In a day and age when too much travel writing is done from behind a desk, I can’t help but be proud of the level of commitment — both on staff and among our contributors — to the idea of getting out there and getting the real story. This year was no exception to that norm; since last January, our crew has pretty much been scattered to the four winds, from Asia to South America to Europe and, of course, all over North America. Here, we take a moment to breathe deep and look back at some of our favorite places and experiences — stuff you really ought to put on your to-do list for 2012. Meantime, thanks for reading, and have a great holiday!
TOKYO 2.0 (BETA VERSION) During multiple visits (including an unforgettable week last March that coincided with the immense Tohoku earthquake), an always-compelling Tokyo showed an increasingly cosmopolitan bent — yes, it’s still Japan, but as the years go by, the city feels ever-so-slightly more like a citizen of the world, a shaping-up that is, quite frankly, long overdue. From are-we-in-Brooklyn-or-what cafes like Bear Pond to a chainlet of popular ramen parlors owned by a guy named Ivan Orkin from Syosset, it’s too early to tell if Tokyo’s going where we think it’s going, but maybe, just maybe, it’s ready to open up and become the competition-crushing international city it could be, any old time it decided it was ready. Fingers crossed.
CATSKILLS COOL Sometimes, you have to lose a thing to know how much it meant to you, and for us, that was definitely the case with the Catskills. Exploratory visits along the Route 28 corridor after the summer’s intense (and in places devastating) tropical rains revealed a surprising new trend — the area, notoriously reluctant to change, is actually getting kind of, well, cool. From a beautifully-curated concept store in Andes (Tay Home), whose owner, Nini Ordoubadi, recently rolled out her own fashion line, to the colorful insanity that is The Roxbury — which has grown from roadside curiosity to one of the best small hotels upstate — to farm-to-table barbecue at Cha Cha Hut in Arkville, right on down to the sudden hipsterfication of Kingston’s charming Stockade District at the gateway to Catskill Park, it all feels really fresh and fun. Definitely an area to keep your eye on in 2012.
SWIMMING OFF THE GRID Colombia’s Tayrona National Park isn’t the easiest place to reach, and that’s precisely the point. This unspoiled jewel on the country’s increasingly popular Caribbean coast (witness those cruise ships going into Cartagena) rewards adventurers with pristine, empty beaches nestled in rocky coves, where you can float in calm, green-blue waters. It’s the sort of tableau that made us all fall in love with the Caribbean in the first place — go before they start making it easy to get there.
THE NEW TIJUANA This increasingly mature and confident border town is on its way to becoming a very important city. Not quite Mexico and not quite the United States, Tijuana pulls much good from both. Cutting-edge is the best way to describe much of what’s happening around here, from music to food and beyond; watch this space. Or, just go and see for yourself. Start with a tasting dinner at Javier Plascensia’s impressive Mision 19, a shimmering showcase of Baja’s epicurean culture that’s easily one of the most exciting restaurants of the West Coast right now, knocking the socks off of pretty much anyone who bothers to show up.
A FLOATING FOUR SEASONS Anyone who thinks cruising is terrible usually just hasn’t tried the right ship. A great place to start your reeducation would be the new-ish twin yachts-on-steroids that are the pride and joy of Seabourn Cruise Line. A late summer week drifting around the Adriatic, exploring its colorful port cities by day and sipping champers on the deck by night was just what the doctor ordered after a terribly hectic summer. Expensive, sure, but as the saying goes, you truly get what you pay for — particularly in the service department, where it seemed like nothing was ever too much trouble.
HOTEL OF THE YEAR, KIND OF Casa Camper in Barcelona — with its free 24-hour snack bar (mini chocolate milk bottles and donuts!), a fab location near Las Ramblas and those nifty split rooms that allow one person to sleep while another is, say, watching the NBA playoffs at 4 a.m. — is one of the best little hotels we encountered all year. On our last night, we asked our extremely friendly and sharp front-desk clerk where we should eat. Knowing that we had already been to Cal Pep, Paco Meralgo and Ferran Adria’s new Tickets, he smiled and said, “Maybe no more tapas?” Then he sent us to La Paradeta, a no-frills-whatsoever seafood counter in El Born. We pointed at the crustaceans we wanted (yes, one more langoustine please), they weighed it and grilled it, and gave us salad and bread and a bottle of wine, all for about 25 Euros per head. We started our meal with a cold, hard-shell crab, full of roe, served with lettuce and something like thousand-island dressing. We could have eaten seven more. Also, we wanted to go back and kiss the desk clerk.
DRINKING IN DETROIT It’s always a good time for a beer in the Motor City, but these days it’s more fun than ever, as one of the country’s most out-of-ideas towns starts to pull in growing numbers of young and creative types from around the world, all intent on assisting in a long-overdue reinvent. This can make for very interesting — and sometimes, endless — bar conversation. Not that you need the additional entertainment: Michigan beers these days, from the complex sours being produced by Jolly Pumpkin to New Holland’s oak barrel-aged Dragon’s Milk, are excitement enough. (The latter forms the base for a particularly insane cocktail at The Oakland, a very good bar that’s drawing crowds to the fun little suburb of Ferndale, just across 8 Mile Road.)
SLURPING IN HONG KONG A nonstop blur of great eating here last fall was capped off by a stop at Summer Palace for chef Ip Chi Cheung’s soup dumplings at Summer Palace. The calibration of pork and ginger, dipped in soy and vinegar, was perfect. We scooped each dumpling into our soup spoon, in this Michelin-starred restaurant that gives you aprons when you order crab, and took a bite. Then, like everybody else in this fine-dining destination, we slurped.
BASEL TIMES From an e-mail we sent to a friend during Saturday of Art Basel week in Miami, after we had already gone to more than 10 events in two days: “Today may be mostly about seeing art, taking boat rides and eating chorizo.” Fat chance. Instead, we got lured into the Sagamore’s annual Basel brunch, the Elle Decor Showhouse at Paramount Bay, Art Miami in Midtown after a stop at Sakaya Kitchen for a bo ssam lunch, the Day and Night pop-up party brunch, Architectural Digest’s AD Oasis at the Raleigh, Loren Ridinger’s estate for a Vogue/Missoni event and The Dutch for midnight dinner. Yes, we also visited a couple lame hotels not worth mentioning, but we left Miami after the craziest of weeks feeling more inspired than tired.
THINKING BEYOND HOTELS It’s economical. It exposes you to a different side of your destination. There’s plenty of room for your friends. You can actually buy stuff at farmers markets, instead of just gawking. If you aren’t renting houses or apartments when you travel, start doing so. Long the sort of thing Europeans did, or something that you did only when you were going to, for instance, The Hamptons, it’s a concept that’s been hitting these shores in a big way, and we’ve yet to be disappointed. Particularly when we use sites like Flipkey.com, which gives you peace of mind via its growing number of verified user reviews. So far, they’ve always been remarkably accurate, whether we’re renting in Buenos Aires, Los Angeles or anywhere in between.
NEW YEAR’S EVE IN LAS VEGAS Surely it must be counter-intuitive, you’re thinking, for a New Yorker to fly nearly all the way across the country to escape one New Year’s nightmare, only to thrust themselves right back into the middle of another? Apparently, you’ve never been to a good Vegas party, a thing that tends to make other New Year’s parties in other places look really dumb and boring. Last year, the hot ticket was Jay-Z, Coldplay (and Kanye, and Beyonce) at The Cosmopolitan, featuring unlimited bubbly and a celeb-studded guest list. To the uninitiated, it was kind of the best party in the world, ever? For Vegas, it was just another great New Year’s. Summing up neatly why Vegas is perhaps the best, full stop.
SUMMER ON LAKE MICHIGAN Thanks to little lifts here and there from high-profile fans like Mario Batali, word of just how amazing summer in Northern Michigan can be is starting to trickle out to the ocean-obsessed coasts. A vibrant food scene, great local wines (particularly on the Old Mission and Leelanau peninsulas), idyllic landscapes, winding back roads and crystal-clear lake waters were just a few reasons we fell in love all over again. By the way — Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore was rated the most beautiful place in the country by ABC’s Good Morning America this past summer for good reason. Go see for yourself.
LUNCH IN MEXICO’S NAPA Just barely an hour from the dusty Baja town of Tecate, Mexico’s premier wine region, the Valle de Guadalupe, is a popular getaway spot for Mexican gourmands. A striking new hillside hotel, the Endemico, courtesy of the Habita Group — the guys behind the High line-adjacent Hotel Americano in Manhattan — is guaranteed to help the word spread a great deal farther. If you’re on the fence about the whole thing, a leisurely lunch at the aggressively farm-to-table Laja, sometimes referred to as Mexico’s French Laundry, will address most, if not all of your concerns. From house-made wines to local olive oil on down to innovative dishes that showcase the best ingredients the region has to offer, Laja is worth a drive from anywhere — luckily, it’s barely two hours from San Diego, and makes a great day trip from anywhere in Southern California, we can report.
with Andy Wang, Jennifer Ceaser, Nicole Rupersburg, Lydia Gordon, Alexander Basek, George Hobica, Chris Bunting and Erin Franzman