Turks & Caicos

A chain of 40 largely untouched islands, the Turks and Caicos brush off the splashy hallmarks of their Caribbean neighbours with sun-slowed days that revolve around hunting down the best slice of sand. Twenty-five years after she first came here, Sarah Greaves-Gabbadon returns to find the archipelago's authentic spirit has stayed the course.
Read the full article HERE

The untouched islands of Turks and Caicos

I can’t help but laugh as Rommel Forbes wraps up his tale of why there are no fast-food chains here on Provo, the hub of the Turks and Caicos Islands. ‘All of a sudden, KFC started selling pork chops. It was downhill from there.’ As Forbes, my driver and guide, tells it, a local businessman launched the fried-chicken franchise in the mid-1990s but operations didn’t always follow corporate standards. (‘Our chicken had 48 herbs and spices,’ he claims, with a wink.) And within a couple of years, KFC was out.- words by Sarah Greaves-Gabbadon for Condé Nast Traveller

Mallorca, Spain

Thanks to a New Generation of Creatives, Mallorca Is Shedding Its Party Reputation Mallorca's revitalized island crowd has crafted a new narrative around a deliciously slow-paced existence.
Read the full article HERE.

More than most places, Mallorca means different things to different people.

For many the Spanish island is synonymous with the endless trinity of sun, sea, and sangria, since it virtually invented European beach tourism in the early 20th century. In 1929, Gertrude Stein wrote to her war-traumatized friend the novelist Robert Graves, recommending Mallorca as the perfect place to downshift and de-stress. (“It's paradise,” she suggested, adding the biting qualifier, “if you can stand it.”) But as the popularity of the island soared, its culture became ever more marginal. Traditional farming and cooking almost withered on the vine. (The vines themselves also withered, as ancient grape varieties including Manto Negro and Callet were pushed aside to make way for Cabernet Sauvignon and Chardonnay.) - words by Paul Richardson for Condé Nast Traveller

Jura, France

The rugged area turns out natural varieties at off-track vineyards. Read more HERE

France's tiniest wine region

Lying along Switzerland’s western flank, the Jura is a rugged French département where forest-furred mountains trace a physical border and lower slopes are covered in vines, trees and grasslands. Here we share a flavour with some atmospheric shots from the road.
With food and wine to rival its neighbour Burgundy, Franche-Comté is a land of clockmakers and painters. Closer to Switzerland than Paris, it's the secret corner even the French hardly know about. To research more read the full article by Steve King HERE.

Azores, Portugal

This string of uncrowded islands offers hikes on active volcanoes, verdant cliffs, and top-notch surfing.
Read the full story HERE.

Here Azores expert Trish Lorenz takes a look at the new wave of eco travel on the islands

All nine islands were birthed from volcanoes, tiny atolls of black lava emerging from the depths of the Atlantic. No people or animals other than birds lived on the archipelago until Portuguese explorers discovered it in the early 15th century and populated it with minor gentry, indentured servants, slaves, and prisoners given the choice between jail and exile. Living in Europe's westernmost place, the people of the islands have an inner calm born from facing down the elements.

Eleuthera, Bahamas

Possibly the most glamorous campsite you’re ever likely to pitch up at, The Other Side in the Bahamas takes ‘glamping’ to the stratospheric heights.
Yes, everything has canopies, but each tent also has hardwood floors, furniture that doesn’t fold away and enough overhead space for even the rangiest residents. All power comes from the sun, enabling eco-warriors to rest easy – literally, given the plump-pillowed, king-size, four-poster beds. The hotel is surrounded by beaches and palm trees in the quieter corner of Eleuthera, but if you want to track down the action, set sail for Harbour Island, a short-speedboat ride away.
More information HERE

“eco-luxe tents on Eleuthera in the Bahamas”

Tel Aviv, Israel

A colour snapshot of Tel Aviv: modernist blocks curving white against cloudless, sky-blue skies. Star of David flags strung like festival bunting between balconies. Street art and grubbiness and coral-bright bougainvillea and everywhere, everywhere the scent of jasmine, washing the streets. All the shrugging sexiness of Paris under a desert sun.
Read the full story HERE.

“With the Bauhaus movement that shaped it marking 100 years, its artists and chefs are working on the next creative curveball.”

Warsaw, Poland

Neon signs in abundance, abandoned factories with edgy art collectives, street art on every corner; Warsaw's flexing its creative muscles. There's also fresh new wave of veggie restaurants (almost unheard of up until now, in a city that has a reputation for specialising in ‘bread and meat'),
French patisseries and smart places to stay at the forefront of Europe's hotel scene.
Read the full story HERE.

“WARSAW IS REGULARLY VOTED ONE OF THE MOST EXCITING PLACES IN THE WORLD FOR MEAT-FREE DINING”

Kolkata, India

At once regal and ramshackle, intense and invigorating, Kolkata is a resolute metropolis that draws curious wanderers ready to hurtle into the hubbub.

"People often speak of Calcutta’s faded splendour, as if everything that is beautiful about the city had long since ceased to be quite so beautiful as it once was. But I would not describe it as faded, not exactly, if only because I find it impossible to imagine a time when it might have been otherwise. Calcutta seems to have been born faded. Its surfaces cracked and careworn and flaking at the time of their construction. The seeds of the trees that grow through so many of its broken rooftops presumably arrived two or three hundred years ago on the soles of builders’ sandals. There is a kind of democracy to this decay that I love. The grandest of buildings tend to be as racked and blasted-looking as the most humble.”

WORDS by Steve King.

Menorca, Spain

Understated Menorca has more beaches than its bold Balearic sisters Ibiza and Mallorca combined. Even on an autumn break in the sun there are empty coves for claiming while seeking out the island’s quietly inventive new hotels and food spots photographed for Condé Nast Traveller UK by Ana Lui Photography.

WORDS BY KATE MAXWELL

"I fell for Menorca nearly 10 years ago, on Cala Turqueta. I don’t think there is a better beach in all of Europe. It’s a perfect white-sand cove, backed by pine forest, with jumping cliffs placed considerately on either side and water a kind of are-you-kidding-me electric blue. And yet that mid-September weekend it was practically empty. A few Spanish families basking in the sun. A couple of teenagers dive-bombing from the rocks.”

"Since then things have changed on Menorca – and for the better. In recent years, alternatives to the scruffy agriturismos and the dusty farmhouses with upstairs kitchens we’ve stayed in have emerged. The loveliest is Casa Telmo, which might just be the best-kept secret in the Balearics right now. On a street of handsome 19th-century townhouses in the centre of Menorca’s port capital, Mahón, it offers no clue to being a hotel – there’s no sign, not even a door number. Inside, it feels like a home, which, in some respects, it is: the 25-year-old owners, interior-design duo Benito Escat Velez and Pol Castells Segarra, share the place with their guests when they’re in town.”

“Light from the walled garden bounces off the original hall tiles, and a quirky vintage style is evident wherever you look. A pale-turquoise fixie bicycle (design feature or mode of transport? It’s unclear) is propped casually below an alcove containing a statue of the Virgin Mary, while a foot-high Donald Duck figure surveys the scene from a flight of stairs. In the sitting room, which has exposed-stone walls and a shades-of-green sofa, there’s a toy-Ferrari-turned-drinks-trolley and a pile of Architectural Digest magazines reimagined, with the help of luggage straps, as a coffee table. Upstairs, the five bedrooms have millennial-pink bathrooms and shelves lined with books and tchotchkes. Obscenely creative, delightfully kitsch, Casa Telmo could only have opened in the age of Airbnb and Instagram – and only on Menorca.”

FIND OUT MORE  HERE

Noto, Sicily

Known as Sicily's Baroque Capital, many of Noto's buildings are crafted from soft tufa stone, which assumes a bleached shade of honey under sunlight. Read the full story HERE

“WHEN YOU FALL IN LOVE WITH A PLACE LIKE THIS... IT BECOMES PART OF WHO YOU ARE... I LOVE IT FOR ITS SIMPLICITY. IT HELPS ME RECALL THE THINGS THAT MATTER.”

Santa Gertrudis, Ibiza

My neighbourhood: The best restaurants and shops in Santa Gertrudis, Ibiza.

Serena Cook on Santa Gertrudis, ibiza

Santa Gertrudis is a teeny town in the heart of Ibiza, where an international crowd have put down roots among the boho-chic shops and laid-back restaurants. In this video Serena Cook, CEO of Ibiza's starriest concierge service Deliciously Sorted, takes us on a tour of her neighbourhood. From the best place for breakfast to the homeware shop that's perfect for present sourcing, this is the inside track to the White Isle.

'For me, Santa Gertrudis is the charming heart of Ibiza,' Serena says.

Avignon

La Divine Comédie, Avignon, France:  Off the beaten track

STORY BY ANA LUI & MATIAS ALEXANDRO

Behind a massive unmarked iron gate at the end of an impasse lies a magnificent secret garden – the largest in all of Avignon – and a supremely chic new five-room maison d'hôtes. La Divine Comédie is one of our pick of small, individual hotels in the South of France for summer.
Parisian owners Gilles Jauffret (an interior designer and antique-market addict) and Amaury de Villoutreys spent seven years painstakingly restoring the former cardinals’ residence. Here we take a look around this enchanted and theatrical space.

FIND OUT MORE HERE

Village Castigno

In an exclusive new video, look inside one of our summer-time picks of quirky, colourful chateaux in the South of France.

by ANA LUI, MATIAS ALEXANDRO AND LOUISE RODDON

Right in the middle of Saint-Chinian wine country, southern France's most unsung department, this isn't a typical Languedoc hamlet. It's got the vineyards, but none of the usual wine-village downsides - the turreted-but-tired châteaux, the dwindling populations, the abandoned houses. Instead, Castigno buzzes with life.
Belgian owners Tine and Marc Verstraete transformed a clutch of houses into a highly eccentric place to stay. Tine's visual chutzpah has resulted in wine-toned interiors and contemporary art alongside Moorish lanterns and ancient missals. The food is just as flamboyant, with La Table hotly tipped for a Michelin star.

FIND OUT MORE HERE

Harbour Island

Old-School Glamour in the Bahamas, filmed and photographed for Condé Nast Traveller UK

WORDS BY VASSI CHAMBERLAIN

"I fell madly in love with the rakish Sixties elegance of the Bahamas the first time I saw Thunderball. I was only a child yet imagined myself drinking Rum Dums while sitting at the bar of the wildly glamorous Lyford Cay Club in Nassau, dressed in Valentino and smoking Kent Lights, with a teenage approximation of Sean Connery by my side."

"Harbour Island can be confusing for those who arrive expecting to be instantly dazzled, because at first it feels indolent and quiet, not so much rundown as charmingly frayed and discreet.
Where is the action? Locals go to church on Sundays dressed as if to meet the Queen; on weekdays children walk to school in immaculate uniforms, their hair in braids; in the early evening people chat on their front porches and play dominos, while at all hours roosters run wildly down the streets crowing. There are only two things that really count here: natural beauty and falling in with the laid-back rhythm. The 2,000 or so inhabitants will tell you how proud they are of the place they call Briland (the island's old name). Everyone you meet will want to chat, a sense of humour infecting their every word. My two favourite signposts for the local shop (it sells jam and books) read: 'Dilly Dally Dis Way' and 'Dilly Dally Dat Way', depending on which direction you're coming from.
Agatha Christie would have adored it."

"The Other Side is small (it sleeps 12 in total, in three tents and three shacks further up on a promontory). Unless you want to stay marooned in your room, head to the drawing-room tent, with its backgammon boards and prints of Tintin on the walls, for cocktail hour when shakers are passed around between guests. Then it's on to the next tent a few steps away for dinner where you can't help but chat to new friends at the shared table. The bread is homemade and straight out of the oven, the main dishes are sophisticated and depend on whatever came in on the boat that morning. Our high-ceilinged tent was lashed by rain and a fierce wind on one of the nights we stayed, but there was something so romantic about sleeping on a beach in such comfort while the weather roared around us. We awoke to one of those pristine Bahamian days where the sea is every colour of blue and green. For the adventurous, the hotel will organise expeditions down the long, thin snake of Eleuthera. The Other Side is a post to pitch up to when the excitement of Harbour Island gets a little frenzied, particularly at Christmas and Easter, and you can still pop over for dinner as it is so close."

FIND OUT MORE  HERE