Aleppo pepper, and loads of good olive oil on it,
as a seasoning at the end. I see people store it as well as lime. The other day I was like, This is so good
on the counter, but you should keep it in the it needs to be in a cookbook! I can’t put an avocado toast
cupboard, away from heat and sunlight.” recipe in a cookbook, but I just think it’s so good.”

22 T R AV E L + L E I S U R E | J U N E 2 0 2 1
Where the West Begins
JUST NORTH OF the glistening skyscrapers of downtown Fort
Worth, Texas, you’ll find the Stockyards National Historic
District, once one of the largest livestock-trading centers in
the American West. In Cowtown, as it’s affectionately known,
FROM TOP : C RYSTAL W ISE ; JOYCE MAR SHALL /C OURTE SY OF PROVEN DER HAL L ; C OURTE SY OF MULE ALLE Y. ILLUSTR AT ION BY MAY PAR SE Y

you can still find genuine cowboys: longhorns parade down


the streets twice daily. Now, nearly 150 years after its founding,
the Stockyards is getting a modern upgrade, bringing upscale
lodging, dining, and entertainment to the aptly named Mule
Alley. Here’s where to step out in style. BY TANNER SAUNDER S

1. PROVENDER HALL like bison tartare at this


Indulge in chicken-fried cozy cocktail bar.
steak (a Lone Star sidesaddle-saloon.com;
staple), skillet corn small plates $9–$16.
bread, or pimento
cheese. provenderhall. 4. MB MERCANTILE &
com; entrées $14–$32. SUPPLY Browse eclectic
souvenirs like magic-trick
2. DOWNTOWN kits and jalapeño jams.
COWTOWN AT THE ISIS mbmercantilefw.com.
At this restored 1914
cinema, see a classic 5. HOTEL DROVER, AN
western or grab a drink AUTOGRAPH
at the family-friendly COLLECTION HOTEL
speakeasy before taking Named after the
in a live performance. 19th-century stockmen
downtowncowtown.com. who moved cattle
N. Main St.

through Fort Worth, the


3. SIDESADDLE SALOON hotel also houses a
Try the Prairie Rose Lucchese boot store.
Henderson, a “bourbon’d hoteldrover.com;
Texas tea,” and dishes doubles from $189.

E. Exchange Ave.

From top: Horse-and-carriage rides are a favorite attraction


in Fort Worth’s Stockyards, as is the Isis theater; beer and
oysters at Provender Hall; luxury bootmaker Lucchese has 1
a custom-only store in Hotel Drover.

3 4
2
Mule Alley

N.W. 24th St.


Rte 287

N.E
.2
3 rd
St.
D I S C O V E R I E S

C LO CKW I SE FROM TOP RIGHT: C OURTE SY OF RAF FLE S SIN G AP ORE; C O URT E SY OF ANANTARA HOT EL S, RE S ORTS & SPA S ; C OURTE SY OF HARDIE GRAN T B O OKS ;
C OURT E SY OF T HE LUXURY C O LLECT IO N. ILLUST RAT IONS BY E V I- O.ST UDIO/ C OURTE SY OF HARDIE GRAN T B O OKS (3)
Behind the Bar chronicles beloved hotel bars around the globe, including, from
top, the Long Bar at Raffles Singapore; Bar Longhi at the Gritti Palace, in Venice;
and the Travellers Bar at the Royal Livingstone Victoria Falls Zambia Hotel.

Six years ago, when I moved to Buda- and Bar Américain at Hôtel de Paris
pest, I gravitated to Kollázs, the bar Monte-Carlo, as well as modern
inside the Four Seasons Hotel Gresham arrivals like the Spare Room at the
Palace. I enjoyed the flawless negroni, Hollywood Roosevelt. Some legendary
but it was the room’s enigmatic air I properties, like the Queen’s Park Hotel
relished most. I’ve written about in Trinidad, shuttered decades ago,
travel, drinks, and design for 19 years, but their cocktails live on. When I
and those frequent visits to Kollázs recently savored the Queen’s Park
reinforced my love for hotels and their Swizzle—a frosty, colorful mélange of
delightful drinking dens. It’s what rum, lime juice, Angostura bitters,
Shaken, Not Stirred inspired me to write Behind the Bar: simple syrup, and mint purportedly
Allow yourself to be transported on 50 Cocktail Recipes from the World’s invented there in the 1920s—I could
Most Iconic Hotels (Hardie Grant, $20). practically taste its tropical grandeur.
a world tour of hotel bars and the To capture the hotel bar’s evolution, I Ultimately, the hotel bar is a state of
cocktails they created. included golden-age venues like the mind, one that takes you places you
BY AL I A AKKAM King Cole Bar at the St. Regis New York didn’t know you needed to go.

24 T R AV E L + L E I S U R E | J U N E 2 0 2 1
D I S C O V E R I E S
From left: The new town houses at Rosewood,
Washington D.C.; a bedroom in the penthouse at
Rocco Forte House, on Rome’s Piazza di Spagna.

Home Sweet Home on the rooftop, which looks out over


New town house accommodations offer a dose of the Piazza di Spagna. roccoforte
domestic bliss—and then some. BY DE ANNE KACZ ER SK I hotels.com; from $1,975.

HÔTEL BARRIÈRE LE FOUQUET’S


Parisian living doesn’t get much
WHEN IT COMES to hotel rooms, moldings to evoke the buildings’ better than at this hotel, which
F RO M LEF T: C OURT E SY O F RO SE WO O D WA SH IN GTO N, D.C.; C OURT E SY OF RO C C O F ORTE HOTEL S

bigger has always been better—but 18th-century origins, plus elegant includes five serviced apartments
among the effects of COVID-19 on custom furnishings in dove grays and with sitting areas, full dining rooms,
the world of high-end travel is an silvery whites. A personal butler is on and private terraces or balconies
increasing demand for the comfort hand to assist with pre-arrival pantry overlooking the Champs-Élysées and
and privacy of home. To answer this stocking, reservations at the hotel’s the Arc de Triomphe. Book the over-
call, Rosewood Washington, D.C. trio of Wolfgang Puck restaurants, the-top Harcourt Suite for a private
(rosewoodhotels.com; town houses and off-property excursions. But gym and beauty salon. hotelsbarriere.
from $1,500) recently unveiled given the range of amenities on site, com; from $11,725.
six brick town houses on a quiet, we don’t see much reason to wander.
tree-lined street that backs the AERIN VILLA JASMINE
Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, steps Here are three other hotels adding Designed by beauty mogul Aerin
from the main 49-key property. spacious, residential-style retreats. Lauder, this new two-bedroom villa
Each offers 1,100 square feet at the Colony Hotel in Palm Beach,
of living space spread across four ROCCO FORTE HOUSE Florida, exudes oceanside elegance
floors, with residential amenities like This 18th-century Roman palazzo, with luxury place settings, custom
laundry rooms, private patios, and just around the corner from sister table games, and, of course, Aerin
eat-in kitchens. D.C. designer Thomas property Hotel de la Ville, has five beauty products. Other perks include
Pheasant (who did the interiors of two-bedroom apartments, including a secluded courtyard (with fountain),
Blair House, the president’s official a sprawling top-floor penthouse. A butler service, and a private pool.
guesthouse, during the Obama dedicated house manager is always thecolonypalmbeach.com; from
administration) added Federal-style on call—ask one to set up an aperitivo $3,500. — EL I Z A B E T H CA N T R EL L

T R AV E L A N D L E I S U R E . C O M 25
TOURING
REDEFINED
Experience the sheer exhilaration of
exploring on your own terms with a
Sea-Doo personal watercraft.

Coastal Cruising in Florida


In Florida—Travel + Leisure readers’ top pick for
U.S. travel destinations—1,200 miles of crystalline
coastline offer the perfect sun-splashed getaway.
Launch your Sea-Doo from one of the following
destinations, or dozens more coastal hot spots.
Choose from models made to help you master the art
of exploration, like the Sea-Doo GTX, with worry-
free operation, direct-access front storage, and the
largest swim platform in the industry.

Estero Bay
Just outside Fort Myers Beach on the Gulf of
Mexico, Estero Bay offers a paradise for living the Fort DeSoto
Sea-Doo life. Here, playful dolphins and gentle On Tampa Bay in the Gulf of
manatees parade the waters between tropical Mexico, Fort DeSoto Park boasts
Mangrove Islands. Explore it all from the comfort of five islands and over 1,000 acres
your Sea-Doo, whether you bring your own or book of recreational water fun. Rent
an adventure through a sports outfitter. a Sea-Doo or launch your own
to explore these pristine waters
Cocoa Beach and near-empty beachfronts.
Featuring a nearly six-mile stretch of sand and surf, Stop to check out the natural
and nearly three-dozen boat ramps in the area, Cocoa sandbar off the coast, set a
Beach is a spectacular spot to hit the waves on your course for Egmont Key, or
Sea-Doo. Take in views of the Cocoa Beach Pier, cruise the near-deserted island
cruise over to Port Canaveral, and get a whole new shores. Sea-Doo’s remarkable
perspective on Florida’s Space Coast. The versatile maneuverability means you’re
platform of the GTX makes it easy to stop for a free to explore virtually
floating picnic, cool off with a swim, or just relax and anywhere, from shallow to deep
enjoy the gentle waves. water, coastline to open sea.

FIND OUT MORE at Sea-Doo.com and discover more water adventures at UnchartedSociety.com.
Follow fun all summer long.
A new weekend. A new adventure. Cruise into the Sea-Doo Life and explore
new shores in your backyard. We’re ready when you are.

Visit Sea-Doo.com

®
© 2021 Bombardier Recreational Products Inc. (BRP). All rights reserved. , TM and the BRP logo are trademarks of BRP or its affiliates. In the U.S.A., products are distributed
by BRP US Inc. Carefully read the operator’s guide and safety instructions. Observe applicable laws and regulations. Always wear appropriate protective clothing, including a
personal flotation device and wetsuit bottoms. Riding, alcohol and drugs don’t mix. See your authorized BRP dealer for details.
D I S C O V E R I E S

CLO C KW ISE F ROM TOP LEF T: ANDY C ULP/C O URT E SY O F H EL I ; C OURTE SY OF RI VERHE AD B O OKS ; C OURTE SY AL FRED A . KN OP F ; C OURTE SY OF B ALL AN T INE B O OKS ; C OURTE SY OF PARF UMS C HRIST I AN DIOR
Turning the Page
The travel-inspired novels that T+L
editors are packing in their beach
bags this season.
Choose Your Own
Heli lets you book
daring excursions
like kitesurfing at

Adventure Long Beach, in


Turks and Caicos. GREAT CIRCLE
BY MAGGIE SHIPSTEAD
“This unputdownable novel (by
a regular T+L contributor) leaps
across decades and continents to
tell the fictional story of pilot Marian
THRILL SEEKERS hunting for their next towering wave or
Graves, who disappears while
snowcapped peak can now book excursions at the press of attempting to circumnavigate the
a button. New online platform Heli (heli.life) offers a curated globe in 1950. Save it for a weekend,
selection of a thousand adventurous itineraries—mountain biking lest you find yourself, as I did,
helplessly glued to the page at 3 a.m.
in British Columbia’s Kootenay Rockies, diving in Indonesia’s
on a Tuesday.” Knopf, $29.
Raja Ampat archipelago, rock climbing in the French Alps—with — L I L A H AR R O N BAT T I S , S EN IO R EDI TO R
accommodations, dining, and gear included. “The adventure-travel
space is extremely fragmented,” says Colorado-based cofounder WE WERE NEVER HERE
and CEO Andy Culp, who decided to launch the company after BY ANDREA BARTZ
“This thriller has a premise that will
his own struggles booking a heli-skiing weekend with friends. pique any mystery-loving traveler’s
“It was challenging to compare packages and make a decision.” interest: two best friends embark
Many trips available through Heli are run by established tour on their annual reunion trip, only to
operators like Canadian Mountain Holidays and Lindblad have it go murderously awry. Bartz’s
evocative descriptions of destinations
Expeditions, and the company also offers a selection of itineraries
as varied as Chile and Cambodia
led by pro athletes like skier Ian McIntosh and kitesurfers Rita pulled me in immediately, but it was
Arnaus and Jesse Richman. — JULEKHA DA SH the way she ratcheted up the tension
by dropping clues about the duo’s
murky past that kept me rapt until
the end.” Ballantine Books, $27.
— SARA H B RU N I N G , S EN IO R EDI TO R

Ready for the Riviera MY YEAR ABROAD


BY CHANG-RAE LEE
Last year marked the 150th anniversary of Hôtel “A recent favorite is this story about a
du Cap-Eden-Roc in Antibes, France. In honor of college junior whose humdrum life in
the occasion, Maison Christian Dior has unveiled New Jersey is turned upside down
a belated birthday treat: an exclusive fragrance when he follows a charismatic (and
that pays tribute to the resort, bottling the seaside possibly disturbed) entrepreneur on
glamour of the French Riviera in a perfume with a wild trip across Asia. Outlandish and
notes of jasmine and maritime pine. “The salt, sun, darkly funny, it’s exactly the kind of
pale rocks, and luxuriant vegetation all influenced book to devour over a long summer
me,” says master perfumer François Demachy. weekend.” Riverhead Books, $28.
dior.com; $220. — S . R . — EL I Z AB E T H CA N T R EL L , A S S O CI AT E EDI TO R

28 T R AV E L + L E I S U R E | J U N E 2 0 2 1
PROMOTION

Limited Edition

While quantities last. *Taxes and shipping fees apply.


T R AVEL ER S ’ TAL E S , F R O M NE AR AND FAR
Edited by L I L A HARRON BAT T IS and SARAH BRUNI NG
L E I S U R E
+
T R A V E L

PH OTO GRAPHS BY MARCO ARGUEL LO


PARADISE
AND PROSE
At a literary couple’s former home
in the bucolic Mani Peninsula of
Greece, EL EN I N . G AG E finds
herself transported—and inspired.

ONE REASON I travel is to envision lives


other than my own, or to picture my
own life in new, irresistible settings.
Rarely has that thrill of trying out
someone else’s existence felt as intense
as it did during my stay at the Patrick &
Joan Leigh Fermor House (ariahotels.gr;
villas from $600, three-night minimum).
This sun-kissed stone refuge sits above a
turquoise cove near the Greek village of
Kardamyli. It’s located in the Mani: one
of the three “fingers” of the Peloponnese,
the hand-shaped peninsula that hangs
off the mainland.

Just the spot for a good


book: the terrace of the
Patrick & Joan Leigh
Fermor House, a hotel
and education center in
southern Greece.

T R AV E L A N D L E I S U R E . C O M 31
The secluded A sitting room is
cove below the filled with the Leigh
house, perfect Fermors’ collection
for a midday dip. of scholarly books.

For decades, this idyllic place was the home


of Patrick Leigh Fermor, one of Britain’s best-
known travel writers, and his dynamic wife,
Joan. “Paddy,” as the late author was called, is
perhaps best remembered for A Time of Gifts,
an account of his youthful trek across Europe in
the 1930s. After becoming a World War II hero
(he orchestrated the kidnapping of a Nazi
general on Crete), Leigh Fermor spent the
postwar years walking, sailing, and hitchhiking
around Greece, journeys that would become
the basis of his later books Mani and Roumeli.
Joan often accompanied him; a former
debutante, she was happy to trade her British
high-society life for this sunlit coast.
Paddy had long dreamed of a Greek retreat
where he could read, write, and host visiting
friends like British poet laureate John Betjeman

32 T R AV E L + L E I S U R E | J U N E 2 0 2 1
Greece

E X P E R I E N C E S
Roumpi, our concierge, said when we arrived,
pointing to a mud basket on the arched ceiling.
“We’ve decided not to remove it.” A wise choice:
Patras Athens swallows are symbols of good luck in Greece.
Even without its literary connection, this
would be an idyllic spot to vacation. In Old
Kardamyli, we wandered through a collection of
T h e 18th-century stone towers where local rulers
P e l o p o n n e s e holed up during the Maniot vendettas—episodes
Kardamyli of interclan warfare that raged for centuries—
and later plotted the Greek Revolution. In the
charming newer village along the seafront, we
IONIAN SEA ducked children running around the church
square, and I popped into a jewelry store to
stock up on evil eye bracelets, remembering
Paddy’s description, in Mani, of the “amused
tolerance coupled with veneration” locals felt
and modernist painter Nikos Ghika. Joan’s only toward the amulet. “Because, true or not, these
requirement was that she be able to watch the beliefs are old and they are heirlooms.”
sunset. Hiking the Taygetos mountains in 1962, The couple are still remembered here as
they spied Kardamyli, and decided to build a Kyrios Michalis (“Mr. Michael,” Paddy’s code
house—which Joan funded by selling jewelry name when he was embedded in Crete) and
she’d inherited from her aristocratic parents—just Kyria Ioanna (“Mrs. Joan”). Locals seem to have
outside the village. Later, in a Greek television considered them family. At dinner under the
interview, Paddy recalled “all these wild olive trees at Elies (elieshotel.gr; entrées $9–$18),
mountains, and the olives and the water and the a hotel opposite a lovely beach outside town, I
islands; here would be an ideal place to live.” discovered that Stavros Giannakeas, the owner,
Since I also dream of making Greece my was raised in the housekeeper’s cottage at the
permanent home, my husband and I were Leigh Fermor house; his mother, Lela, was Paddy
inspired to visit the house on a recent road trip and Joan’s personal cook before she opened her
through the Peloponnese. I quickly realized that popular Kardamyli taverna, Lela’s (lelastaverna.
if I had Joan-worthy jewels, I’d trade them all for com; entrées $11–$14).
this, too. The place is a writer’s dream: the The couple’s last housekeeper, Elpida
dining room is lined with bookcases, so Paddy Belogianni, now cooks for visiting guests. One
could jump up to answer questions that arose day, she mentioned that Paddy swam daily to the
during dinner. On the long staircase down to islet across the bay until he was 94—inspiring me
the sea, benches were carved out of the stone to make the half-hour swim, stopping in caves
for Paddy to stop and write. Sitting under Joan’s that seemed lonely for sea nymphs. Initially, I felt
sunset-watching pergola, I noticed a paw-print jealous that someone got to do this every day:
mosaic underfoot—a nod to her love of cats. wake up, work a little, swim, eat Elpida’s
In 1996, the Leigh Fermors made otherworldly cooking—chickpeas bright with
arrangements to bequeath the house to the citrus, cold almond soup studded with green
Benaki Museum, in Athens—stipulating that it grapes—then nap, read, work, and talk until
be used as a retreat for writers and artists nine sunset. “If I lived here,” I told my husband,
months of the year, and run as a hotel from June peevishly, “I bet I could hunt Nazis, or walk across
to August to pay for its upkeep. Joan died in Europe, or write prize-winning books, too.”
2003, and after Paddy followed her in 2011, the But after a few days of sea foam and sunlight,
Benaki approached Aria Hotels—a Greek my envy mellowed into awe. The Leigh Fermors
ILLUSTRAT ION BY MAY PAR SE Y

company known for its atmospheric, historic fulfilled a near-universal fantasy: finding a place
properties—to take on hosting duties. that speaks to your soul and creating a life there.
The house reopened last year as a They not only built their heaven on earth but
combination artists’ colony, boutique inn, and also devised a way for others to appreciate it. In
Fresh fruit is
museum. Both the Benaki and Aria have worked Mani, Paddy asks, “What wondrous life is this I
served on to ensure that it reflects the region’s beauty and lead?” Having tasted life in the place he loved
the terrace. culture. “About the swallow’s nest,” Kyriaki the most, I share his wonder.

T R AV E L A N D L E I S U R E . C O M 33
HILTON HEAD ISLAND

The Perfect Location to Meet Again


From reunions to conferences, Hilton Head Island is an award-
winning destination for meetings and events.

SITUATED ON SOUTH CAROLINA’S COAST, this beloved barrier Exceptional Cuisine


island is an easy place to convene and reconnect with nonstop Along with standout restaurants, Hilton Head Island has some
flights from 30 cities and 10 airlines serving the Savannah/ of the most talented food and beverage teams in the meetings
Hilton Head International Airport (SAV). Wide-open spaces, and events industry. Whether you want curated modern menus
pristine beaches, and golf courses are the backdrop to luxury or real Lowcountry flavors—like authentic shrimp and grits, or
accommodations and Wi-Fi-ready meeting venues. locally harvested oysters—take advantage of exceptional onsite
catering to impress all your guests.
Customizable Spaces
Coordinate with professional meeting planners for a stress-free, Free Time
unique, Lowcountry experience and create top-notch events In between events, attendees can unwind with spectacular
for your organization in an amazing setting with more than outdoor activities. Enjoy a match on one of 23 world-class golf
150,000 square feet of customizable space. Meet in boardrooms courses; explore more than 60 miles of leisure pathways; book
filled with natural light and ocean views, have a meet-and-greet a fishing charter or dolphin-watching adventure; or simply
on the deck of a boat sailing the waterways, or host a cocktail relax on the 12 miles of beaches. To learn about the island’s
reception under the stars. natural and cultural history, sites such as the Coastal Discovery
Museum at Honey Horn, a Smithsonian affiliate, and the
Accommodations for Everyone Historic Mitchelville Freedom Park offer plenty of insights into
Ensure your guests are comfortably situated with more than the region’s unique environment and heritage.
3,000 hotel rooms and 6,000 homes and villas to choose from.
Six of the island’s top resorts boast plenty of flexible meeting Meet Safely
space, including Marriott Hilton Head Resort & Spa; Omni Feel confident hosting a gathering with Hilton Head Island’s
Hilton Head Oceanfront Resort; Sonesta Resort Hilton Head Path Forward Readiness Plan (ThePathForward.org), featuring
Island; The Sea Pines Resort; The Westin Hilton Head Island uniform protocols for businesses and evidence-based approaches
Resort & Spa; and the Beach House Hilton Head Island. to protecting the health and safety of visitors and the workforce.

To start planning your next event,


visit HiltonHeadMeetings.org.
“ I T H I N K YO U ’ R E O N M U T E ”

T h i s way t o A m e ri c a ’ s Favo ri t e I s l a n d ®
3 2 .1 3 8 6 , - 8 0 . 8 1 0 9

Hil tonH ead Meeting s.org


E X P E R I E N C E S

AT YOUR OWN PACE spotting and unplugging from whatever worries


you left onshore—just what Jetty-Jane and I were
On a narrow-boat journey down New York’s Erie Canal, looking for in the summer of 2020.
PAUL BRADY finds a waterway steeped in history—one Our vessel was the Seneca, a 42-foot

JO HN KUCKO. OPP O SI TE: JA S O N BE ATON. I LLUST RAT ION BY MAY PAR SE Y


that offers a welcome escape from modern-day worries. liveaboard that we chartered—with the help of
quirky travel website Atlas Obscura—from Erie
Canal Adventures, a family-run outfitter with
a fleet of canal boats purpose-built for touring

T
HE ERIE CANAL used to be all about speed, the waterways between Syracuse and Buffalo.
but today it’s about slowing down,” said The plan was to take one of those vessels and
Marye Lobb, a singer-songwriter I met one spend a few days exploring the canal. Niche?
evening in Spencerport, New York. Lobb Absolutely. The perfect escape from the
had been playing in the village’s canal-side strangest year of our lives? Definitely.
gazebo while my wife, Jetty-Jane, and I Soon enough, we were in a marina-side
watched from the top deck of our boat, a classroom in Macedon, getting a tutorial on
bottle of Finger Lakes Riesling between us. propane heaters, diesel engines, and marine
“There’s just something calming about being toilets—all the parts that make a liveaboard tick.
by the water,” Lobb said. In the 19th century, she After a few educational videos, we were aboard
explained, this storied waterway was an artery of the Seneca with Erie Canal Adventures owner
commerce, but these days it’s a place for wildlife Brian Keenan, who had come to give us some

36 T R AV E L + L E I S U R E | J U N E 2 0 2 1
boats. They were the fastest, easiest, and most
comfortable way to get anywhere, which is why
the founding fathers spent considerable time—
not to mention money—trying to gin up canal
systems in America to rival those transforming
Europe. As Peter L. Bernstein writes in Wedding
of the Waters, a history of the Erie Canal,
the waterway would “knit the sinews of the
Industrial Revolution, propel globalization...and
revolutionize the production and supply of food
for the entire world.”
Today, the canal is almost exclusively used
for recreation, but it’s no exaggeration to say
The lift bridge in Erie Canal Adventures’
downtown Fairport, boats have cozy berths
that the 363-mile-long link between the Atlantic
New York, as seen from suited for families with and the Great Lakes cemented the country’s
the Erie Canal. kids or up to four adults. economic primacy and crowned New York City
its financial capital. (That many of these gains
were extracted, directly or indirectly, from land
hands-on training. He watched as we took our stolen or swindled from Indigenous peoples,
boat—sporting the company’s signature red particularly those of the Haudenosaunee
and green color scheme—through the gates of Confederacy, often goes unmentioned.)
Lock 30, practiced our knots, fiddled with our Yet for all its economic benefit, the canal
radio, and spun around with a whoosh of our provided something far more valuable: it
bow thrusters. gave rise to a network for ideas. Among the
An hour later, Keenan stepped back onto freethinkers living and working along the canal
the dock and wished us a good trip. With just was Joseph Smith, who published the Book of
my wife and me on board—and the $100,000 Mormon in 1830 in Palmyra. In 1848, Frederick
insurance policy stashed belowdecks—I had a Douglass moved to Rochester, where he
moment of panic. We’d been socially distancing founded his abolitionist newspaper. That same
for months, but suddenly felt very alone. year, Elizabeth Cady Stanton helped organize
Before Zoom calls, before jets, even before the Women’s Rights Convention held in Seneca
Model Ts and railroads, travel was all about Falls, now home to the Women’s Rights National
Historical Park.
All of which is to say that a trip on the canal
takes you through not only western New York
but also hundreds of years of American history.
Not that you’re thinking about any of that when
you’re waking up in Pittsford in the middle
of a chilly thunderstorm. Canal trivia takes a
LAKE ONTARIO
back seat when everything’s wet, a cold wind is
blowing, and the only person around to untie
the lines is you. Whose idea was this anyway?
ERIE C
ANAL We chugged west toward Rochester, where
Rochester
we tied up at Corn Hill Landing, in the heart
Spencerport of the city. Despite the heavy rain, we made
Fairport
the short walk to Dinosaur Bar-B-Que, which
Pittsford lives up to the hype with pit-smoked wings and
CANADA decadent mac and cheese. We walked through
Buffalo Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial Park, painted
LAKE ERIE
with messages of protest against police violence
in Rochester and across the United States. By
late afternoon, the sun had returned, and we
celebrated with pilsners and onion rings at Roc
Brewing Co. before heading back to the boat
and pressing on toward Spencerport to catch

T R AV E L A N D L E I S U R E . C O M 37
Brisket, pulled pork, ribs, and chicken at Dinosaur Bar-B-Que, in Rochester.

Lobb’s gazebo concert, one of several much at all, we relished the simple
such experiences Atlas Obscura had pleasure of walking down some new
arranged along our route. streets and seeing some new things.
After a couple of days aboard, That evening, we approached
we were getting the hang of the another red-and-green boat docked
Seneca. The hardest part was passing at a bend in the channel called
through the locks, which involved Bushnell’s Basin. We were tying
gingerly maneuvering our 30,000- our lines when a stranger bounded
pound boat into a narrow space and over and, through her mask, started
grabbing onto fixed cables or ropes telling us about the great hard cider
covered in gunk. We started to feel selection in the dockside store.
a tiny bit like boat people. Could Diane Baker and her husband,
we live on the Seneca? I wondered Mark, had, like us, been on the canal
aloud one morning. Not likely, my for a few days, she said. They, too,
wife deadpanned. figured the trip would be the perfect
On our third morning, we turned antidote to months cooped up at
back east to Fairport, a quintessential home in New York City. For them, it
canal town we’d skipped on our way was less about boating than about
out. We grabbed a sunny spot on the exploring a stretch of the state they’d
patio of Lulu Taqueria & Bar for a never considered vacation-worthy.
Pacifico and a margarita as kayakers A few days later, back on land,
paddled past. We rummaged through we bumped into Diane and Mark
gift shops like Main Street Mercantile at the Cascadilla Gorge trailhead in
and marveled at the imported Ithaca. Though we’d met only briefly,
pastas, olives, meats, and cheeses it felt like a reunion with old friends.
at Lombardi’s Gourmet Imports & Amazing what can happen when you
Specialties. After months of not doing take a moment and just slow down.

BRENT HERRIG PHOTO GRAPHY/ C O URT E SY O F DI NO SAUR B AR-B-Q UE

landlubbers can quickly Canandaigua (lakehouse


Plan a get the hang of it. Book canandaigua.com;

Canal Trip through Atlas Obscura


(atlasobscura.com) for
doubles from $265) is a
resort-style property
more perks, plus a with soothing, nautically
Erie Canal Adventures concierge who can make inspired interiors by
(eriecanaladventures. restaurant reservations Studio Tack. An hour
com; trips from $1,950) and provide hyper- away, the Inns of Aurora
offers three-, four-, and specific sightseeing tips. (innsofaurora.com;
seven-day charters out Charters start around doubles from $440) is a
of Macedon. Boats come noon and end early on collection of historic
fully fueled and equipped the final day, so it’s best buildings, all beautifully
with linens, kitchen gear, to bookend a cruise with restored and filled with
and water. There’s a hotel stays. About 30 quirky yet tasteful décor.
learning curve for piloting minutes from Macedon, A new 15,000-square-
the vessels, but even the new Lake House on foot spa opened in May.

38 T R AV E L + L E I S U R E | J U N E 2 0 2 1
MURDER MOST NORDIC
What reader doesn’t dream of visiting the real-life setting
of a beloved novel? Captivated by Scandinavian noir,
WENDY L ES SER travels to Norway, Sweden, and Denmark
to follow in the footsteps of her favorite detectives.

S
OME PEOPLE ARE DRAWN to visit new
countries by the promise of beautiful
scenery, the delicious local cuisine,
or the rich cultural offerings. I went
to Scandinavia for the murders. Not
real murders, mind you, but those
I had been reading about for more
than three decades in Danish, Norwegian, and
Swedish crime fiction.
I had started in the early 1980s with the
Martin Beck series. Written by the Swedish
couple Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö, these were
the first realistic police procedurals to surface
in Scandinavia, and they are still among the
best. A decade later I discovered the excellent
Kurt Wallander series by Henning Mankell.
Then, as the 21st century dawned, I came upon
Stieg Larsson’s Lisbeth Salander and Mikael
Blomkvist, followed soon after by Jo Nesbø’s
Harry Hole. From there it was only a hop, skip,
and jump to hundreds of other mysteries by
Scandinavian authors.
What I was getting from all these books
was not just the thrill of the chase but a

CLO C KW ISE F ROM TOP LEF T: GE T T Y IMAGE S (2); F LO RA W I STRÖM; GE T T Y I MAGE S (4); FLORA
tangible sense of what life in Sweden, Norway, rest of this strangely quiet capital, where I
and Denmark was actually like. Compared to rarely saw more than three people on a city
America, Scandinavia—despite its inherent block at once, unless it was happy hour on
coldness and darkness, or perhaps even because the main pedestrian drag. (Hole is notably
of that—managed to put a humane face on the a heavy drinker, and it became clear to me
interactions between murderers and police. At during this visit that he simply adheres to a
least, so it appeared from my avid reading, but national tradition.)
of course I couldn’t be sure. So a few summers When I got to Stockholm, I was struck by
ago, I decided to see how closely my fictional the city’s intense beauty, but I had no time to
Scandinavia corresponded to the real one. waste on conventional sightseeing. Instead,
I arrived in Oslo and took the airport express I paid dutiful visits to the streets inhabited
into town, following the recommendation of by Martin Beck (narrow, cobblestoned
W IST RÖM; GE T T Y IMAGE S/DIGI TAL V I SION

Harry Hole, who uses this efficient train all Köpmangatan, in the Old Town) and his
the time. Within hours of settling in, I found girlfriend, Rhea Nielsen (newer, apartment-
myself planted in front of Hole’s apartment filled Tulegatan, near Vanadislunden
building at 5 Sofies Gate. Nesbø has always park). I made a pilgrimage to Beck’s police
managed to suggest that Hole lives in a rather headquarters on Kungsholmsgatan and
run-down part of the city, but Norway is so succeeded in snapping a photo of the building,
wealthy now that the detective’s relatively but then a red-faced guard chased after me
modest street seemed quite prosperous to and demanded I delete the offending picture
me. It was also deserted. But then so was the from my iPhone. I also tracked the locations of

40 T R AV E L + L E I S U R E | J U N E 2 0 2 1 I L LUSTRAT ION S BY NA Z ARIO GRA Z I AN O


Case Study

E X P E R I E N C E S
various Sjöwall/Wahlöö crimes, from the bank he told me that at least two or three
robbery on Hornsgatan to the shoot-out near tourists a week come up to him My favorite
Odenplan, where Beck himself was seriously on the street and ask for information Scandinavian
wounded in The Abominable Man. about Kurt Wallander’s habits detectives—and
I located the Jewish cemetery in Kronoberg and whereabouts. the cities they
Park where Joona Linna, protagonist of The The extent to which these fictional call home.

Hypnotist and other Lars Kepler novels, characters have invaded the lives and
sometimes goes to place a pebble on the minds of their real-life counterparts
tombstone of his dead partner, Samuel became a running theme during my MARTIN BECK
Mendel. I took a stroll on lovely Bellmansgatan, trip. The homicide detective I spoke This series by Maj
the location of Mikael Blomkvist’s apartment with in Oslo, referring to both his Sjöwall and Per
Wahlöö is set in the
in the Södermalm district. Ranging farther seniority and his solve rate, noted
Stockholm of the
afield, I made brief trips to the old university humorously that “if there is a Harry 1960s and 70s.
city of Uppsala, about an hour outside Hole in the Oslo police department, Read the 10 books
Stockholm, where Kjell Eriksson’s Ann Lindell it would probably be me.” On my in order, starting with
series is set, and to the town of Visby on the visit to Copenhagen, the two police Roseanna and
ending with The
Baltic island of Gotland, where the murders in detectives I met described a real-life Terrorists—together
Mari Jungstedt’s novels are solved by Anders murder—the gruesome, tragic 2017 they form a portrait
Knutas’s fine team. case of dismembered journalist Kim of a place and time.
It was in the southern coastal town of Wall—as being “much more like a
KURT WALLANDER
Ystad, home of the venerated Kurt Wallander, murder mystery” than their cases
Henning Mankell set
that I began to sense the sometimes creepy generally are. these novels in the
overlap between fiction and reality. What was In Stockholm I interviewed a Skåne section of
once a lovely seaside village has become the superintendent in the serious-crimes southern Sweden,
center of a film and tourism industry devoted division who told me he had actually and the books
describe glorious
to the Wallander novels. The film studio become a policeman after reading scenery alongside
there is the largest in Scandinavia, and the the 10-book Martin Beck series. “It grotesque crimes.
whole Wallander machine has brought tens of interested me enough that I applied
millions of dollars to the Skåne region. When I for work here,” he confessed. He and HARRY HOLE
A Norwegian, Jo
talked to a cop in the Ystad police department I passed a cheery hour discussing
Nesbø is by far the
(he was a community relations officer—the the pros and cons of the various best stylist and
town is too small to have its own murder unit), Scandinavian mystery novels. (“I
F RO M TOP : GE T T Y IMAGE S ; GE T T Y I MAGE S/50 0 PX ; G ORAN HEC KLER /AL AMY STO CK PHOTO ; GE T T Y IMAGE S

plotter in all of
really love them,” he said of Nesbø’s Scandinavian noir,
books, “but Harry Hole would have and his portrayal of
Oslo is both detailed
been kicked out a long time ago.”) and eccentric. Harry
If the police officers made is a pretty great
me feel that reality and fiction character, too.
were in danger of merging, they
KONRAD SIMONSEN
also alerted me to the extent to
This series by Lotte
which I had been led astray by and Søren Hammer
the thrillers. It turns out that Oslo features a
and Copenhagen have only about compelling police
12 murders a year each. Stockholm team and topical,
socially aware
has a somewhat greater number stories. The
of killings, maybe 30 or more in a Copenhagen it
bad year, of which many are within conveys is both
families. That means the chance grungy and beautiful.
of being murdered by a stranger,
ANDERS KNUTAS
much less a serial killer, is extremely Mari Jungstedt set
remote in Scandinavia. And women, her fiction on the
it turns out, dominate the staffs of picturesque Swedish
the serious-crimes departments island of Gotland, in
the Baltic Sea, where
and account for at least half the Knutas and his team
detectives. Yet another thing the grapple with unusual
novels never told me. murders. — W.L.

T R AV E L A N D L E I S U R E . C O M 41
E X P E R I E N C E S
CHARMED, I’M SURE I’ve never felt that a hotel had a crush on me
before, but I’m pretty sure Ocean House was
Tucked away on a discreet corner of the Rhode Island coast, two trying to tell me something. While its defining
hotels with roots in the 19th century—one opulent and grand, the features include a commanding position facing
other rustic and homey—are winning over a new generation of fans. Block Island Sound; a private beach; Coast, a luxe
BY JAMES HANNAHAM restaurant; and, from the veranda, views of three
states (not to mention Taylor Swift’s mansion
down the street), the service is supernaturally
attentive. After the evening turndown, we
discovered that, in addition to chocolate-coconut

L
The rebuilt Ocean AST MARCH, AS New York City became patties, we’d received tiny gifts: a Velcro ribbon to
House, in Watch the global epicenter of the pandemic, tie up my power cords and a cloth for Brendan to
Hill, Rhode Island,
was modeled after
my husband, Brendan, and I decided clean his computer screen. I’ve spent whole
the Victorian-era to spend the weekend away, at a relationships waiting in vain for that kind of
original. family retreat in southern Rhode thoughtfulness. A real orchid by the extra-deep
Island. Our weekend away lasted seven bathtub? Ocean House, you shouldn’t have!
months. By my birthday in August, I tend to get uncomfortable with the way
most believers in science had figured out that some Americans intertwine visions of wealth and
masks helped to prevent outbreaks and hotels nostalgia with whiteness, heterosexuality, and
weren’t hot spots. Brendan and I had grown the erasure of people of color, so I gave the side-
stir-crazy enough to risk playing tourist for a few eye to the game of croquet on the lawn, as well as
days, so we decided to celebrate by experiencing the Euro-swank drawings by Ludwig Bemelmans
a couple of well-known local resorts. (of Madeline fame) in the hallways. I had one
Our first destination was the magnificent encounter where someone seemed to question
Ocean House (oceanhouseri.com; doubles from my right to be in such a fancy hotel, but it
$860) in the village of Watch Hill, a place that had occurred in the blurry “Can I help you?” zone
always seemed to us like a hotel that broke off where what could merely be attentive customer
from Newport and floated down the coast. service can inspire Black paranoia. Some of the
Originally opened in 1868, it fell into disrepair in swag proved too extravagant to ignore—I am
the late 20th century and was demolished in American, after all. We were given free use of our
2005. An almost exact replica opened on the choice of Mercedes-Benzes, and couldn’t resist a
same site in 2010. The elegant finish of the brief spin in a convertible. I pretended I was
Napatree Point,
an 86-acre preserve
reborn version evokes the building’s Gilded Age 2 Chainz on Most Expensivest.
in the village of origins—hexagonal bathroom tiles, dark-wood Bathtub orchids and over-the-top
Watch Hill. lounges, and beadboard ceilings abound. transportation are great, but the only way to
justify such excess during a pandemic was to
remind ourselves that we were helping the
tourism industry—and, more importantly, its
people—rebound. I talked to many Ocean House
employees, workers from South Africa, Jamaica,
and Iran on H-1B visas who couldn’t go home.
Their ability to speak openly about their
employment and immigration status seemed to
prove that Ocean House management treats
them well. Two glasses of Gewürztraminer and
a Wagyu short rib later, I had to admit it—I was
starting to fall in love with the hotel right back.
We spent a few more days at the Weekapaug
Inn (weekapauginn.com; doubles from $550),
which flies low even on the local radar. Seven
miles away from Ocean House, it’s nestled on a
peninsula in a residential area exclusive enough
to seem fictitious.
The Weekapaug’s history is similar to that of
Ocean House. Built as an inn on Quonochontaug

P HOTO GRAP HS BY CH RIS MON GE AU T R AV E L A N D L E I S U R E . C O M 43


Ocean House’s A summery spread
Tower Suite. at the Pondhouse,
on the grounds of
the Weekapaug Inn.
E X P E R I E N C E S

Providence
MASSACHUSETTS

CONNECTICUT

Newport

Weekapaug

ATLANTIC OCEAN

Watch Hill

socially distanced and privately posh, we found


a path leading to a tiny stretch of shoreline
with two chairs, where we watched an egret
commune with a great blue heron. But what
about the bugs? In keeping with the log-cabin
vibe, the Weekapaug has a number of eco-
friendly policies. They’ve installed special
birdhouses to attract purple martins, which
Beach in 1899, the place was nearly destroyed keep the mosquito population down.
in a hurricane in 1938, and the remains were If the Weekapaug seems like a Wes Anderson
relocated to the peninsula, where it was rebuilt. fantasy, it helps to remember that it is—the
The hotel has the atmosphere of a hunting lodge director’s 2012 Moonrise Kingdom was filmed in
from 100 years ago. In contrast to Ocean House’s Rhode Island. Despite its small size, the state is
jaunty yellow exterior, the Weekapaug blends 56 percent forest, and has nearly 400 miles of
in to its surroundings, its weathered wooden coast. Over the course of our months-long
siding accented by red shutters and multiple hiatus, we spent so many afternoons getting lost
ILLUSTRAT ION BY MAY PAR SE Y

brick chimneys. You approach the entrance over in piney nature preserves, traipsing across
a moat. The rooms are intentionally somewhat empty beaches, and slurping down oysters that
small (though the bathrooms are not), to inspire we soon understood why retired Rhode
guests to spend more time outside. Islanders stay put. When we thought of going
While waiting for dinner in the open-air back home to New York City, it started to seem,
Pondhouse, a kind of lean-to that felt both as the locals say, “Too fah.”

44 T R AV E L + L E I S U R E | J U N E 2 0 2 1
Your island escape awaits.
Bermuda may feel like another world, but this idyllic getaway
is just a two-hour flight from the East Coast. With wide-open
spaces, pink-sand beaches and turquoise waters, Bermuda
is ready to welcome you to her shores.
E X P E R I E N C E S

NATURAL
TENDENCIES
On a three-day trip to Burlington, ALYSE WHI TNEY
rediscovers a quirky city where local businesses are
putting a fresh spin on Vermont’s elemental bounty.

F
OR MOST PEOPLE, the ideal Vermont
escape might conjure thoughts of fall
leaf-peeping hikes or winter ski trips.
But I am not an outdoorsy person, so
I’ve always preferred spending time
in Burlington—a small city by most
standards, but the state’s largest, with
a population just north of 40,000.
During my college years in Plattsburgh, New
York, just across Lake Champlain, I spent many
a weekend hopping over the state line to go to
concerts at Higher Ground (highergroundmusic.
com) or wandering up and down Church Street,
Burlington’s main drag lined with quaint shops,
galleries, and restaurants. At the time, just
over a decade ago, the area was developing a
reputation for innovative breweries and cider
mills. More recently, I’d heard about a nascent
natural-wine and craft-cocktail culture, so I
convinced my friend Joel to drive up with me
from New York City to revisit my old stomping
grounds and see what was new.

THURSDAY
I kicked off my return trip by stepping outside
my comfort zone and onto a paddleboard at
the Burlington Surf Club (burlingtonsurfclub.
com; day passes $10–$50), which occupies a
private, tree-lined stretch of Lake Champlain.
Legs wobbling, I took a deep breath and gripped
the edges of the board. Pushing up halfway, I
tried to grab my paddle, but unceremoniously
tumbled face-first into the cool, clear water.
Given the state of the world last summer— ages practiced yoga in an open-air pavilion. The
and to save myself the embarrassment of scene felt like a perfect snapshot of Burlington’s
having strangers witness my falls up close—I easygoing, community-oriented spirit.
had convinced Joel to go out on our own. But After I dried off, we grabbed lunch from
elsewhere on the lake, I saw a smattering of A Single Pebble (asinglepebble.com; entrées
students who had turned themselves over to $15–$26), the universally beloved Chinese
the surf-club pros for lessons in windsurfing, restaurant and food truck run by chef Chiuho
kitesurfing, and other aquatic pursuits. Sampson. On the patio of the Hotel Vermont
Back on land, some of the surf club’s (hotelvt.com; doubles from $299), the modern-
summer campers sprawled across lounge yet-cozy 125-room property where we were
chairs; others played beach volleyball. A few staying, I unpacked our haul: soy-glazed mock
yards away, a group that seemed to span all eel (shiitake mushrooms cut into long strands

46 T R AV E L + L E I S U R E | J U N E 2 0 2 1 P HOTO GRAP HS BY DAN I EL S CHECHN ER


and fried); plump steamed pork buns; tender on Dedalus’s terrace. We sampled
chicken dumplings with spicy sesame sauce; six bottles—ranging from a delicate
and sticky-sweet stir-fried emperor’s beef. champagne to a slightly funky
Next, we sought out Dedalus Wine Shop rosé—paired with snacks that
(dedaluswine.com), which a few friends included grand aïoli with fresh
had enthusiastically recommended for an local vegetables, pork rillettes with
approachable introduction to Burlington’s pickled cauliflower, and a goat-milk
natural-wine movement. Though I’d tried and cheese decorated with edible flowers
liked a handful of biodynamic wines, I would and a swoosh of strawberry jam. I
hardly consider myself a fan of the prominent walked away with a new favorite
style in the zeitgeist, which tends to be fizzy, chillable red: a 2017 Guy Breton
earthy, and orange from skin contact. Morgon Vieilles Vignes Gamay that
Walking into the store, we were greeted by tasted like lush red fruits and went
bold-type signage indicating easy-to-navigate down almost too easily.
categories—“pét-nat: that O.G. bubbly with
the pop-top”—and regions around the world. FRIDAY
Alongside each bottle, further descriptions Fifteen minutes south of Burlington,
ranked qualities like acidity, oakiness, in the town of Shelburne, is local
and tannins from low to high. Without favorite Shelburne Vineyard
even speaking to one of the employees or (shelburnevineyard.com). In
sommeliers, I could have selected a full case 1998, founder Ken Albert began
of interesting wines and paired them with an experimenting with hybrid
assortment of the pickled vegetables, conservas, grapevines behind his home,
cheeses, house-cured meats, dips, and breads tinkering with varieties that could
lining the shop’s shelves. thrive in cold climates. About five
But instead, Joel and I asked wine director years ago, Albert encouraged his
Brittany Galbraith to lead us through a tasting mentee Ethan Joseph to take some

La Crescent
and Marquette
grapevines
at Vermont’s
Shelburne
Vineyard.

The Burlington
Surf Club sits on
a private stretch
of beach on
Lake Champlain.

T R AV E L A N D L E I S U R E . C O M 47
E X P E R I E N C E S

of those hybrids and launch a special project:


Iapetus, the vineyard’s first major foray into
natural wines.
Joseph, who now serves as Shelburne’s head
winemaker and vineyard manager, harnesses
the terroir of Vermont, including wild yeast
from the vineyard’s soil, to create wines using
the pétillant naturel method: pét-nats begin the
fermentation process in a stainless-steel tank,
then continue fermenting unpredictably in the
bottle for a few months afterward. The result?
Wines that vary from bottle to bottle and year
to year—less consistent, sure, but arguably more
fun for both winemakers and drinkers.
Surrounded by rows of grapes in various
stages of harvest, the patio provided a serene
spot to nibble on Jasper Hill Farm cheeses while
we sampled the most recent vintages of the six
wines Iapetus was selling that day. My favorite
was Figure 1, made of 100 percent L’Acadie
Blanc grapes. It was lightly fizzy and tart—like a
grapefruit and pineapple fruit salad.
In close second was Protolith, a Marquette-
based red that hit me over the head with
tannins and a syrupy-smooth plum-cherry Josué Chanduvi, We headed to Grandma’s Spanish Kitchen
flavor. I bought those two bottles of pét-nat and left, chef-owner of (81 Ethan Allen Dr., South Burlington; 518-572-
Grandma’s Spanish
a jar of onion-rosemary preserves, pleased that Kitchen, with
9903; entrées $6–$33), a new restaurant that
this time, when I tried something new, I didn’t Brandon Mossman, was temporarily operating on the spacious
end up flat on my face. center, and Sean outdoor patio of neighborhood standby
Beauvais, owners Orlando’s Bar & Lounge (orlandosvt). There,
of Orlando’s Bar &
SATURDAY
Lounge. we washed down ultra-crispy tostones and
On our last night, we decided to swap wine zesty shrimp ceviche—piled high in halved
for craft cocktails. The scene in Burlington has young coconuts—with a twist on the Peruvian
grown over the past five years with the arrival of pisco sour and a truly delightful piña colada
bars like Deli/126 (deli126vt.com), a jazz lounge on the rocks.
serving house-made liqueurs, and the Archives With the cocktails flowing freely and the
(thearchivesbar.com), an arcade and bar with conversations around us becoming more lively,
fruit-and-vegetable-infused spirits. it struck me that even in these weird, socially
distanced times, Burlington had only become
more magical. Some aspects of the city are
quintessentially Vermont, like the jam band
riffing in the restaurant’s breezy courtyard,
the residents’ friendliness and love of the great
outdoors, and the sense of community. Other
parts, like the wine and cocktail scenes, point
toward the ways it’s putting its own spin on
trends I’d seen playing out around the U.S. Even
as Burlington evolves, independent businesses
imbue the town with an endearingly offbeat vibe.
As we finished our dinner, I watched an older
couple two tables over dance with their dog.
The fried- In that moment, I knew that this was a place I
chicken scallion-
pancake wrap at
would keep coming back to until my own hair
A Single Pebble’s turned gray—and I’m sure it will continue to
food truck. surprise me just as much.

48 T R AV E L + L E I S U R E | J U N E 2 0 2 1
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LIVING ON
E X P E R I E N C E S

THE EDGE
RICHARD G ODW IN heads to the rugged cliffs
of Pembrokeshire to try out the distinctly
Welsh version of a daring adventure sport.

H
OW MANY TIMES have you stood before
the sea with a sense of awe—sun,
waves, rocks, life!—only to come away
feeling more landlocked than ever?
It’s like there’s an invisible barrier
between you and the scene. How can
I get closer? you wonder. How can I
be not just in the picture but of the picture? Like a
seal, a cormorant...even a piece of kelp.
The answer, it turns out, is to go coasteering,
preferably off the coast of Pembrokeshire in
southwestern Wales. It was in this wild Atlantic
waterscape, back in 1986, that local surfer Andy
Middleton coined the term for the practice
of hurling oneself off rocks, swimming in the
intertidal waters, and clambering into caves.
The combination of the coastal setting and the
mountaineering-style approach led him to call
the activity coasteering. The sport has since
spread across the world, and it’s about as close Aside from being the place the term
as you can get to actually becoming one with coasteering was coined, this region is notable
the sea in the space of an afternoon. for containing the Pembrokeshire Coast Path, a
I discovered this in the company of Jemeima 186-mile trail that winds along the shore from
Richardson, a guide with TYF (tyf.com; half-day St. Dogmaels in the north down to Amroth in the
excursions from $100 per person), the adventure south, taking in more than 50 beaches and bays
company set up by Middleton in 1986. Its on the way. The dramatic harbor at Solva and
headquarters are located on the main drag of the shores of Whitesands are two of my favorites.
St. Davids (Tyddewi in Welsh), an everyone- The water here is crystalline, and the tide pools
knows-everyone community that’s about two are teeming with life.
hours west of Cardiff by car and holds the honor Since I was on my way to splash and spelunk
of being the smallest city in Great Britain. around St. Non’s Bay, I based myself at Twr y
Like a lot of local children, Richardson grew Felin (twryfelinhotel.com; doubles from $348),
up coasteering on these beaches and bays. “I’m in St. Davids. On the morning of my excursion,
the youngest of five, so my brothers would take Richardson and I walked out of the city along
me out when I was four years old,” she told country lanes, past the Holy Well of St. Non,
me. Is it dangerous? Well, yes. But you wear where in the sixth century, legend has it, Saint
wet suits, life jackets, and helmets; the guides David was born. As we reached the edge of the
know every crevice and swell; and the sea has grassy cliff top, we paused to look out over the
a habit of instilling a sense of caution into even sun-dappled water before carefully navigating
the most reckless of people. She assured me down the 80-foot rock face to the sea below.
ILLUSTRAT ION BY MAY PAR SE Y

that no one has ever suffered anything more Nearing the water, I began to appreciate
serious than a graze on her outings. Plus, her why coasteering took off here. About 30 feet
three brothers man the local lifeboats, and she A coasteering up, the rocks are covered in a band of black tar
group heads down
would never hear the end of it if she had to call a cliffside in
lichen (slippery when wet), but the lower rocks
on their services. “Word would get around my Pembrokeshire, are carpeted in barnacles—among the grippiest
family pretty quickly!” Wales. creatures known to man. You feel quite secure

50 T R AV E L + L E I S U R E | J U N E 2 0 2 1 PH OTO GRAPH S BY CHRISTO PH ER KEN N EDY


E X P E R I E N C E S
Richardson said. The waves can swell halfway up
the cliffs, lifting you up the shoreline or sucking
you down into gullies and tunnels between rocks
(dubbed “toilets” and “washing machines”). Every
“playspot” has a nickname: the Dunkin’ Donut
is a natural rock formation whose hole you can
scramble through at high tide; Ski Jump Rock is
a sloping ramp with a lip at the end, perfect for
running down and hurtling yourself off.
In squally weather, coasteering can be a
wild, whitewater experience. But on a mellow
late-summer afternoon during low tide, it was
the amphibious equivalent of a nature walk—part
swim, part stroll, part play among marine flora
and fauna. As we hauled ourselves through the
plants and seaweed, we sampled them, too:
rock samphire (lemony with a peppery kick);
pepper dulse (which actually tastes more like
garlic butter); sugar kelp (sweet; the Really Wild
Emporium in St. Davids uses it in its cakes).
Richardson revealed herself as a mollusk geek,
too, pointing out blue-rayed limpets glowing
cyan on kelp fronds, and dog whelks slowly
liquefying the insides of barnacles on the rocks.
A blood-red beadlet anemone gave my finger a
gentle nuzzle with its tentacles.
Our explorations gradually built up to the
part of coasteering I’d been dreading: the cliff
leaping around in sneakers. The tidal variation jumps. Low tide had the effect of making the
around the British Isles is also huge, from just descent seem farther, but in the moment, my
under two feet to as high as 45 feet, which apprehensions melted away, even as I fell 20,
means there are certain rock formations you can 30 feet. Each time I leaped into the shimmering
swim through at high tide, then walk over and Jumping off pools—adrenaline coursing through my limbs
the cliffs at
jump off at low tide. Pembrokeshire’s
as I hit the bracing water—I resurfaced with awe
“Going on two different sessions can be Porthclais and gratitude, feeling more immersed in the sea
like going to two completely different places,” Harbour. than ever before.

IRISH SEA

ENGLAND

St. Davids

Cardiff
London
P e m b r o k e s h i r e
E X P E R I E N C E S

JEWELS IN THE SAND


In Namibia, new luxury lodges allow visitors to take
in the country’s endless wide-open spaces in style.
BY MEL ANIE VAN ZYL

S
PACE. MILES and miles of space. Desert Whisper, drive away.) Accommodations in this corner of

SILVERLE S S/ C O URT E SY O F NAT URAL SELECT ION . I LLUSTRAT ION BY MAY PAR SE Y
a villa near

FROM LEF T: C OURTE SY OF GON DWANA C OLLECT ION NAMIBI A ; NI EL S VAN GIJN/
Locals seem to revel in the sheer the country have historically been simple, but
Namibia’s
emptiness of Namibia, and they’re Sossusvlei salt pan.
that’s changed thanks to the recent addition of
quick to drop into conversation two new lodges and a just-finished refurbishment
the fact that, on average, there of a luxury camp. In December, shortly after
are only eight people per square travel restrictions on entering Namibia were
mile there. Which is exactly why lifted, I set out to visit them.
I keep coming back, flying from my home The first property was a study in social
in Johannesburg, where we have more than distancing with panache. Desert Whisper
7,000 people per square mile. (gondwana-collection.com; villa from $1,050) is
I’ve been visiting Namibia for years, but a solitary one-bedroom villa on a cliff top above
lately—thanks in part to spending so much time the sands. A sister resort, the 65-room Namib
in lockdown in South Africa—I’ve been drawn to Desert Lodge, is a 15-minute drive away, but I felt
the stark desert landscape of the Sossusvlei. Part blissfully alone. As light filtered through windows
of the Namib-Naukluft Park, this wide swath of punched in the structure’s curved weathered-
dunes and salt flats is filled with a type of desert- steel shell, circles danced on the wooden floors.
adapted antelope called gemsbok as well as other I bounced between the outdoor pool and the
wildlife. (The famously photogenic Deadvlei, indoor reading nook, refilling my glass of South
with its denuded trees and ocher dunes, is a short African sparkling wine from the en suite bar. I

52 T R AV E L + L E I S U R E | J U N E 2 0 2 1
A gemsbok in the
NamibRand Nature Reserve.

left the wispy linen curtains open throughout my


stay, content to drink in the endless views.
Seventy miles south, I checked in to Kwessi
Dunes (naturalselection.travel; doubles from
$1,075, all-inclusive), inside the privately
managed NamibRand Nature Reserve. This
massive expanse abuts the Namib-Naukluft
Park, and guests have the option to embark on
adventures in either. I opted first for a quad-
biking trek through the private conservancy,
led by veteran Namibian guide Gert Tsaobeb.
Along the way, he pointed out various animal
tracks—gemsbok, hyena, leopard—before
we stopped for a break in the shade of some
Windhoek towering boulders.
Wildlife has blossomed in this stretch of
seemingly uninhabitable desert, Tsaobeb told
BOTSWANA
me, after a decades-long rewilding effort to
Desert Whisper
convert what was once farmland back into
S o s s u s v l e i
Little Kulala
Kwessi Dunes wilderness. Thanks to a lack of light pollution,
the NamibRand Nature Reserve is one of 18
certified International Dark Sky Reserves in
the world—and the only one in Africa. To take
advantage, each of the 12 solar-powered chalets
at Kwessi Dunes has an outdoor “star bed,” where
guests can sleep under a vivid, twinkling sky.
Nearby, and just outside the national park,
ATLANTIC OCEAN Little Kulala (wilderness-safaris.com; doubles
from $2,335) was the final stop of my weeklong
SOUTH AFRICA

T R AV E L A N D L E I S U R E . C O M 53
E X P E R I E N C E S

visit. It was a fitting bookend to my circuit:


opened in 1996 by Wilderness Safaris, Little
Kulala was one of the first luxury-minded camps
to put this destination on the map. Today,
it’s still managed by the pioneering outfitter,
which has recently overhauled the interiors
and redoubled the property’s sustainability
efforts. There are now 11 solar-powered,
thatched-roof cabins; all have plunge pools
and other thoughtful extras, such as exercise
equipment and an activity basket filled with
adult coloring books.
The best reason to stay at Little Kulala,
though, may be the exclusive access that
Wilderness can arrange—not only to the

FRO M TOP : TE AG AN CUNNI FF E/C OURTE SY O F W ILDERN E S S SAFARI S ; M EL AN IE VAN Z YL


preserve surrounding the lodge but also to the
Namib-Naukluft Park, by means of a private
gate. That “back door” access means guests
can get to the top sites, like the towering Dune
45, earlier than other people—and stay out
later, too.
One evening, I set off for the park with a
guide, Akser Simeon, and watched the twilight
spill a spice rack of color across the Namibian
desert. As the sun dipped below the horizon,
the sands turned first a soft saffron, then
cumin, cinnamon, and finally the shade of pink
peppercorns. We were, it seemed, the only two
people in the whole of the Deadvlei. Later, back
at the camp, the light show continued. Tucked
into another star bed—this one laid on the deck
From top:
Little Kulala;
of my villa—I gazed up at the sequined sky. Stars
a bedroom at emerged, then constellations, and the universe
Kwessi Dunes. stretched on and on.

54 T R AV E L + L E I S U R E | J U N E 2 0 2 1
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T R A V E L + L E I S U R E

T IP S AND TR IC KS TO HEL P YO U T R AVEL S MARTER


Edited by PAUL BRADY

THE CASE OF THE


DISAPPEARING
VACATION RENTAL
Fraudsters are getting more and more
sophisticated, tricking even the savviest of
travelers out of their cash. ERIC R O SEN reports
on the latest ways to safeguard your trip.

“IN RETROSPECT, ” says Melany Robinson, “the


pricing was too good to be true.” Robinson, a
hospitality publicist and seasoned traveler who
lives in Birmingham, Alabama, was surfing
Craigslist in the summer of 2020, looking for a
ski-season rental in Park City, Utah. She came
across a five-bedroom, five-bath chalet with
panoramic views, a wood-burning fireplace,
and an outdoor deck complete with a hot tub.
It looked perfect for her family and was available
for her dates in February and March of this year.
Robinson e-mailed the contact listed and
quickly heard back from someone calling
himself Thomas. Using public records, she
matched that name with the property’s deed
holder and began discussing rental terms.
Thomas promptly answered all her questions,
and, in July, she wired him a first installment of
$6,700. Over the next few months, as Robinson
underwent treatment for cancer, Thomas
frequently checked in by e-mail. In the fall, she
sent the balance of $9,700—plus a $3,600 de-
posit for a 2022 rental. Nothing seemed amiss.

56 T R AV E L + L E I S U R E | J U N E 2 0 2 1
GE T T Y IMAGE S (4)

T R AV E L A N D L E I S U R E . C O M 57
T R A V E L E R

But in January, Thomas e-mailed Robinson’s story illustrates the well-regarded agency just doesn’t
to say someone had died of COVID-19 latest perils facing anyone shopping exist,” she says.
in the house. He said he would need for a vacation rental. Fortunately, Boutique agents often have
an additional $14,000 for cleaning— there are ways to protect yourself. personal relationships with property
and asked Robinson to wire $8,000 owners. Consider the example of
on top of what she’d already paid. WATCH FOR RED FLAGS Homebase Abroad (homebaseabroad.
That was the moment Robinson Renters should keep an eye out for com), which specializes in luxury
I N T E L L I G E N T

knew she’d been scammed. She a few key hallmarks of fraud, says villa rentals in Italy. “With us, there’s
contacted law enforcement, who Michelle Couch-Friedman, executive no one in between,” cofounder Mara
advised her to continue director of the consumer group Elliott Solomon says. “I’ve seen the houses.
corresponding with Thomas in order Advocacy (elliott.org). I know the owners. I’ve slept in the
to gather more evidence of criminal “When the host has a sense of beds. And I can share all that directly
activity. But Thomas always found a urgency that you must decide on the with guests.”
way to hedge, and then stopped property soon, and asks you to pay Other agencies, such as TurnKey
replying entirely. via wire transfer or with a cash app Vacation Rentals (turnkeyvr.com),
Robinson eventually tracked like Zelle,” Couch-Friedman says, also independently check out every
down the actual owner of the home, “that’s a red flag.” Other danger signs one of their listings. “We physically
who had no knowledge of the scam. are new listings with no reviews verify each home and owner, and
She determined that the fraudster and grainy photos that could be visit the home regularly to make sure
had created the bogus Craigslist post screenshots lifted from other sites. it is maintained, cleaned, and guest-
by copying photos and information ready,” says John Banczak, TurnKey’s
from a property listing. But Robinson THINK SMALL cofounder and CEO.
has yet to recover any of the $20,000 Couch-Friedman suggests going
she lost. through a brick-and-mortar PLAY BY THE RULES
“The personal violation was by company. “The opportunity for Big rental platforms including
far the hardest part,” she says. “Even vacation-rental scammers to conduct Airbnb (airbnb.com) and Vrbo (vrbo.
harder than the money.” their business through a small, com) have comprehensive security
procedures in place. Vrbo provides
payment protection against listing
fraud, phishing, and significant
misrepresentations, as well as
round-the-clock customer service,
according to spokesperson Alison
Kwong. Airbnb safeguards payments
and personal information—and will
offer refunds or reaccommodation in
the event of a problem.
“It is virtually impossible to be
scammed using Vrbo or Airbnb if
you follow all the rules of the sites,”
Couch-Friedman says.
As for Robinson, despite her
experience, she says, “I will definitely
rent homes again—but I’ll insist on
talking to the owner, touring the
home, paying via credit card, and
booking through a small firm so that
I’m better protected.”
C OURT E SY O F VRB O

This legit rental,


on Alabama’s
Lewis Smith Lake,
is listed on Vrbo.

58 T R AV E L + L E I S U R E | J U N E 2 0 2 1
I N T E L L I G E N T
T R A V E L E R
From left: The
Venice Simplon-
Orient-Express
in Switzerland;
same day,” Marini says, crediting this
a Grand suite spring’s vaccination drives for the
on the train. demand. “People are calling as soon
as they’ve had their jabs.”
Among the most popular routes
are those focused on national parks.
“The hottest trips are those that go to
The New Adventures Yellowstone, Yosemite, and the Grand
Canyon,” Marini notes. “Glacier, Bryce
of Old Machines Canyon, and Zion are also in demand.”
Another sought-after itinerary
Shiny new trains and exciting itineraries have summer travelers is a 10-day ride aboard the Alaska
taking a second look at the rails. BY PAUL BRADY Railroad (alaskarailroad.com; trips
from $3,400). The journey from
Anchorage to Seward and Fairbanks
takes in swaths of majestic mountain
A LUXURIOUS champagne-and- London–Venice–Istanbul route scenery, including Denali and Kenai
caviar ride through Europe on the remains an option, but the trains Fjords national parks. Passengers
Venice Simplon-Orient-Express is a will also hit other cities this year, overnight in hotels along the way; the
celebratory splurge. But this year, including Amsterdam, Brussels, rides are all about the views, which are
it will be even more spectacular: Florence, Geneva, and Rome. maximized by glass-domed carriages
Belmond (belmond.com; Grand suites While few trains can compete and an outdoor platform that lets
from $15,800 per person, per night, with the glamour of the Venice riders take glare-free photos. The trip
all-inclusive), which operates the Simplon-Orient-Express, rail travel is is of particular interest this summer
trains, has just added three over-the- also on the upswing in the U.S., as because most major cruise lines have
top Grand suites that wouldn’t be some travelers remain skittish about been unable to sail the Alaska coast
out of place at one of the company’s flights and are opting for the space due to Canada’s pandemic restrictions.
grande-dame hotels, such as the and privacy of couchettes instead. Awe-inspiring scenery is also the
Cadogan or the Cipriani. Overall Amtrak ridership is down draw of the Broadmoor Manitou &
Designed by Wimberly Interiors, because of the pandemic, but certain Pikes Peak Cog Railway (cograilway.
each of the three new, Art Deco–style routes are in huge demand, says com; round trips from $58), which
compartments has a double bed, an Frank Marini, the president of Yankee chugs along a nine-mile route to
C OURTE SY OF BELMON D (2)

en suite bathroom, and heated floors. Leisure Group, which owns Amtrak the summit of the iconic Colorado
Guests can call on round-the-clock Vacations (amtrakvacations.com) and mountain. It reopens this June after
butler service for in-room dining Railbookers (railbookers.com). a two-year, $100 million refresh that
or a nightcap; they can also dine “We see not only a huge surge spruced up carriages, tracks, and
in the train’s spacious restaurant for summer bookings but also for depots, and improved access for
or pop in to the bar car. The iconic last-minute getaways—even for the those with limited mobility.

T R AV E L A N D L E I S U R E . C O M 59
IT’S FINALLY TIME
T R A V E L E R

After an extraordinary shutdown, cruise lines


are ready to go—and so are millions of
passengers. Only question is, which of these
innovative itineraries is the best way to
celebrate the comeback? BY FRAN G OLDEN
I N T E L L I G E N T

CLO C KW ISE F ROM LEF T: C O URTE SY OF V I RGIN VOYAGE S ; C O URT E SY OF O C E AN I A CRUISE S ; C OURTE SY OF CEL EB RI T Y CRUISE S
A Sea Terrace The Oceania Celebrity Flora
stateroom on Riviera on a trip in the Galápagos
Virgin Voyages’ to St. Lucia. Islands.
Scarlet Lady.

Seven Seas Cruises (rssc.com), and


Viking (viking.com) report they’re
already selling out for 2022—and
even into 2023. Here’s a closer look
at some of the most intriguing trips
to book.

A CHIC ISLAND ESCAPE

A
LL THOSE canceled Travel Advisory Board. “The idea is, The long-awaited Caribbean debut
vacations—and the extra ‘I deserve to go on a nice vacation.’ ” of the Ritz-Carlton Yacht Collection
money in many people’s Many of the top suites are already (ritzcarlton.com; from $4,999 per
pocketbooks—suggest spoken for this year, thanks to a person for six nights) is slated for
this summer will be combination of rebookings and new this November. The 298-passenger,
a season of pent-up inquiries, Clabbers says. Factor in the all-suite Evrima will have cool,
demand for cruises late continued uncertainty of pandemic- contemporary décor; spa facilities
this year, into 2022, and beyond. “We related border closures over the offering open-air massages; and
are finding everyone wants to coming months, and next year looks six restaurants serving a variety of
go longer, bigger, and better,” says to be the sweet spot for a sail. Still, cuisines. Weeklong trips this winter
Rob Clabbers, president of Q Cruise you’ll want to start planning right will hit islands such as St. Bart’s and
& Travel (qcruisetravel.com) in now: upscale lines such as Oceania Virgin Gorda, which are typically less
Chicago and a member of T+L’s Cruises (oceaniacruises.com), Regent visited by bigger ships.

60 T R AV E L + L E I S U R E | J U N E 2 0 2 1
I N T E L L I G E N T
A GO-GO PARTY SCENE Crystal Esprit. The superyacht-
Virgin Voyages (virginvoyages.com; inspired ship offers butler service
from $1,015 per person for four nights) with every suite, plus a submarine
aims to launch two adults-only ships for exploring the archipelago’s
by 2022. Scarlet Lady and Valiant vibrant coral reefs.
Lady, twin 2,770-passenger vessels,
are scheduled for wintertime jaunts A BIG SWING AROUND EUROPE
to the Bahamas and the Caribbean, A three-month, 22-country tour
stopping at Virgin’s Beach Club at from Silversea (silversea.com; from

T R A V E L E R
Bimini, in the Bahamas, for pool $42,110 per person) aboard the
parties and beach bonfires. Both ships 596-passenger Silver Moon is the
will host drag brunches, and there’s a ultimate way to make up for lost
tattoo studio aboard each, should you time. This epic trip departs Athens
need a souvenir. next March, and hits ports from
Istanbul to Reykjavík. Those more
AN INDIAN OCEAN ADVENTURE at home on the continent’s rivers
The Seychelles banned cruise ships should consider new Cruise & Rail
entirely until August as a pandemic journeys from Uniworld Boutique
safety measure. But Crystal Cruises River Cruise Collection (uniworld.
(crystalcruises.com; from $4,999 per com; from $19,199 per person for
person for seven nights) plans to be 15 nights). One intriguing itinerary
one of the first lines to return, in starts on Italy’s Po River, aboard the
December, with the 62-passenger 126-passenger La Venezia (fresh off a
2020 refit), before continuing on the
Golden Eagle Danube Express, which
rolls from Venice to Istanbul.

A RETURN TO AUSTRALIA
Windstar Cruises (windstarcruises.
com; from $3,999 per person for 11
nights) is planning a Down Under
debut in fall 2022, aboard the newly
updated, 312-passenger Star Breeze.
Regent’s Seven Seas Mariner is
scheduled to visit in February 2022,
with a two-week, Auckland-to-
Sydney itinerary that also takes in
Milford Sound and Tasmania (from
$19,399 per person for 14 nights).

A CHANCE TO SIMPLY UNPLUG


For travelers seeking an indulgent,
don’t-lift-a-finger escape, transatlantic
voyages are a compelling option.
Seabourn (seabourn.com; from
$5,499 per person for 14 nights) has
a Miami-to-Barcelona trip that also
hits Madeira and Porto Santo Island,
Portugal, set for April 2022 aboard
the 450-passenger Seabourn Quest.
Meanwhile the Oceania Marina will
sail from Monaco to Miami, with
stops in Spain and the Caribbean, in
November 2022 (from $2,299 per
person for 14 nights).

T R AV E L A N D L E I S U R E . C O M 61
T R A V E L E R

to serve me drinks on the beach’ is


pervasive among parents,” adds the
father of two with a laugh.
Growing traveler interest is one
reason Marriott recently acquired
19 all-inclusive properties in Costa
I N T E L L I G E N T

Rica, Mexico, and the Caribbean.


The company has adapted its
approach to food and beverage,
moving away from buffet dining.
Room service trays have been
replaced with disposable containers
as an added precaution.
At the 10 properties managed
by Palace Resorts (palaceresorts.
com) and its sister brand Le Blanc
Spa Resorts (leblancsparesorts.
com), they’ve shuttered the pool bars
without ruining the vibe. Instead of
calling out drink orders, guests can
order frozen cocktails right from
their lounge chairs, using an app.
Entertainment is also being
reimagined. Planet Hollywood Beach
Resort Cancun (planethollywood
hotels.com; doubles from $288), which
All Under One Roof opened in January, had planned to
stage many shows indoors. Now, lots
A new generation of all-inclusive resorts is promising families the world— of concerts and events have moved
and making super-safe vacations simpler than ever. BY HAN NAH S EL I NG ER outside to a massive amphitheater,
says Mauricio Zarate, who oversees
the property’s operations.
Of course, the health of guests
WHEN THE Hotel Xcaret Arte (hotel At Xcaret, the solution involves remains critical, says Carolyne
xcaretarte.com; doubles from $516) dividing the resort into five different Doyon, president and CEO for North
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later this summer, it won’t look like check-in area, dining facilities, and us). The company, which has nine
your typical all-inclusive resort. True, venues for programming, such as resorts in the region, has created
the all-suite property will have 900 hands-on art classes, to help reduce a new on-property position, the
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but the one thing it won’t have, Xcaret all-inclusive properties, technology responsible for monitoring safety
Hotels CEO Francisco Gutiérrez Reyes and heightened hygiene standards protocols including capacity
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gather every afternoon. In terms of demand, this could family-friendly Beaches (beaches.
“The challenge was, how are be the moment the all-inclusive was com) brand have eliminated
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question, not just at his still-under- of remote work and Zoom school. straight to their rooms in private
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world of all-inclusives: How do you Brian King, president of Caribbean insurance that covers up to $100,000
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of people together and keep Marriott International (marriott.com). booking at no extra charge. That
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T R A V E L E R
I N T E L L I G E N T

Travel club Prior Massimo Bottura,


arranged a who led Prior
members-only visit members through
to India, including his hometown of
the town of Modena, Italy.
Maheshwar.

reason is, of course, a new obsession


with safety. “Health has become the
paramount concern of our members,”
says Melissa Bradley Biggs, founder
of Indagare (indagare.com; from
$395 per year), which plans and
books trips for its members. “We
have a ton of information on COVID
protocols, and the team takes care
JOIN THE CLUB of understanding those, even as they
change all the time.”
If unrivaled access and seamless planning sound like your style, perhaps There are other factors at play. “I’d
it’s time to sign up for a private travel group. BY DEVORAH L EV-TOV traveled independently for decades,”
says Suzy Kellems Dominik, an artist
from New York City. But hearing
about an opportunity to visit Modena,

A
NDRIA GUTIERREZ is a multi-state ski trip and a vacation in Italy, with acclaimed chef Massimo
marketing executive in Baja California, Mexico. “The team is Bottura of Osteria Francescana was
Lake Tahoe, California, incredibly helpful and responsive,” enough to convince her to join Prior
who loves to travel—but Gutierrez says. “They make the (prior.club; from $249 per year), a
doesn’t love the time suck planning process so efficient.” company that started out in 2019.
of researching vacations. While some established outfits “What’s so interesting is that they
“When I was younger, I like Exclusive Resorts (exclusive have this access,” Kellems Dominik
planned all my own trips,” she says. resorts.com; from $150,000 for a says. “It’s intellectual and emotional
“But now that I own a business, I just 10-year membership) and Wheels travel—the imagination is just
don’t have the spare hours anymore.” Up (wheelsup.com; from $17,500 endless—and they curated a group of
C O URT E SY O F PRIOR CLUB

That’s why she recently joined the per year) have catered to the ultra- very interesting people who were all
Club (go.allcalltravel.com; from $24 wealthy for years, a number of new like-minded around food.”
per month) from Allcall, which offers clubs are opening their doors—at just That ability to open doors is
personalized itineraries and exclusive the moment when many Americans also drawing travelers who don’t
deals to members. She’s already are taking their first big trips since normally think of themselves as
taken three Allcall trips, including a the start of the pandemic. One joiners. Around half of all millennials

64 T R AV E L + L E I S U R E | J U N E 2 0 2 1
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J U N E 2 0 2 1

France Absolutely Île de Ré PAGE 70 Cape Cod Small Town, Big Heart PAG E 78
Chile These Are the Days of Miracle and Wonder PAGE 86
Oregon Coast Between the Pines and the Pacific PAG E 92
The trail to
Salto El León, a
waterfall outside
Pucón, Chile.

P HOTO G RAP H BY C RISTO BAL PALMA T R AV E L A N D L E I S U R E . C O M 69


ILE
A B S O L U T E L Y

Nothing ever changes on


this pristine, out-of-the-
way island off the coast of
northwestern France, and
that’s precisely the point.
T HOMA S CHAT TERTON
W ILL I AMS traverses the
Île de Ré’s miles of bike
paths, samples 22 flavors
of ice cream, and meets a
few donkeys wearing
colored pants.

P HOTO GRAPH S BY
MANUEL OBADI A-W ILL S

70 T R AV E L + L E I S U R E
DE
Clockwise from
above: A house
in the town of
St.-Martin-de-Ré,
France; cheeses
at an open-air
market; a room
at the Hôtel de
Toiras; a boat in
St.-Martin-de-Ré;
a sardine appetizer
at the waterside
restaurant Les
Embruns;
sunbathing at
Plage de Gros Jonc.

RE
The sun-dappled
harbor of
St.-Martin-de-Ré.

72 T R AV E L + L E I S U R E | J U N E 2 0 2 1
A
Paris

DECADE AGO , my French wife


and I moved from our apartment
in Brooklyn to the Right Bank
of Paris. I’d be lying if I said it Nantes
wasn’t a challenge to acclimate ATLANTIC OCEAN
myself to the rain and low skies
that ruthlessly blot out the winter
sun in northern France. On the
other hand, there’s nothing like a Île de Ré

European summer. Vacations are


prioritized, and you can travel between a dozen
countries with the ease we Americans move up
and down the Eastern seaboard.
The summer of 2020 was, for obvious
reasons, the first in 10 that we didn’t set foot Cycling is industry. Perhaps this unglamorous approach is why,
outside France. We’d abandoned our home in a favorite on first blush, the Île de Ré can present a deceptive
pastime on
Paris back in March, days before the nationwide the island,
shyness, greeting a visitor with a relaxed modesty
lockdown, to hole up with friends in a village thanks to its and angling itself away from France and out to sea,
in the Loire-Atlantique, just below Brittany. In 68 miles of demanding you venture deeper inside to engage its
July, we doubled down on our urban exodus bike paths. numerous intrinsic charms.
and found a rental house in a tiny port town Along the boat-lined quayside of the old port
in Brittany itself, on the Côtes d’Armor, where town of St.-Martin-de-Ré, my cab driver deposited
we télétravail-ed from the garden, drank the me in front of a handsome 17th-century limestone
excellent local cider, and swam in the cold, façade. Large blue-and-white-striped umbrellas
clear ocean. held the tenacious midday sun at bay over a cluster
By that point, some of our friends reflexively of café tables, marking the entrance to the Hôtel de
began to look again to Italy, Greece, and Spain
for their vacations, willing their lives back
to some semblance of normalcy through
stubborn habit. But our stint along France’s
bracing northwestern coastline had turned
my wanderlust inward, reawakening in me an
appetite for this country—an embarrassment of
both natural and cultivated riches—that open
borders and too-cheap flights had dampened.
And so in early August, we continued our
exploration of the beguiling Atlantic and headed
for the Île de Ré, a 33-square-mile oasis of sand
dunes, marshland, and sprawling vineyards off
the coast of La Rochelle, which is just 21/2 hours
from Paris by high-speed train.
If Brittany evokes the dramatic seascapes
of Maine or Cape Cod—sailboats bobbing
beneath painted lighthouses, heavy waves
beating against a jagged coast—the Île de Ré is
something like a French Martha’s Vineyard. And
like its Massachusetts counterpart, the island is
far more popular with French tourists than it
is with visitors from outside the country. This
ILLUSTRAT ION BY MAY PAR SE Y

lends it a pleasing air of authenticity that is, like


everywhere, harder to come by than it once was.
Accessible only by ferry until 1988, today the
Île de Ré is a 40-minute taxi ride from the Gare
de La Rochelle via a bridge that joins the island
to a swath of mainland given over to heavy

T R AV E L A N D L E I S U R E . C O M 73
La Martinière,
a popular ice
cream shop in
St.-Martin-de-Ré.

A small lighthouse
watches over
the harbor of
St.-Martin-de-Ré.

Toiras. I was due to stay here for the first night, in


a generous suite of rooms overlooking the harbor,
and my wife, Valentine, and our two children, six-
year-old Marlow and two-year-old Saul, were to join
me for three more.
In the spring of 2020, the Rétaises, as the 20,000
mostly retired year-round inhabitants of the Île de
Ré are called, found themselves inundated by some
4,000 well-heeled second-home owners fleeing
Paris, Bordeaux, and France’s other virus-ridden
metropolitan centers. But it was far from the first
time the island had been invaded. The extravagantly
christened Jean Caylar d’Anduze de Saint-Bonnet,
Marquis de Toiras, for whom our lodgings had
been named, secured a place in history in the 1625
Recovery of Ré Island, in which he beat back the
Huguenot rebels of La Rochelle. He was then named
governor of the territory and repelled the Duke of
Buckingham’s forces during the three-month Siege of
St.-Martin-de-Ré, just two years later.
The fortifications that Toiras initiated—and that
later, Sébastien Le Prestre de Vauban, one of France’s
greatest military engineers, ingeniously expanded—
dominate St.-Martin’s shoreline and, along with the
semi-ruined, namesake church, lend it a distinctively
historical flavor. I hung my clothes and stowed my
bags in the vast wallpapered dressing area of my room
at the hotel—and set out to explore.

74 T R AV E L + L E I S U R E | J U N E 2 0 2 1
Exploring Île de Ré As it happened, St.-Martin, being one of the
two most densely populated municipalities on the
Where to Stay Le Tout du Cru Île de Ré, had a mandatory outdoor mask policy
A standout raw- in effect. But the island is still very much a part of
Hôtel de Toiras seafood venue. France, and this means that sometimes one must
The opulent design of tout-du-cru.fr; choose between being safe and being chic. I found
the 19 rooms at this prix fixe from $18.
quayside refuge in
a table at Le Belem, one of the many inviting
St.-Martin-de-Ré will O Parloir terraces that line the inner harbor and serve up
make you feel like an Artfully presented towering platters of fruits de mer, and I cracked the
aristocrat. hotel-de- dishes in a vibrantly Rachel Cusk novel I’d been meaning to read. When
toiras.com; doubles decorated space.
I glanced up, a pair of elegantly dressed middle-
from $447. oparloir.com;
prix fixe from $39. aged women were standing nearby, greeting each
Where to Eat other haltingly before carefully pulling down their
Ré Ostréa face masks to double-kiss.
Chez Rémi Simple beachside Perhaps the most noticeable physical feature of
Nab an outdoor table dining with fresh
at this Ars-en-Ré oysters. degustation
the Île de Ré is the pleasantly recurring motif of sun-
institution. fb.com/ huitres-iledere.fr; bleached workers’ cottages, with Spanish tile roofs
chezremimasse; prix prix fixe from $29. and cheery, asparagus-green, silt-gray, or chalky-
fixe from $35. blue wooden shutters. These almost uniformly
Where to Shop modest structures come sheathed in hollyhocks and
La Martinière
Quite possibly the Marie et Angele exude a sense of understated luxury and effortless
best ice cream and Vintage work wear good living. Though many of the older lots were
sorbet in France. and military surplus. originally set aside for salt workers who labored on
la-martiniere.fr. 37 Rue de Havre; the island’s fortifications, they now rival in price
33-6-62-30-14-92.
Le Belem
per square foot those in the tonier neighborhoods
Perfect people- Trip Planner of Paris. After my satisfactorily gluttonous meal,
watching in the heart I wandered through the maze of residential
of St.-Martin. 29 Quai T+L A-List advisor backstreets, some of them as narrow as a sofa,
de la Poithevinière; Kathy Stewart
until I emerged at the base of the citadel.
33-5-46-09-56-56; (800-678-1147; kathy
prix fixe from $16. stewart@butterfield. There, I found myself in near-solitude as I
com) can arrange a ascended a verdant hilltop, looking out over a
Les Embruns visit that includes series of deep folds and centuries-old, grass-covered
High-concept riffs on private walking tours gashes engineered by Vauban. These were really
the island’s main- with a local historian
stays. lesembruns- and a catamaran
waterless moats—in some places the width of
iledere.com; prix fixe cruise along the Broadway or even wider—that could be flooded in
from $14. coast. — T.C.W. the crack of a cannon shot with the surrounding
ocean water, were an invading army to become
trapped in them. To anyone approaching by
sea, however, they remain below the sight line. I
marveled at Vauban’s cunning and took the scenic
Crossing the threshold from the cool route back to my hotel along that spectacular coast,
tranquility of the Toiras lobby back into the its football fields of emerald-green marshland giving
harbor’s bustle, I was immediately reminded way to sparkling blue waves.
that it was August, high season. All of my friends At lunch the next day, I ate what felt like the
who were knowledgeable about the island had platonic ideal of the island’s ubiquitous seafood
advised me that the best time to visit was after platter at a homey little restaurant called Le Tout
the rentrée, in September or October, or just du Cru (“Everything Raw”), tucked into a photogenic
before the rush, between April and June. In alleyway dominated by a shuttered old cinema.
ordinary times, I could see their logic, but this From there, I proceeded to an ice cream tasting
year, after eight weeks of mandatory quarantine, that had been arranged for my family, but there had
I found it oddly reassuring to be among these been a slight misunderstanding about the time of
meandering masses. Hell may be other people, as my wife and children’s arrival. Xavier Cathala, the
Jean-Paul Sartre so memorably put it, but there affable owner of a 50-year-old institution of artisanal
are times when other people can be heavenly. glace, La Martinière, led me away from the ceaseless
This year, at least, I didn’t want to be left alone. queues in front of his main shop—where he serves

T R AV E L A N D L E I S U R E . C O M 75
The entrance to the One of the island’s
Hôtel de Toiras, in beloved donkeys.
St.-Martin-de-Ré.

76 T R AV E L + L E I S U R E | J U N E 2 0 2 1
Oysters with
a view at the
restaurant
Ré Ostréa.

But as Cathala was quick to point out, he makes them


with less air, à la française, so they are denser and
colder on the tongue. On this scorching-hot day, that
distinction felt like it mattered.

BY THE TIME MY family had settled in the next


morning, I was eager to roam beyond the confines
of St.-Martin. By far the most pleasant way to do
this is to take advantage of the island’s incredible
network of pistes cyclables, or bicycle paths—some
68 beautifully paved miles that crisscross endless
acres of vineyards and salt marshes to connect the
Île de Ré’s 10 distinctive municipalities. My friend
Henri, who several years ago began trading late-
night weekends in Paris for predawn wake-up calls
to go surf the winter swells that crash against the
island’s shores, advised me to head for fashionable
Les Portes-en-Ré in the far northwest.
I’d plotted a loose itinerary that would get us
there and back in about three hours. We decided to
make a day of it, with lunch and a few stops at the
beaches in between. Around the corner from the
Hôtel de Toiras are several bicycle rental companies.
Considering the distance we planned to cover, we
picked up two electric models from YooToo, with a
sporty three-wheel chariot attachment on my wife’s
for Saul, and a tandem seat for Marlow on mine.
On the way out, we passed one of the island’s
signature quirks, les ânes en culotte, or donkeys that
roam the seaside fields outfitted in custom-made
some 6,000 customers a day in high season— red and blue pants originally conceived to protect
and into a quiet room in his patisserie next door, them from mosquitoes as they worked the salt
where I was presented with 22 heaping bowls marshes. Today, they’re principally worn to provide
of both classic and extravagantly conceived and the visiting children with something to point at
executed ice creams and sorbets. in awe. Somehow, my daughter was not nearly as
“But where are your children?” Cathala intrigued by this sight as I’d anticipated, so off we
laughed, gesturing at the bounty spread before went to pick up the trail.
us, “and your wife? We were expecting them!” The summer pleasures we had so far experienced
I bashfully explained that they were delayed on this trip, while wonderful, had not been entirely
driving down from Brittany, but that it would be dissimilar to those of other French holidays we’d
my burden now to dutifully pick up their slack. had. But it was on this bike ride that the specificity
It was hardly a challenge. There was a crisp of the Île de Ré’s charms began to hit me. Some
beer-flavored sorbet, as well as a scarlet-hued 80 percent of the landmass of the island has been
variety made from raspberries and red peppers. preserved, with no construction allowed; there are
The ingredients are seasonal: I was told that in no grand hotels clogging the beaches, no enormous
September there is a fig option to die for and, villas fencing you out, no high-rises obstructing the
from time to time, glace à l’huître (yes, oyster). If views. Everything remains on a genuinely human
the latter sounds too outré, the vanilla, pistachio, scale. As we raced across miles of vineyards, locked
and hazelnut staples were as rich and fragrant as in sync with the hundreds of other cyclists coming
anything I’d ever come across in Naples or Rome. and going, I had the fleeting (Continued on page 101)

T R AV E L A N D L E I S U R E . C O M 77
78 T R AV E L + L E I S U R E | J U N E 2 0 2 1
Clockwise from
far left: Cycling
past the Red Inn,
a hotel in a former
seaman’s house
in Provincetown,
Massachusetts;
wild grasses at
Cape Cod National
Seashore; Sal’s
Place, a beloved
beachside Italian
restaurant;
rainbow style on
Commercial Street;
a lobster roll at
the Canteen, a
counter café.

Small Town, Big Heart


A fishing village on the eastern tip of Cape Cod is a bastion of inclusiveness
for the LGBTQ community—and anyone else who wants to join the fun.
J ORDAN K I S NER discovers Provincetown, a modern-day utopia surrounded by
sand dunes and sea. PHOTO GRAPHS BY TO NY LUO N G
Staying beach-
body fit on
Commercial Street.

much time
HADN’T SPENT Lora-Faye looked out the windshield, astonished.
in Provincetown, Massachusetts, before last summer, “What kind of colonial gay Disneyland is this?” she asked.
but I had been given to understand that it’s a place not The cognitive dissonance of this sight is central to
entirely like the rest of Cape Cod. If Cape Cod is beach- Provincetown’s overall ethos. Its geography and aesthetics
club conservatism and navy-blue-striped American prep, are that of an 18th-century fishing village, but over
Provincetown is glitter and magic, poets and painters and the past 50 years, it has served as a beacon for the gay
queens—or so the hearsay went. community—especially gay men. In the 1980s, this became
My partner, Lora-Faye, and I arrived by car and the rare place where people suffering from HIV/AIDS could
were greeted not by glitter, but by a warren of narrow live without discrimination and with community support,
lanes lined with tidy houses and gardens bursting with and it has retained its reputation as a haven. Provincetown
spectacular beds of flowers. Through these lanes strolled is probably the only place I’ve ever been where the roads
men, usually young but sometimes middle-aged or older, are given over to elderly lesbians out for a walk and groups
walking hand in hand, evidently on their way to the of muscled young men in vibrant swimming trunks
beach or returning to their own hydrangea-thick front pedaling toward the beach at a leisurely pace, a portable
yards. Lora-Faye and I live in New York City, where there speaker blasting Whitney Houston’s “I Wanna Dance with
is no shortage of gay couples, but there was something Somebody” in the basket of a bicycle.
remarkable about seeing only gay people on a street lined When it comes to getting around, bicycles, we
with white picket fences and American flags. quickly learned, are the done thing. Pedestrians and

80 T R AV E L + L E I S U R E | J U N E 2 0 2 1
Cauliflower A boardwalk
Caesar salad at Cape Cod
at Sal’s Place. National Seashore,
a reserve
surrounding
Provincetown.

cyclists—many of whom take the 90-minute ferry ride lucky. It was our loveliest evening in town. The host walked
from Boston—command the space, making driving a slow us behind the building, where the staff had jammed wooden
and sort of silly venture. This is nice, actually—the relative tables into the sand at the water’s edge, and brought us
dearth of cars and the custom of hopping on your bike successively more delicious plates of food: burrata and corn
to go wherever you want makes running around town salad, a Caesar with shaved cauliflower, a perfect bowl of
feel like a reversion to some real or imagined childhood. linguine with fresh clams.
We ditched our car as soon as we could and checked in As we ate, the sun went down and the tide rose. The
to the Red Inn. This former whaling captain’s house was diners sitting closest to the water kept moving their tables
built in 1805 near the spot where the Pilgrims first docked back or abandoning them—by the time we were done with
the Mayflower, and has operated as a hotel since 1915. our pasta, the water was lapping at our ankles and we’d
Our room, which overlooked the beach at Provincetown perched our shoes next to us on our chairs. Eventually, we
Harbor, had a deck that hung above the sand and, when too ditched our table, and the waiter invited us to bring our
the tide came in, above the water. glasses of wine back up to the deck, where we sat happily,
Lora-Faye and I arrived in the evening with no fixed barefoot, amid the bustle of the staff, who were cheerfully
plans, so we decided to walk around and find something carrying tables out of the water’s reach.
to eat. We had heard that Sal’s Place, a homey Italian Afterward we decided to continue our walk through
restaurant on the beach, was so popular that we would town, which was by then dark and quiet, and scented with
be unlikely to get a table. We stopped by anyway, and got those extravagant front-garden flowers. Because much

T R AV E L A N D L E I S U R E . C O M 81
Picnic provisions
at Angel Foods.

of Provincetown’s architecture dates back to the 17th


and 18th centuries, the buildings and streets aren’t quite
what we now think of as life-size. They were built for a
population that was a few inches shorter, on average,
than modern Americans, which gives the place a slightly
fantastical aspect, as if it were a fairy village or a movie set.
The town is miraculously free of mosquitoes, which adds
to the sense that it is a charmed place, exempt from the
banal irritants of normal life, like bugs or homophobia.
The streets had the hushed quality of small towns after
hours in summer, when the air is so thick and warm it
seems to have sound-dampening qualities. Friends called
to each other from bicycles or stopped to chat across
garden fences. Most people seemed to know most people.

THIS WAS NOT a typical summer evening in


Provincetown. In August, during a normal year, the town
sees 60,000 visitors a day—a fact that, considering its
size and infrastructure, seems flat out impossible. Those
weeks are Carnivalesque: people come from all over the
world for drag shows and queer dance parties, clubbing,
parades, costumes, and raucousness. All of this was
impossible under pandemic conditions. When we were
there, the clubs were closed, and the famous tea dance at
the Boatslip had been postponed until 2021. Restaurants

82 T R AV E L + L E I S U R E | J U N E 2 0 2 1
From left: The
Lobster Pot,
a 43-year-old
Provincetown
favorite; a stretch
of the 21-mile
coastline that
envelops
the town.

and bars were only serving outside, and just a few of the Provincetown is also a writer’s town—it has been home
veteran performers (Miss Richfield 1981, Varla Jean Merman) to Eugene O’Neill, Norman Mailer, Mary Oliver, Mark
were still doing their acts—on outdoor stages. The streets, Doty, and many more—and we made several trips to Tim’s
normally shoulder-to-shoulder with visitors, were relatively Used Books, a dreamy little cottage on Commercial Street
subdued, and a team of “community ambassadors” wearing piled with an excellent selection of secondhand volumes
red pageant sashes reminded folks to keep their masks on. and rare editions. It is run by Tim Barry, who has been in
It was all extremely pleasant, even with the masks and Provincetown since the 1990s and who told us that it was
the odd dance of maintaining six feet from everyone. We basically unchanged except for the influx of millionaires,
wandered the shops and galleries displaying the work of the who have scooped up the historic real estate over time,
generations of painters who have come to the Provincetown charmed by the beaches and the town’s quirky serenity.
Art Colony. (The oldest in the country, it has played host to
Jackson Pollock, Helen Frankenthaler, Robert Motherwell, WE STARTED EACH DAY by drinking coffee on the deck
and others.) One afternoon, we dropped by the Lobster of our room at the Red Inn and marveling at the tides, which
Pot, a favorite seafood spot, for a peculiar-sounding but are unusually dramatic because the beach in Provincetown
mouthwatering buffalo-shrimp roll, and another day we ate is so shallow. At low tide, the ocean withdraws and leaves
at the Canteen, which serves fat lobster rolls at picnic tables the sand lacquered as far as the eye can see. Slowly, then,
in its pleasant backyard. the water returns, like creeping lace, until the beach
Many of the area staples were still humming: the disappears. This was the point at which we would grab our
Atlantic House, one of the oldest dives in town (and one swimsuits and bicycles and pick up breakfast from Relish,
of a few establishments open through the desolate winter a bakery on a residential corner of Commercial Street that
months), was still serving pints and peanut butter and was taking telephone orders and handing paper bags full of
jelly sandwiches on its porch, and the tiny History of Sex croissants and egg sandwiches out of its screen door.
Museum at the front of the sex shop Toys of Eros still had its Several times we wound up eating on the causeway, a
merkins and vintage vibrators on display. The Provincetown giant rock breakwater that stretches from Pilgrim’s First
Portuguese Bakery continued to crank out plain-looking but Landing Park across to Long Point. The lee side, a few locals
miraculously textured malasadas. told us, is the best spot for swimming; the sunny rocks were

T R AV E L A N D L E I S U R E . C O M 83
The sitting room at
the Mary Heaton
Vorse house.

Seasonal cocktails at
Strangers & Saints.

a good place for picnicking and watching birds eat clams Another afternoon we took the long way to Herring
and people picking their way carefully along the stone Cove Beach, which involved walking three-quarters of
path to Long Point Beach. a mile through a wide lagoon bed and wading at points.
There is a real wildness to the landscapes around As we followed the footsteps of several young men
Provincetown, which seemed to come into sharper relief ahead of us, we didn’t realize that the tide was coming
in the absence of crowds or nightlife. One afternoon, we in. Suddenly, the ocean was flooding steadily in our
took a spectacular bike ride along the trails that trace the direction, and by the time we turned back the paths were
protected marine lands outside town. Our route took us underwater. The terrain, which we’d been mapping by
through a wilderness of dunes, ponds, tall grasses, and a dunes and footprints, was unfamiliar. Up to our shins in
hidden forest of beech trees. Out in the dunes, too far off water, we ran into a large coyote on a sand bank, who
the path for us to see, are shacks that were originally built had squared off in front of her three pups. She tracked us
for shipwrecked sailors who had washed up on shore and as we retreated carefully to the ocean and walked back to
that the artists’ colony has turned into studios. our bikes.

84 T R AV E L + L E I S U R E | J U N E 2 0 2 1
Boston

ATLANTIC OCEAN

Provincetown

Malasadas, a fried
dough specialty
made at the
Provincetown
Portuguese Bakery. C ap e C o d

Perfectly
Provincetown
Where to Stay

The Red Inn


An old whaling captain’s cocktails) served in a
house converted into an scenic backyard.
eight-room inn with strangersandsaints.
antique furnishings and com; entrées $18–$34.
a beachfront restaurant.
theredinn.com; doubles Where to Shop
from $345.
Outermost
Where to Eat One-of-a-kind artworks,
pottery, wooden bowls,
Angel Foods and handmade furniture.
This small grocery is the outermosthome.com.
best place to pick up
picnic provisions. Respoke
angelfoods.com. Handcrafted espadrilles
and accessories made
The Canteen from vintage silk
Lobster rolls and other scarves. respoke.com.
high-end lunchtime fare.
thecanteenptown.com; Tim’s Used Books
entrées $8–$22. A well-curated
collection in a cottage
Provincetown set back from
Portuguese Bakery Commercial Street.
A delicious remnant of 242 Commercial St.;
Ptown’s Portuguese 508-487-0005.
history. The malasadas
are the highlight. fb.com/ Toys of Eros
provincetownbakery. An exuberant, LGBTQ-
friendly spot that carries
Relish adult toys. fb.com/
“THE LUNAR STILLNESS that pervades out there This popular breakfast toysoferosptown.
spot, known for its
is difficult to describe. It involves a repose that is baked goods, sells a What to Do
pleasurable without being exactly comforting,” Michael great egg sandwich.
Cunningham writes in his book Land’s End: A Walk in ptownrelish.com. Provincetown Art
Provincetown. This seems to be the town’s favorite text, Association & Museum
Sal’s Place The hub of Ptown’s
so ubiquitous that I was, initially, stubbornly reluctant
A local favorite serving visual-arts community,
to read it. This obstinate streak usually ensures that I’m
ILLUSTRAT ION BY MAY PAR SE Y

seafood and house- with an impressive


pointlessly late to something wonderful. Cunningham’s made pastas. salsplace permanent collection
book is wonderful. In the landscape, Cunningham writes, provincetown.com; and exhibits by local
“you feel as if you are in the eye of something. You are entrées $23–$39. artists. paam.org.
aware—I am aware, anyway—of the world as a place that Strangers & Saints Ptown Bikes
doesn’t know or care that it’s beautiful...it lives according Inventive New American Daily and weekly rentals.
to geological time.” (Continued on page 100) food (plus excellent ptownbikes.com. — J.K.

T R AV E L A N D L E I S U R E . C O M 85
The VM Elite
campsite on the
banks of the Río
Liucura, near Pucón,
Chile. Opposite:
December’s total
solar eclipse, as seen
from the site.
P
H A
O M
T L
O A
G P
RA
P H B A L
S O
B Y C R I ST

I F I T S E E M E D C R A Z Y TO T R AV E L AC R O S S C O N T I N E N TS O N T H E O F F C H A N C E O F
G L I M P S I N G A TOTA L S O L A R E C L I P S E I N T H E L A S T W E E K S O F 2 0 2 0 , W E L L , I T H A D B E E N

A CRAZY YEAR. BUT WHEN JOHN BOWE MADE IT TO HIS TENTED CAMP HIGH IN THE

C H I L E A N L A K E D I S T R I C T, I T S E E M E D T H E S TA R S W E R E , F I N A L LY, A L I G N E D .

T R AV E L A N D L E I S U R E . C O M | 87 | JUNE 2021
or a perfect experience had long since
fallen off the menu.
Throughout history, eclipses have
been interpreted as cosmic, spiritual
resets. Folklore from Scandinavia and
Asia to the Americas depicts these events
as a battle between light and dark, with
the moon (or other malevolent actors
like wolves, bears, frogs, or dragons)
seeking to depose the diurnal status quo.
Though the forces of light invariably
triumph, the terror brought on by
the sudden, surreal inversion of time,
space, and temperature was typically
interpreted by soothsayers and medicine
men as a warning: Pay heed. Take
nothing for granted.
That said, my ambitions for the trip
were far from profound. At the end
of a long and brutal year, I wanted to
gauge what I’d lost in lockdown. The
pandemic had disrupted—obliterated,
even—the daily flow of stimuli by which
I apprehended the world, and by which I
understood myself in relation to it. How
bad a hit had my senses taken? Had the
experience done away with my capacity
for wonder?
On the two-hour trip from the airport
to a glampsite in southern Chile’s Lake
District set up specially for the eclipse,
my driver, peering out at dairy and
berry farms through his rain-streaked
windshield, fretted about the weather.
Temperatures had been running some
20 degrees below the seasonal average,
he said, with nighttime lows in the 40s.
We came within sight of Lake Villarrica, a
popular tourist destination. The surface
of the lake, roused to a salt-and-pepper
stipple by the rain, was devoid of sailboats
or swimmers. So much for high season.
We came to Pucón, a resort town in

T
Watching the eclipse HE FORECAST couldn’t have been the foothills of the Andes known as a hub
through solar gloomier. December 12: rain. for skiing, trekking, biking, and fishing.
observation glasses.
December 13: rain. December 14, The humdrum landscape of commercial
the day of the solar eclipse I’d traveled farms gave way to smallholdings,
5,500 miles to see: more rain. I’d flown on wood cabins, and country houses with
the 11th, mid-pandemic, sitting masked corrugated tin roofs. Two snow-topped
up on a tense flight from New York to volcanoes, Rucapillán and Lanín, towered
Santiago, then on to Temuco, in southern in the distance. Flocks of sheep, white
Chile. Of course I had registered the dour and brown, grazed with choreographed
weather predictions before boarding, but precision, each one facing the same
after nine months of house bondage, I direction, amid ridges and valleys dense
didn’t care. The idea of perfect conditions with evergreens and laced in mist.

88 T R AV E L + L E I S U R E | J U N E 2 0 2 1
One of 12 guest
tents at the VM
Elite campsite.
Irma Epulef,
a member of
the Mapuche
Indigenous
community.

Hiking in the El
Cañi reserve, near
Pucón, with the
Rucapillán volcano
in the distance.
Santiago

PACIFIC OCEAN
The Salto El León
waterfall, outside
Pucón, is one of the
region’s biggest.

ARGENTINA

When the car finally stopped at our Temuco


destination, I was taken aback. Amid
my tense travel preparations (face Pucón
shield or goggles? One mask or two?),
I hadn’t given much thought to the
accommodations. If anything, the word
camping had conjured a basic, small-scale
setup. But this site on the banks of the
Río Liucura, a fly fisherman’s dream
brimming over from the recent rain, felt
more like a community. The camp was
the work of Raul Buenaventura, founder
and CEO of VM Elite, an adventure broker
that caters to high-end clients eager to
explore Patagonia, the Atacama Desert,
and far-flung parts of Peru and Bolivia.
It consists of a dozen or so large, round town to town, province to province, and
tents about 50 yards apart from one country to country, the logistics of hosting
another. From the woods surrounding the a once-in-a-lifetime eclipse-viewing
encampment, I could hear the distinctive event seemed taxing, to say the least.
chorus of black-throated huet-huet birds. But in person, Buenaventura, a boyish
The trees were covered with epiphytes, fortysomething in preppy-chic trekking
moss, and lichen, some fronds as thick gear, seemed enthusiastic—if somewhat
as pasta. Fragrant smoke from wood fires sleep-deprived. “After all the closures this
drifted our way, mixed with the scent of year, I really had no expectations,” he said.
pine and the humid cold. “My main motivation was just to be able
Eclipse-spotting is rapidly gaining to see the eclipse, and help other people
in popularity, and Buenaventura had see it. I knew it was going to be difficult.”
set up a successful camp for a July 2019 As Buenaventura led me around,
eclipse some 650 miles north of Pucón, he explained that the tents were made
near the city of La Serena. I’d spent the by Bell, a British company, and had
two weeks preceding my trip frantically the distinct advantage of being able to
messaging with him as the weather and support electrical circuitry. “You can
COVID-19 conditions shifted on what get heaters in there, AC, bathrooms,
seemed like an hourly basis. He’d seemed, whatever you need.” As we arrived at
understandably, at the end of his rope. my tent, I noted only the warmth, and
I LLUSTRAT ION BY MAY PAR SE Y

The eclipse would be observable in the plush-looking bed. At that moment,


its totality within—and only within—a nothing else mattered.
56-mile band running through Chile and
Argentina, with visibility petering out AT MEALTIMES OVER the next two days,
somewhere in the South Atlantic. Given I met the 25 or so other guests who’d
the rain, the need for social distancing, braved the weather, travel restrictions,
and travel restrictions that changed from and dubious (Continued on page 102)

T R AV E L A N D L E I S U R E . C O M 91
BETWEEN THE
PINES AND
THE PACIFIC

With its seaside enclaves and dramatic landscapes,


the Oregon Coast is tailor-made for road-tripping. J OHAN NES
L ICHTMAN takes the wheel for a week of beachgoing, beer
tastings, and back-to-nature adventures.

PHOTO GRAPHS BY C ELESTE NO CHE

92 T R AV E L + L E I S U R E | J U N E 2 0 2 1
Heading south
toward Coos Bay
on Oregon’s
Highway 101.
Opposite: Chief
Kiawanda Rock,
offshore from
Pacific City.
The terrace at Pelican
Brewing, in Pacific City.
Right: Trailside in Cape
Arago, one of several state
parks on Oregon’s coast.

T
HE NESTUCCA RIVER was quiet except for a great blue Just as the headwind was starting to wear out my arms,
heron that unfurled its massive wings and flapped the river bent under a bridge and we came out into a patch
away disgruntled every time our kayaks approached. of windless, glassy water. Wordlessly, all of us stopped
On one side of me was Mike, my best friend and paddling, put our feet up, and drifted back toward the
travel companion on my trip down the Oregon dock where we’d rented the kayaks. The birds broke the
Coast. On the other side was Ryan Fox, our eminently quiet with happy calls, and for a few minutes, I forgot that
personable guide, who, bearded and rugged, looked there was anything wrong in the world. When we reached
as you would expect an adventurer to look—except the dock, an annoyed teenager pulled our boats in and
for his toenails, which were painted orange. “My wife informed us that they had already closed for the day. His
did it once, like, three years ago as a joke,” he said. “But tone suggested: “I have been standing here for fifteen
I liked how it looked. I guess it stuck.” minutes waiting for you—and then you just stop paddling.”
As we paddled along in the cool air—despite
being early August, it was a pleasant 65 degrees—we OREGON’S 362 MILES of publicly accessible coastline offer
watched Fox chase down a renegade beer bottle someone one of the most scenic drives in America. Weaving through
had thrown in the water. We listened as he told us about one-light beach towns and mountainous conifer forests,
Bayocean, an early-20th-century “Atlantic City of the West” past sky-high dunes and rugged sea cliffs, this stretch of
that fell into the sea after developers failed to account for U.S. Highway 101 is the state’s less crowded answer to
the erosive effect their work would have on the land. California’s famous Pacific Coast Highway. Oregon is also
The breeze picked up; paddling got harder. Fox pointed more affordable than its southern neighbor, which has given
to a van parked by a modest waterfront house. “That rise to a vibe that’s at once inviting and refreshingly offbeat.
belongs to one of the foremost Bigfoot experts,” he said, Our first stop on the weeklong trip was the
before qualifying, “in Oregon.” northernmost city on the coast, Astoria. Founded as a

94 T R AV E L + L E I S U R E | J U N E 2 0 2 1
The historic Liberty
Theatre, in
downtown Astoria.

fur-trading outpost in 1811 by John Jacob Astor—then the


richest man in the country—Astoria is the oldest American
settlement west of the Rockies. Nicknamed Little San
Francisco for its steep hills, fog, and Victorian houses, this
port of just 10,000 people has the feel of a much bigger city.
Sitting at the edge of a dock jutting 600 feet into the
Columbia River, the Cannery Pier Hotel & Spa was once
the site of a fish-packing plant, like many buildings on the
waterfront. Astoria was a hub for fishing and canning until
the 1970s, and the pier was home to the Union Fishermen’s
Co-Operative Packing Co., which was organized by a group
of the city’s fishermen, most of them foreign-born, in 1897.
From the guest rooms, you can see what those men a
century earlier would have seen: boats humming along the
busy Columbia, morning mist floating above the water, and
the evergreen coast of Washington in the distance. You can
also see one big thing they wouldn’t have: the behemoth
Astoria-Megler Bridge, completed in 1966, which seems as if indicators that our meal would be good—like the menu.
it’s crossing right overhead. In the morning, we borrowed a pair of the hotel’s bikes
For dinner, we took a short walk to Bridgewater Bistro, and rolled down the boardwalk, which runs alongside the
a former cannery reimagined as an airy loft with wooden trolley tracks into the city center. Like San Francisco’s cable
beams and big windows facing the river. I have long held car, the Astoria trolley is today used more for touristing than
that at restaurants with water views, you can predict the for transportation. Another similarity to San Francisco: a
quality of the meal based on how well the staff manages the devastating fire in 1922 forced Astorians to rebuild the city.
blinds. Neglect can leave a blinding glare; draw them too As we explored, we noticed that much of modern Astoria’s
readily, and the view might as well be of a parking lot. At architecture can be traced to that period, with former banks,
Bridgewater, the hostess managed the blinds like a post-op department stores, and hotels from the 20s and 30s filling
IV drip, carefully calibrating our view of a ship several stories up with microbreweries, restaurants, and cafés to feed the
tall making its way down the river as the sunset turned the burgeoning tourism industry.
water orange. Sure enough, the food was equally thoughtful, The tallest among them is the eight-story, Gothic Revival
with original takes on local favorites, like zesty avocado Astor Building, built in 1924; following a 2015 renovation, it’s
toast piled with freshly caught Dungeness crab, spritzed now home to apartments and shops, including the Naked
with lemon, and served on house-baked French bread. I Lemon bakery. When we pulled up, owner Aleesha Serrita
gloated that my hypothesis had held up, but Mike was not Nedd welcomed us with lemon-curd vanilla cupcakes,
impressed. He suggested that there were more obvious decadently loaded with buttercream and packing an

The Clubhouse at
Bay Point Landing,
a camping resort
in Coos Bay.
Astoria WASHINGTON

Tillamook Portland

Pacific City
PACIFIC OCEAN

explosive, citrusy punch. “I have to warn people they’re not

U. S . 101
like grocery-store cupcakes,” Nedd explained with a smile.
We tried (but failed) to pace ourselves as Nedd, a native
Astorian, told us about starting the bakery as a pop-up in
2016. Demand grew so quickly that she quit her day job and
moved into a storefront, where she serves classics alongside Coos Bay
a rotation of originals that play on the Oregonian culinary
tradition of weird new combinations. The “gas station
French macaron” is perhaps the only gourmet pastry around
made from Flamin’ Hot Cheetos and cheddar powder filling.
LIKE NEW YORKERS with pizza and Texans with barbecue,
Oregonians can be snobs when it comes to beer. That’s
CALIFORNIA

ILLUSTRAT ION BY MAY PAR SE Y


A glimpse of
the 118-year-old
First Presbyterian
Church, in Astoria.

Summer blooms at Shore


Acres State Park, near
Coos Bay. Opposite: Depoe
Bay, which locals claim
is the world’s smallest
natural navigable harbor.

room is housed in a former Napa Auto Parts store. It seemed


like a pedestrian site for a pilgrimage—until we sampled
the Broken Truck wild ale, which was unlike any beer I’ve
had. Super dry but noticeably hoppy, it tasted like a crisp ale
crossed with a white wine.
Head brewer and owner Trevor Rogers explained that
he and his wife and co-owner, Linsey Hamacher, had
backgrounds in wine and decided to bring their knowledge
of viticulture to beer. They chose Tillamook because of
its climate, which is especially well-suited to spontaneous
fermentation, as well as its proximity to the hops and high-
end Pinot grapes of the Willamette Valley. De Garde’s beer is
made in wine barrels using native yeast, a painstakingly slow
process that takes one to five years to produce a tiny batch.
To taste it, you have to come to Tillamook. The result is, as
Rogers puts it, “a pretty unique representation of place.”

“THIS,” MIKE SAID as he wrapped some gauze around his


bleeding hand, “is a great hotel.” Shortly after we’d checked
in to Headlands Coastal Lodge & Spa, in the fishing town of
Pacific City, Mike had cut himself on his razor while rifling
around in his suitcase. We called the front desk for some
because Oregon is arguably the craft-beer capital of the bandages, and the attendant was at our door seemingly
United States: the fertile Willamette Valley grows a sixth a minute later. She was kind and attentive, and appeared
of the nation’s hops, and the state is home to more than deeply concerned about Mike’s hand (far more than I was,
300 breweries. One could build a trip entirely around the having had 20 years of experience watching him injure
superb breweries that populate the coast, but the crown himself and quickly recover). Her care was indicative of the
jewel of the regional beer scene, the one that attracts attention to detail we’d enjoy during our stay.
visitors from around the globe, is De Garde Brewing, Headlands, a 33-room resort that opened in 2018, sits
which, despite its size—the whole operation is only seven right on Cape Kiwanda, a state natural area featuring a
people—is frequently ranked among the best in the world. 240-foot-high sand dune, lots of tide pools, and a public but
To visit, we took a windy stretch of Highway 101 an hour relatively quiet beach, which after nightfall lights up with
and a half south from Astoria. Just after Cannon Beach— campfires. We admired how so many hotel details—locally
which, as the closest seaside town to Portland, is usually the sourced Douglas fir wood in the lobby, shower curtains that
most packed—the day-tripper crowd thinned out, the traffic pull back to reveal ocean views, in-room wall racks for bikes
evaporated, and staggering views of the water popped up at and surfboards—served to highlight the landscape.
nearly every turn in the cliff-top road. We cut inland to the We took an invigorating ride down the beach on fat-
dairy-farming town of Tillamook, where De Garde’s tasting tire bikes we borrowed from the hotel, then met up with

T R AV E L A N D L E I S U R E . C O M 97
Prosciutto-wrapped sturgeon,
compressed melon, and roasted-
pimiento purée at Restaurant
Beck, in Depoe Bay. The Best of Coastal Oregon
Where to Stay seven rooms has a beloved for its clam
balcony Jacuzzi chowder. fb.com/
Bay Point Landing overlooking the cove. monkeybusiness
A fun, modern camp- whalecoveinn.com; foodtogo; entrées
ing resort in Coos doubles from $520. $7–$18.
Bay. baypointlanding.
com; doubles from Where to Eat Naked Lemon
$224. This tiny downtown
Bridgewater Bistro bakery is an Astoria
Cannery Pier An airy riverfront favorite for treats
Hotel & Spa restaurant in Astoria such as scones,
Set on a dock, this that hits the sweet cupcakes, and mac-
Astoria hotel has spot between ele- arons. nakedlemon
stunning views of the gant and casual. astoria.com.
Columbia River. bridgewaterbistro.
cannerypierhotel. com; entrées Restaurant Beck
com; doubles from $17–$31. Whale Cove Inn’s
$299. acclaimed fine-
Epilogue Kitchen dining venue offers
Headlands Coastal En route back to breathtaking views
Lodge & Spa Portland, take the of waves crashing on
This 33-room Pacific scenic Umpqua the rocks. restaurant
City resort is one of Byway to this innova- beck.com; entrées
Oregon’s standouts. tive Appalachian- $28–$32.
headlandslodge. inspired spot in
com; doubles from Salem. epilogue Wayfarer
$500. kitchen.com; Try the hot crab
entrées $10–$20. sandwich, made with
Whale Cove Inn locally caught
At this boutique Monkey Business Dungeness, at this
property in Depoe An unassuming food woodsy bungalow
Bay, each of the shack near Coos Bay, in Cannon Beach.

Headlands
Coastal Lodge &
Spa’s front desk.
Below: De Garde
Brewing’s pint-
size tasting room.
The skeleton of the
Peter Iredale, a
1906 shipwreck, in
Fort Stevens State
Park, near Astoria.

wayfarer-restaurant.
com; entrées
$29–$42.

What to See

Visit one (or two!)


coastal brewpubs,
such as Astoria’s
Fort George (fort
georgebrewery.
com); De Garde
(degardebrewing.
com), in Tillamook;
Pelican Brewing
(pelicanbrewing.
com); or Yachats
Brewing (yachats
brewing.com). Then
stroll through some
of Oregon’s most
scenic landscapes.
From the beaches at
Ecola to the gardens
at Shore Acres, the
parks along U.S. 101
have something for
everyone. state
parks.oregon.gov.

the aforementioned Ryan Fox, who leads adventures crowded with tourists, but the only sound that morning was
for Headlands guests. After kayaking, we hiked up the our own footsteps, and the lightly falling rain.
Great Dune at Cape Kiwanda. (“At least that’s what
people call it,” Fox said. “It doesn’t really have a name.”) OUR TRIP WAS filled with small towns like Depoe Bay, a
The sandy crests had the wind-smoothed texture of, as whale-watching destination where we spent a night nestled
Mike put it, the planet Tatooine, “where the Jawas sell between the woods and a Big Sur–like cove. But the tiniest
the droids to Luke Skywalker.” (You never know when was the village of Yachats (ya-hots), a quaint mile-long strip
a working knowledge of the topography of Star Wars bisected by Highway 101. We spent an afternoon perusing
planets will come in handy.) the shops and lunched at Yachats Brewing, where we ate
From the peak, we took in a dizzying panorama chicken-salad sandwiches and drank Thor’s Well IPA, the
of cliffs, ocean, and forest. Teenagers hurtled down Yachats take on the unofficial state beverage.
the dune while their friends took pictures. A flock of It made sense to follow the beer up with a stop at the
pelicans—“the hound dogs of the sea,” Fox called them— actual Thor’s Well, a nearby rock formation where waves
sat on the water, mirroring a pack of surfers waiting spout out like a geyser. We visited around high tide, when
20 yards away. the water puts on quite a show, yet had no trouble finding
After sleeping to the sound of the lapping sea, Mike and a good vantage point—in part because this corner of
I headed out for an early hike at Cape Lookout. A morning Oregon has no shortage of natural attractions. Our trip led
drizzle pitter-pattered against the Douglas fir and Sitka us past too many stunning overlooks and blissfully open
spruce overhead, but the canopy was so thick that we barely state parks to count, including the Devil’s Punchbowl,
felt the water. We were told that the loop was sometimes Devil’s Churn, and Devil’s Elbow, which suggest that

T R AV E L A N D L E I S U R E . C O M 99
artists and outcasts. It has survived
more than one plague. At various
points in history there has been
concern that the town would be
overtaken by migrating dunes.
Some of these edges have been
softened: the primary industry is
now tourism instead of whaling;
the town’s gay culture feels squarely
mainstream and commercialized.
(Ryan Murphy has a house here.)
(Oregon, continued from page 99) (Provincetown, continued from page 85) Nevertheless, there remains an
oddball, edge-of-the-world charm.
Satan is a surprisingly big part of The person who finally convinced After leaving the Mary Heaton
coastal geography. me to read Land’s End was Ken Fulk, Vorse house, we stopped across the
As we approached our final stop, the celebrity interior designer who street at Angel Foods, a winsome
the landscape changed again. Miles has recently taken over the Mary little grocery that’s been there for
and miles of sandy ridges lined the Heaton Vorse house, an important decades, and bought a jar of pickles
horizon; roadside signs offered ATV specimen of local history. Vorse was for no other reason than that they
rentals to explore the Oregon Dunes a writer and labor journalist who had a picture of the maker on the
National Recreation Area. made Provincetown her home in lid, a giant kosher pickle cocked
The economy of Coos Bay, the 1907 and was at the center of the jauntily between his teeth.
most populous city on the coast, has town’s transition from a whaling After the Puritans displaced and
long revolved around logging, but port to a hub for the creative avant- decimated the Nauset people who
visitors are now arriving in increasing garde. She died in 1966, leaving the had lived on the land, Provincetown
numbers for four-wheeling, hiking, house to her family. A few years became the domain of Portuguese
and clamming, and to escape to new ago, her granddaughters sold the fishermen and whalers, who
accommodations such as Bay Point house to Fulk and his husband, Kurt enjoyed humor and dancing, and are
Landing, a modern camping resort Wootton, who set about restoring credited for the fact that the town
with Airstream suites, RV spaces, and the property and offering it to the is less conservative than the rest of
tiny-house lodgings. Our cabin was community as an artists’ residence, Cape Cod. Even last summer, during
designed in a chic Scandinavian style, exhibition space, and center for a time of uncertainty and loss,
with a private firepit from which to lectures, fundraisers, and other Provincetown retained its knack
watch the sun set over the bay. cultural events. (Their own house is for dancing in the face of hardship
Fifteen minutes south of Bay across the street.) and, like the queer community it
Point lie three of oceanside state Fulk, who is an enthusiastic champions, meeting existential
parks, crowned by the storybook champion of both Provincetown threats with a defiant insistence on
Shore Acres. Lumber tycoon Louis and Vorse, walked Lora-Faye and pleasure and joy.
J. Simpson built Shore Acres in the me around the house, extolling the On our last afternoon we
early 20th century as a private estate, virtues of a town that has survived returned our bicycles and walked
and its botanical gardens are full of on its quirkiness and scrappiness, back to our car through the quiet
flowers and trees that he collected on its embrace of outsiders and free streets. From somewhere we could
his travels around the world. As we self-expression. He read to us hear a man’s voice singing: “Ooh,
walked the well-manicured paths, the from Vorse’s memoir of her life in life is juicy, juicy, and you see I’ve
tranquil Japanese pond was a calming Provincetown, Time and the Town: gotta have my bite, sir.” It was the
contrast to the untamed forest and “It is not quaint. It is a serious Barbra Streisand classic “Don’t
cliffs that flanked the grounds. town; the way it is built has to do Rain on My Parade.” We could hear
That night, back at the cabin, we with the difficult and dangerous the man belting it out all the way
built a fire, popped open a bottle of manner in which its living has down the block, maybe singing in
De Garde, and toasted our luck at always been earned…. People here the shower, maybe rehearsing for a
getting the chance to spend so much have been nourished by beauty cabaret act that he would perform
time together. We sat watching the fire and change and danger.” Its earliest masked and at a distance. “I simply
crackle in the pit, the water flowing industries, fishing and whaling, were gotta march, my heart’s a drummer!
down the bay, and the seagulls gliding precarious, Fulk pointed out, and its Nobody, no, nobody is gonna rain
in the wind, all by ourselves. later residents were experimental on my parade.” 

100 T R AV E L + L E I S U R E | J U N E 2 0 2 1
as it is precocious, drew my eye to a By the time we pedaled through
gorgeously preserved vintage Land the vast rust- and pink-tinted salt
Rover Defender, roof removed, body marshes in Loix and endless vineyards,
painted the exact same hue as the through the fortifications and back
house’s sage-green shutters. to the Toiras, even with the much
We popped into Marie et Angele, appreciated aid of our electric motors,
on Rue du Havre, a lovely and we were exhausted from the relentless
inconspicuous little vintage shop sun. Before we even finished our
dealing in military surplus and sailing aperitifs at O Parloir, a comfortable
staples as well as perfectly beat-in outdoor restaurant, it was clear that
bleues de travail, or worker’s jackets, nothing short of immediate sleep for
(Île de Ré, continued from page 77) of every faded patina. My wife and Saul and room-service Bolognese for
I both picked out the same cream- Marlow would keep the peace.
impression that, from a God’s-eye- colored long undershirts for when On our last full day, our foursome
perspective, we’d resemble nothing the weather turns autumnal. split along gender lines: the women
more than one of those ant-army Back at Chez Rémi, we ordered went hunting for gifts and antiques
highways cutting through the grass. a quick lunch of chicken Caesar in the numerous well-stocked shops
Yet, far from making me resentful of salads and Aperol Spritzes—man of St.-Martin, and the men climbed
the hordes around us, this realization cannot, it turns out, live on fruits de onto the electric chariot and cycled
left me appreciative of the fact that mer alone—then cycled out to the down to the nearby Bois-Plage,
here, even in high season, so many decidedly family-friendly Plage de la where Saul and I frolicked in the
human bodies could traverse such Conche, at St.-Clément-des-Baleines, water until he was beat.
considerable distances without where the sand was baked with sun After a high-concept but hearty
relying on combustion engines, and and the clear blue water was shallow late-afternoon family lunch of
before a backdrop of unblemished and calm as a cool bath. deconstructed langoustines at Les
natural beauty. When the heat became Embruns, I glanced at my watch
unbearable, we climbed back onto and realized it was nearly time for
THE ÎLE DE RÉ is said to enjoy a our electric caravan and toured me to attend an oyster tasting. The
microclimate that leaves it with a the neighborhood of Les Portes, as delightfully hidden Ré Ostréa nestles
similar amount of sunshine to the Henri had suggested. It was quiet rows of high tables between oyster
south of France, though it typically is and residential in a comfortably beds and the lapping shores of the
blessed with fresher Atlantic air. We gentrified way, without anything Atlantic. I ordered local rosé and did
happened to visit during a heat wave, like the tourist volume of St.-Martin my best to polish off the three-point
and that cool breeze evaded us as we or even Ars. It was where we would oysters and shrimp that came with
finally parked our bikes in Ars-en-Ré, get a place, I told Valentine, if I had it—until I realized that I was due
the area in the southwestern part of an extra million or two to spare. back at the Toiras for dinner in less
the island where the former prime She shushed me (truth be told, I say than three hours.
minister of France, Lionel Jospin, has some version of this refrain to her The centerpiece of the hotel is
kept a house for years. everywhere new that we go, though a lush interior courtyard garden,
Every side street you turn in such promiscuity certainly makes it with palms and white rosebushes
to in Ars is a living Pinterest post no less true) and stopped to point set beside harlequin paving stones,
of casual French seaside chic. out the wry humor in the names where the heaping breakfast buffet
Waiting for our lunch reservation of the exquisite little cobblestoned was served daily, and where, that
at the jam-packed Chez Rémi, we streets called impasses: “Impasse evening, we ate an immaculate, farm-
took the opportunity for a stroll. du Paradis” (literally, dead-end of fresh meal. As the children played
Saul, whose love for all manner of paradise); “Bout du Monde” (end of in the garden and we were finishing
motorized vehicles is as unwavering the world); “Sortilèges” (sorcery!). our wine, Valentine glanced up to see
that the only other diners left were
a friend of a friend from Paris and
Content in this issue was produced with assistance from Atlas Obscura; Bay Point
Landing; Charentes Tourisme; Desert Whisper; Destination Ile de Ré; Erie Canal
her husband at the table behind us.
Adventures; Headlands Coastal Lodge & Spa; Hello Burlington; Hotel de Toiras; The When it comes to the artful science
Patrick & Joan Leigh Fermor House; Kwessi Dunes; Little Kulala; Ocean House; of vacation, the truth is that there is
Provincetown Tourism; The Red Inn; Rosewood Washington, D.C.; Travel Oregon; Visit more than enough terrestrial heaven
Britain; Visit Rhode Island; VM Elite; and Whale Cove Inn. to go around in France—but no such
thing as private knowledge.

T R AV E L A N D L E I S U R E . C O M 101
for a total of two minutes and 49 between light and darkness was
seconds—an adequate amount of thought to be too violent. We talked
time, we quickly realized, to be about the meaning of the terms light
immersed in the infinite. and darkness. “Darkness is when we
On the bus ride home my friend’s can’t advance in anything,” she said.
father, Dale, a former college “Like this whole last year.”
football star, offered some advice. If 2020 had been an annus
The amateur scientists had spent horribilis for all of us, it had been
the eclipse hunched over their especially horrible in Chile. In addition
viewfinders, measuring, recording; to the pandemic, the year had seen
looking at their devices and not a continuation of 2019’s political
(Chile, continued from page 91) at the phenomenon we’d come to upheaval, with protests across the
observe. We’d stood out, in fact, for nation, both peaceful and violent, and
odds of actually seeing the eclipse. being the only spectators looking episodes of police brutality that made
A chef served up hearty plates of on with naked eyes (this was the news around the world.
lamb and beef and fresh-baked 70s, after all). “I think it’s good Epulef picked up a handmade
breads, which we ate outside on a sometimes,” Dale said, “to just take drum marked with quadrants
deck overlooking the river. I learned things in instead of trying to capture representing earth, wind, fire, and
what the eclipse meant for my fellow and preserve them.” water. When the elements fall out of
campers, and what had motivated In the intervening years, his words balance, she explained, ñuki mapo,
them to come. A 30-year-old man had come back to me again and or Mother Earth, is displeased.
from Santiago said he’d heard that again: Learn to resist the perpetual “Humans have pushed the earth too
during eclipses, flower petals close, urge to interpret and analyze, to far. We’ve betrayed the earth. We’ve
fish stop swimming, and trees manufacture opinion and create betrayed the soil.” Noting that the
make curved shadows. Another meaning. Learn to be in the moment, previous year, the quila—a type of
man explained that, as the source of course. But also, learn to observe. bamboo found in the region—hadn’t
of all life, the sun is basically God. flowered, she shrugged. “For us,
Therefore, a total eclipse is the only BUENAVENTURA HAD BEEN COMING these natural events are like news
chance we get to look directly at the to the Lake District since childhood, announcements.” As we took turns
face of God. on biking, trekking, and whitewater- fanning the fire, Epulef told us she
I had my own idea of what the rafting trips. He seemed to know and other Mapuche would be praying
event might mean. In 1979, as a every trail and river bend. The day hard in the coming days. “We hope
stoned 14-year-old, I’d seen an before the eclipse, he and his younger that humanity can learn humility,
eclipse in a shopping-mall parking brother, Nicholas, took me to visit because we need a change. Let’s
lot in Minot, North Dakota. My oldest an old friend: Irma Epulef, a machi, hope this eclipse brings us back in a
friend, David, and his father were or traditional healer, and a member positive direction.”
joining a group of amateur scientists of the Mapuche Indigenous group. Toward the end of our visit the
on a Science Museum of Minnesota “I think she’ll have an interesting sky had cleared, and as we drove
expedition, and invited me along. perspective on the eclipse,” he said. back to camp, the area’s lush beauty
We arrived at dawn after traveling We drove half an hour to a hamlet was lit up by golden sunlight. By
all night by chartered bus, and named Curarrehue, some 10 miles night, however, the rain returned,
huddled on a bleak stretch of tarmac from the border with Argentina. and fell without respite, pelting my
eating sandwiches and watching Pulling off the highway, we found canvas roof right through to the next
the scientists unpack preternatural Epulef wearing a ceremonial morning, when the eclipse was due
quantities of gear—telescopes, poncho, standing next to her to take place. I woke up to puddles
spectrometers, cameras, and more. ruka—a traditional sweat lodge outside my tent flap. At the breakfast
Sometime around mid-morning, with mud walls and a high, conical table, no one had much to say. We’d
the wind stilled. The birds fell wooden roof. She invited us inside, felt adventurous, hopeful, brave. But
silent. Darkness came over us like a and we sat down on benches lining now, in the cold and wet, we mostly
steamroller. The current of warmth the walls. A smoky woodstove stood felt foolish.
flowing from sun to skin ceased as in the center of the earthen floor.
the familiar firmaments of earth, sky, Epulef began to speak. “When I AN HOUR AND A HALF before
and sun gave way to purple-tinged was young,” she said, “children and the eclipse, Buenaventura invited
shadow bands strobing across the pregnant women were prohibited everyone at the camp to gather on
plain. We gawked, spellbound from viewing eclipses.” The conflict the deck outside the kitchen to talk

102 T R AV E L + L E I S U R E | J U N E 2 0 2 1
as a group about our reasons for earth through us and upward to the hills around us. The temperature
coming. The rain beat down so hard moon, the sun, and the Milky Way dropped, and I could feel my senses
on the rubberized tarp over our beyond. Try to connect with this quicken. Everyone around me
heads, we had to raise our voices to special time,” he urged, “this cosmic seemed to shudder in unison. The
make ourselves heard. time, when everything lines up and surrounding slopes were as blanketed
As we went around the circle, the energy flows.” by clouds as they’d been one, three,
one man explained, “My life is The meditation ended, and for a 15 minutes earlier. The sun above
always planned, always organized. beat or two, I felt adrift. There was had formed a triumphant, if ethereal,
Everything is very cuadradito,” nothing to do, no reason to continue halo. It felt like the opposite of
or chopped into little squares. “I organizing the day around an eclipse terror. Here was wonder and hope.
wanted to let go of my thinking, my we weren’t going to see. The rain had We had been desperate for a jolt.
plans, and remember the rhythms stopped, but the sky was implacably If the eclipse meant the end of
of nature.” Heads around the circle overcast. As I looked around for the world as we knew it, it felt like
seemed to nod. Some of the speakers someone to commiserate with, the wonderful news.
made more sense than others. The light level began to dim, then dim When the two minutes and
word alignment came up a lot, as some more. Totally unlike the gradual nine seconds of the totality passed,
did the cosmos, and life forces. dimming of dusk, this felt far more applause broke out. We’d later learn
Eclipses, we all seemed to agree, are abrupt, as if the lights were going that virtually no one else in Chile had
a metaphor for the wonder of life, a down in a theater. (I’d realize later seen the eclipse. Potential spectators
chance to open ourselves to awe. that in one sense, I’d succeeded in based in Pucón had boarded buses
I was terrified to offer my my aim of having no expectations. I’d to rush to the coast, about 2½ hours
opinion, especially in my imperfect come a quarter of the way around the away, hoping for better weather. No
Spanish. But when my turn came, world to see an eclipse, and then was luck. A group of astronomers had
I related my previous eclipse surprised when it happened.) invited us to join them at a mountain
experience, explaining that I Then, from a nearby meadow, I pass near the Argentinean border.
wanted to gauge whether I had heard a shout. “El anillo! El anillo!” They’d seen nothing.
retained—throughout the intervening (“The ring! The ring!”). Some guests At our final meal that evening,
decades, and especially during the had set up cameras under umbrellas, I sat next to a Chilean émigré from
pandemic—the ability to adhere to on the off chance the eclipse might Germany. She wore the relieved,
my own adopted creed. Was I still still become visible. I ran over and happy expression shared by everyone
able to observe nature with my full joined their skyward gaze to where around the table as she recounted her
capacities, undistracted by adult a patch of sky, not blue so much as experience of the eclipse. “I think it
responsibilities? “I think it’s a real absent of dark gray, began to open. was even better than if we’d had good
test,” I said. Can modern people I found it hard to trust what I was weather,” she said. “Because we were
spend an entire two minutes (the seeing or feel remotely optimistic just expecting nothing. And then
length of time this eclipse was to last) as the clouds parted like fleece, one suddenly, it was like, ‘Hellooo!’ And
without taking a picture or checking minute fleeting, the next minute we didn’t even have to wear those
our phone—without needing a device darkening again. Yes, no, yes, no; silly goggles.”
to mediate the distance between light, dark, and then, suddenly, a ring.
ourselves and the world? The corona. Flickering but whole, vmelite.com; tents from $1,500 per
A self-described eclipse hunter the circle held and shone. The crowd night, all-inclusive. VM Elite’s Raul
named Sebastian Gonzales from Viña erupted in hesitant whoops. Buenaventura has spent two decades
del Mar offered to lead a meditation. “Mira mira mira mira!” (“Look setting up bespoke experiences around
After guiding us through a few look look look!”) someone cried. South America, from heli-skiing in the
breathing exercises, he asked the Cameras snapped wildly as the Andes to surfing in the Pacific. He is
group to imagine planting roots raucous call of bandurrias, or black- working on an expedition to view the
from our feet into the soil. “Feel the faced ibises, known for screeching upcoming solar eclipse in Antarctica
alignment from the center of the just before dawn, echoed from the on December 4.

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T R AV E L A N D L E I S U R E . C O M 103
YO UR BE ST SHOT
Darrell Sano was
an entrant in our
ongoing Photo of the
“AS I L I STEN ED TO this musician strum his guitar on the steps of Córdoba’s Mosque- Day contest. Submit
Cathedral, in the Andalusia region of Spain, I felt I was exactly where I needed to be. Weeks your best pictures at
earlier, my wife and I had made the monumental decision to sell our home of 20 years in travelandleisure.
the Bay Area and travel indefinitely around Europe. I knew we had made the right call the com/photos/photo-
of-the-day for the
day I took this photo. Time slowed down watching this man play flamenco music, and our chance to be
crazy, hectic life in California felt worlds away.” featured on this page
— R E AD ER DAR R EL L SANO O N HI S PHOTO G RAPH, S HOT W I TH A F UJI F I LM X- T 20, AUGU ST 2019 in a future issue.

104 T R AV E L + L E I S U R E | J U N E 2 0 2 1

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