March 11, 2024 • 45 mins
We're a few months into the new year. Maybe you're a freshly minted, idealized version of yourself. Or maybe your new year's resolutions are as distant as the icebergs of Antarctica. But no matter what your life looks like, there's one thing you can count on: travel.
Today, we’re sharing a special episode from Unpacked by AFAR. Unpacked by AFAR is back for a new season which unpacks the most captivating and challenging topics in the travel industry. Like this episode, where AFAR editors Sarika Bansal, Tim Chester, and Billie Cohen join host Aislyn Greene to unpack AFAR’s annual "Where to Go" list and discuss how and why they chose the places on the list, which ones they have personally visited, and their predictions for the year ahead.
Listen to more episodes of Unpacked by AFAR and follow the podcast.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
Pushkin. Hey, they're not lost, listeners. It's Acelin Green, host
of the acclaimed weekly podcast series Unpacked by AFAR, the
podcast that helps you navigate the travel world, whether you
want advice on an ethical dilemma or just to figure
out where to travel next. This season Unpacked, I'm speaking
(00:38):
with seasoned travelers and industry professionals to unpack the most
captivating and challenging topics in the travel industry, one conversation
at a time. Today, I am thrilled to share a
special episode of Unpacked with you. It's a roundtable discussion
examining the twenty five most exciting places around the world
to visit in twenty twenty four. Featuring myself and AFAR
(01:00):
editors Saraka Bunsel, Tim Chester and Billy Cohen. We chat
about everything from the sites to see in Rome that
are beyond your normal tourist activities, reasons why travelers visiting
Africa for the first time should go to Lamu Kenya,
and the best destinations to view twenty twenty four solar eclipse.
Needless to say, Unpacked is the perfect companion podcast and
(01:21):
not lost, especially if you're looking for another podcast that
dives into the heart of travel, so make sure to
follow Unpacked on your favorite podcast app. With that said,
here's the show. Hi everyone, Welcome to Unpacked. Welcome back
to Unpacked.
Speaker 2 (01:38):
Thanks so much for tulling us. We're just so excited
to be here to talk about where to go.
Speaker 1 (01:42):
I know and you are fresh off making this list happen.
Speaker 3 (01:46):
It's burned into our brains. We're all very excited for
twenty twenty four to happen so we can start taking
these trips we've been writing and editing about for months.
Speaker 1 (01:53):
Before we start talking about the list, I'd love to
just start with having everyone introduce themselves and say where
they are in the world. Sarka, do you want to start?
Speaker 2 (02:02):
Hi? I'm Saraka bunsel I am the editorial director. I'm
based in Nairobi, Kenya. There's been a country wide power
outage of the last twenty four plus hours now, so
I have a bit of a cobbled setup right now.
Luckily we do have like a good solar power backup
and everything, but but I feel very like I'm glad
(02:23):
I'm here by the string of my teeth.
Speaker 1 (02:26):
It is very impressive that you're here given all of that.
Thank you. And Billy hop at you.
Speaker 2 (02:33):
Hi.
Speaker 3 (02:33):
I'm Billy Cohen, executive editor, and I'm based in New
York and you have power and we have power.
Speaker 1 (02:40):
Yeah it's not too.
Speaker 3 (02:41):
Yeah, yeah, if it is not summer right where everything?
There are a ton of brownets in the city. But yeah,
seems to be doing okay. We have construction though, So
if you hear any of that out out of my
back window, that's what that will be.
Speaker 1 (02:54):
And Tim, that leaves you.
Speaker 4 (02:56):
Hi, I'm Tim Chester, I'm deputy editor. I'm in a
very sunny power field southern California, thousand Oaks near LA
where I always am when we do these. I thought
I was a traveler, but I always seem to be
as podcast time.
Speaker 1 (03:09):
So yeah, we need to plan the next recording for
when you are somewhere really fascinating. Yeah, maybe someplace on
the list. Yeah all right, Well, let's dig into this
wonderfulness that you've put together. I mean it's a big one.
How did you approach this this year? What was your
mindset going into it?
Speaker 2 (03:28):
I think a couple of things that we tend to
look for when we start getting pitches in are Of course,
there's just no shortage of great places to go. Ever,
and I know that these lists can sometimes feel a
little bit random. One of the things that we really
try to filter for is like what's new in a
place or what places are really having a moment, and
(03:48):
that can be you know, one of many things. If
there's a cultural opening, or if there's something exciting happening
regarding conservation, or if there's just some big event happening
that is a reason to go specifically next year. That's
one thing that we really typically try to look for.
And then we also really you know, are looking to
get a good geographical mix, so you know, we don't
(04:10):
want to just focus a bunch of places in Europe,
but really want to try to get around the globe
and give people reasons to go, maybe back to places
that they've already been, and also consider some places in
the world that they may not have ever heard of.
And I think our list has a nice mix of
both of those.
Speaker 4 (04:25):
One hundred percent. My favorite part of making the list
and working on this, apart from when the issues just
left the building, is right at the beginning, when we
solicit pitches and we have writers and contributors all around
the world and all sorts of places and getting back
in touch with them, finding out where they are, where
they're recommending, what they're excited about. We kind of get
all these ideas in like well over one hundred, couple
(04:47):
of hundred ideas and divide them up by continent and
then have a look at them together. And it's just
really interesting to sort of take the post the travel
writer community and see what's exciting everyone, and then the
hard work of kind of narrowing it down, you know,
all a list comes in.
Speaker 3 (05:01):
Yeah, And I love that we're working with writers and
our staff who've actually been in these places with their
feet on the ground.
Speaker 5 (05:09):
Some of them are live in these places.
Speaker 3 (05:11):
So we get all these pitches and we get all
these ideas, and sometimes they are locations that surprise us
because maybe we wouldn't have thought of that, but because
that person is very familiar with that location, they're able
to give a new spin on it that we think
is really interesting and will be really interesting to travelers
as well.
Speaker 1 (05:30):
I love that. I love that there's so much knowledge
and kind of intimate experience with these places going into
the list. Tim, you mentioned it started as a pretty
big list, and this year we have twenty five destinations
on the list, which still feels like sometimes more, how
did you wind up with twenty five?
Speaker 4 (05:46):
Well, it couldn't be twenty four twenty four.
Speaker 6 (05:48):
That, No, we don't go in for that kind of
numerical puntery. Other funds are five but not rest totally.
Wait till we start talking about Bruno.
Speaker 5 (06:03):
First, obviously obviously.
Speaker 4 (06:08):
This second question you beat me too. What we're talking about?
Should we just talk about that joke? Now there's one
of the places, Yeah, go for it, and it's felt Brno,
which is obviously Bruno without the you and believe you
want to explain.
Speaker 2 (06:25):
Why that.
Speaker 3 (06:28):
Because of Encanto And so the minute it got pitched,
I just started making that terrible pun every time it
came up. I was like, let's talk about Bruno. Let's
talk about Bruno. And then I enlisted him to ask
him to repeat the joke every time he was talking
about it too, and he very gamely agreed. So here
we are, and here all the listeners get to get
(06:49):
to know the high jinks behind the scenes and my
love of puns.
Speaker 4 (06:54):
I think with the list, we did get it down
to sort of a dozen, and then and then we
kept having places that we really wanted to have in
and so it went up. Oh yeah, sort of doubled
in size, isn't it. And obviously some of them are
rounded up in thematic pieces.
Speaker 2 (07:07):
Yeah. Yeah, we started seeing some places like, for example,
Paris has the Summer Olympics going on, so it felt
like an obvious inclusion, but we also didn't want to
give it so much space in the magazine because the
Summer Olympics could be for a lot of people a
reason not to go to Paris next year, but we
didn't want to not mention it. So it became like
(07:27):
we had a few places like Bruno, che Chechia and
a bunch of others that we were really excited to feature,
but then there were some others that also just felt
like there were important enough things happening there, or they
were capitals of something like the European Capital of Culture
and whatnot that felt, you know, really interesting and important
(07:48):
to mention, but then we didn't want to give it
as much space in the print magazine.
Speaker 1 (07:53):
Yeah that makes sense. Well, you mentioned events, and that
does seem to be a bit of a theme throughout
the list. We'll talk about some in particular a little
later on. But why was that a focus and what
are you most excited about.
Speaker 5 (08:06):
I'll jump in.
Speaker 3 (08:07):
One of the big events for twenty twenty four is
the solar clips that's happening on April A. Across the
staff at AFAR, we're all seemed to be obsessed with
these eclipses.
Speaker 5 (08:15):
So that was in Texas.
Speaker 3 (08:17):
So the idea was raised by one of our colleagues,
Mah Hamilton, that Texas and the hill country in Texas
would be an ideal place to experience the eclipse coming aprillly,
so we knew we wanted to do something on that,
and then using that as an opportunity to talk about
that area of the country where there's also a lot
going on. There's a lot in the wine scene, there's
(08:37):
a lot of small towns with a lot of culture
to visit. It seemed like a great way to talk
about an event but also make it more about a
place that people could experience beyond that one day. Another
way that we were thinking about events not just go
and have the event and experience the event, but what
can we share with people about the location that that
event has taking place in.
Speaker 4 (08:58):
I think that really comes out nicely in Texas. On
the choice of photography, when I thought of that piece,
I imagine just big, wide open text and plane at night
with some stars or something obvious about the eclipse. But
actually what we've got is this lovely shot of two
girls swimming underwater at one of the swimming holes and
a truck driving through the kind of wildflower meadows. And
that's one of my favorite things about writing for a magazine, especially,
(09:21):
is when the art team bring it to life and
it just it's just amazing. I love it.
Speaker 1 (09:25):
Yeah, an unexpected look at the place. Why do you
think so many people are drawn to traveling for solar eclipses?
Speaker 2 (09:33):
It feels like a nerdy phenomenon that's still cool and
you can everyone can still appreciate the enormous power of it.
I think it's also a moment to just feel connected
with this much broader galaxy that we live in, and
to just realize that we are quite quite small. I
felt that for sure. I got to see some really
far away galaxies in a telescope, you know, very powerful telescope,
(09:57):
and just that feeling of being really small and reminded of,
you know, that we are just little dots. Kind of
an amazing feeling. I think it just brings people together.
Speaker 3 (10:05):
Yeah, and the fact that we all get to witness
it together. I think there are some really special about that.
Speaker 4 (10:11):
Astric tourism seems to be a big thing at hotels
everywhere nowadays. I mean a number of places. Someone at
a hotel, someone's rolled out a telescope and has been
an impromptu stargazing type experience. I think people are just
traveling for that all the time. So obviously the eclipse
is like the big festival, you know, dramatic version of that.
Speaker 1 (10:29):
Absolutely. Well, what else surprised you on this year's list.
Speaker 4 (10:35):
I don't want to give, but I know too much
of the limelight, And obviously Prague is the more well
known city, and great story from Emma John about just
the arts and culture and the vibe of that city
and some of the really interesting things going on there
like cabinet moots, this vegan cafe by day and banned
venue at night, Museum of Fine Arts with floating chairs
(10:58):
and as part of the exhibits, cocktail bar where you
take part in the story, and a hotel that's only
twenty six feet wide. I think in that piece she
really brought out all the sort of interesting curiosities of
that place and definitely made me want to visit, which
is obviously the point of these pieces.
Speaker 2 (11:14):
I'll say two things generally that surprised me about the list.
One is a lot of places that we chose are
places that you had I mean, of course, we do
have the Burgnos and a few others that I think
will be quite new for a lot of readers, but
we do have quite a few places that I think
people have heard of and may have traveled to before,
but we have sort of fresh reasons to visit. Two
(11:38):
examples that come to mind there are Rome, Italy and
Los Angeles, California, and both of them are pretty well
known destinations. In the case of Rome, there are a
lot of new, beautiful looking hotels that I think will
be a draw for people to come and not just
come in and try to see the coliseum and try
(11:59):
to do all of the bucket list type of things
Rome is famous for, but also just try to stay
and enjoy the city and experience a lot of the
other piece of the city that may be overlooked. There
are also a lot of archaeological sites that are being
breathed new life into and I think that that just
gives a lot of people who maybe have been to
(12:20):
Rome once before on a europe trip at some point
a reason to go back and really try to explore
the city afresh. In Los Angeles, there's a really large
black art movement that's going on there, a really large
space that's opening up, and also a ton of new
restaurants that I think a lot of our readers would
be excited to check out. And the second thing that
surprised me about our list is that a lot of
(12:42):
destinations we chose because of their sustainability and conservation commitment.
This is true for places like Fiji where a lot
of hotels have strong commitments to help preserve ocean life,
places like Norway where there's just so much green transport
and ways to get around the country, and many others
(13:04):
too that I think that really have done quite a
lot on the environment, which was one of our factors
and choosing it.
Speaker 3 (13:10):
Yeah, some of the places that we chose had a
cultural sustainability and a cultural aspect that was coming up
obviously events and festivals. But one of the places that
surprised me or that I learned something about was Saint Kitts.
The pitch came in from a writer we've worked with
Rosalinda Cummings Eats, and she had been there and met
two people who were sort of bringing back the legacy
(13:34):
of rom in Saint Kitts. Now it's in the Caribbean,
and I think people sort of widely know that there
was sugar plantations there during the various colonial eras of
those islands, and Saint Kitts had been a British colony
for a very long time where there were a lot
of plantations that were farmed by enslaved African peoples. And
recently there's this movement to reclaim that really painful and
(13:57):
complicated past, but through local residents, local coetitions they call themselves.
So there's two companies that are doing that to sort
of bring back that history and talk about it in
a new light, really re evaluating that history and sharing
what it meant to the local people who were living
there and their descendants now and I think especially in
the Caribbean where maybe people are just thinking about it
(14:20):
as a sun and beach destination, to learn that there
are points of cultural connection that are available, that was
surprising and exciting to me.
Speaker 1 (14:31):
That's so cool. And you can taste the rum, yes,
you can.
Speaker 3 (14:35):
You can go to these places. The two companies. One
is run by this guy, Jack Whittison. It's called Old
Road Rum Company. And he grew up on in a
state that was a sugar plantation and when he was
like a teenager, they are archaeologists who found the ruins
of an old distillery on it. They dated it back
to the sixteen hundreds and they think it's the oldest
rum distillery in the Caribbean. And he was like fourteen
(14:58):
when they found this, and so then he grows up
and he's like, you know what I'm going to do.
I'm going to start our own company. He's trying to
rebuild that distillery actually so that they can for the
first time long time, you know, make rum actually on
the island. But in the meantime he's blending RUMs from
the region and inviting people to the property where he
does tours and lets the taste and talks about this history.
(15:20):
So yeah, you can go, and there's a tour you
can take called the Sant Kids rum Master's Tour, so
you can go and visit the Old World Rum. And
another company called Hibiscus Spirits and Taste and learn how
to make Saint Kits Cetician cocktails and Caribbean influenced cocktails
and really hear the story and learn about the history
and a new perspective.
Speaker 1 (15:41):
Well, one of the other things that I'm hearing you say,
I think all three of you, is that you learned
so much through making this list. Is there anything in
kind of a broader sense that you feel like you
learned kind of putting this list together?
Speaker 3 (15:54):
How many places there are in the world that I
cannot wait to visit? You know, it's never ending, which
I mean, thank goodness.
Speaker 2 (16:01):
I think also we have a lot of focus on
arts and culture this year, and a lot of our
stories like Los Angeles that I had mentioned before, Saint Kits,
There's many others to Manchester, England, which Billy wrote, and
they all seem so specific their art scenes. You can
get to some things that feel like, you know, you
could be anywhere, but all of the ones that we highlight,
I feel like they seem very specific to the place,
(16:24):
which I just I love.
Speaker 1 (16:25):
That some of that really seems to come because many
of the writers who wrote pieces this year actually live
in these places or know them really well. You mentioned
Rome earlier, Sarka, and that was written by someone who
lives there and has that kind of insider knowledge.
Speaker 2 (16:40):
Right, Yeah, Laura, it's Goitz. She first moved to Rome
for a couple of years in two thousand and nine,
and now she's lived there permanently since twenty nineteen or so.
It was so clear working with her just how knowledgeable
she was. One thing I really enjoyed while working on
that story in particular, was she talks about some of
the archaeological digs and these different sites that were uncovered
(17:02):
first by Mussolini and then fell a little bit more
into disrepair and then are now being brought back. And
I almost felt like as I was reading the story,
I was getting the type of tour that she was
talking about in Rome that so many tourists don't do
because they're just focused on hitting up the coliseum, going
to the forum, then you know, booking it to the
Amalfi coast so they can take all their Instagram photos.
(17:24):
And this was just such a just even the process
of reading the story, I felt like, oh, I get
what she's talking about, and every question that I had
for her, she would just write these long paragraphs and
then say, well, if this doesn't work, then we can
try this site and she would just tell me all
about the history of that site, going back to like
Julius Caesar, and it was a little bit of a
(17:46):
European history primer that I was getting.
Speaker 1 (17:48):
You need to put that out there somewhere for listeners
to read. I also wanted to talk about sustainability. You
mentioned it earlier. Is there anything else that you want
to add about how this list was framed for a
climate conscious traveler.
Speaker 2 (18:00):
Yeah, So a couple of things that come to mind
for me and Billy and Tim please add. One is
that we do have a decent number of domestic destinations
and the list as well, so people don't have to
travel halfway around the world in order to get to
experience something magical, like we do highlight a few great
American cities, including places like Philadelphia and Seattle and Charleston
(18:25):
that are having moments right now, and other North American
cities too, like Toronto and Los Angeles. So all of
these places I think are much closer for a lot
of our readers to actually get to. So that's something
that of course, like you know, the actual act of
traveling somewhere uses a lot of the carbon and then
a lot of the hotels that we mention throughout the piece.
(18:47):
They also have really strong climate initiatives. For example, for
getting back to Rome again the sixth Senses that we
mention as one of the hotels there that's recently opened,
they actually are on one hundred percent green power. So
you know, guests can feel a little bit better about
staying at places that have such strong climate commitments, and
so you can make your trip greener growth than how
(19:08):
you get there, and then once you get there, where
you stay. Like, all of these things sort of add
up and you can have a much lighter footprint than
maybe a more traditional traveler wide.
Speaker 4 (19:17):
Yeah, I think you covered it. I mean, obviously we're
always trying to help people find lesser known, lesser touristed places,
or if they're going somewhere like Rome, to stay longer,
and I think there's plenty of ideas in their own
piece for making a longer trip supporting local businesses. I
will say, I talk about what we learned making the list.
I realized I need to see a lot more of
La which is just down the road. Obviously, Destination Crench
(19:39):
or the Black Art Project is finally opening next year,
but there's loads of small businesses in that piece I
could go and support and check out some great food options.
It's also just while we're on LA the one hundredth
anniversary of the Hollywood Sign as well, so as well
as everything new there, there's a lot of heritage obviously
to enjoy. And I went for a walk up to
(20:00):
the letters with the Hollywood Sign Trust chairman. It's very
it's very vitigenous. Hi, I'm not one for heights. He
was giving me a long story of the history of
the sign while I was kind of like holding onto
the piece of wood that used to hold up the
l for the land when it was Hollywood Land. And yeah,
some great history there. And you can walk all the
(20:20):
way out behind it and see the sign and the
city behind it. So sustainability wise, what do we miss?
Speaker 3 (20:25):
There are three locations in particular on the list that
are notable for their sustainability efforts, and those Refiji, which
Tim wrote about, and he could talk about Norway and Bhutan.
Norway it's almost, I won't say behind the scenes, but
there's a sort of a countrywide effort to honor the
beautiful nature that's there. Right obviously they have fjords and
(20:47):
beautiful water and mountains, and they know it right, but
they also know, hey.
Speaker 1 (20:52):
We have to protect this.
Speaker 3 (20:53):
So the public transportation options, they're working on hybrid electric
trains and fully electric trains. The country is phasing out
internal combustion cars, so like I think one in every
five cars is an electric vehicle. Very easy to rent that,
So the sort of day to day of your trip,
if you were traveling there could be respectful of the
(21:16):
nature that you were seeing, and we wanted to recognize that. Tim,
you want to talk about Fiji, there's a similar kind
of thing going on there.
Speaker 2 (21:24):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (21:24):
What stopped me about fijis there's obviously lots of high
end resorts there, but a lot of them are taking
ocean conservation really seriously and letting guests help with that.
So you can help plant coral, you can plant mangrove saplings,
So mangroves is obviously the kind of plant superheroes when
it comes to carbon sequestrian sequestration. How what is the
(21:47):
word then, putting going down carbon and also acting as
flood barriers and habitat. So yeah, I went there a
year ago to stay at Nanuku Resort on the south
coast of the main island Viti. Levu. Yeah, it just
met some really passionate people there who just doing lots
of great things in the ocean and on the land.
Speaker 3 (22:06):
I thought that was so cool that their resorts have
marine biologists on staff. Yeah. Yeah, it's amazing, right, not
just for sustainability but for nerdiness, Like now I want
to go to Fiji and just hang out with the
marine biologists.
Speaker 4 (22:19):
Yeah. And they're doing great work with local communities as well,
helping them come and see the project, get involved, and
they're planting these mangroves near the villages to help sort
of flood protection there rather than you know, building big
concrete walls and putting bricks down. The other thing that
struck me about Fiji is very few people go there
from the States. When I went from LA it's a
direct flight. You have to take an overnight flight both ways,
(22:41):
which is the downside. But the plus side is in
twenty twenty two, seventy thousand people went from the US
and seven point seven million went to Hawaii. So if
you're looking for somewhere with a lot of tourists and
a lot more space to enjoy all this natural beauty,
then I recommend it. I love I loved it.
Speaker 1 (23:06):
Well. We talked a little bit about events earlier. One
that really cut my eye was I think the whimsy
of it was the Kite Festival. Can you tell us
a little bit more about the Chinese city that hosts.
Speaker 4 (23:17):
It, Yeah, I Fang. I've never been there myself. I've
only been to Beijing, but it's about halfway between Beijing
and Shanghai, about four or five hours drive from each
and next year is the culture city of East Asia.
It's sort of one of the places that has a
claim to be in the birthplace of kites, but it's
definitely known as a kite capital of the world. And
they have this festival every April International Kite Festival. It
(23:40):
draws in tens of thousands of people and as you
can imagine, all the kind of colorful kites, and they
have a World Kite Museum. I don't know if you
guys flown kites. For me, it's like half an hour
of untangling and for three minutes of fun. So I
imagine it's amazing to see experts beautifully made, you know,
handbag kites. The sky is full of them.
Speaker 5 (23:59):
It does sound so cool.
Speaker 4 (24:01):
Yeah, White Fang's also Unesco creative city of craft and
folk arts, so it's not just kites. The visitors there
can earn about clay modeling for cutting, wood, block printing.
It just sounds like a very interesting creative city and
apparently has a great night food market scene as well.
Speaker 1 (24:17):
Well. I think it kind of came up naturally earlier.
But you know, because Tim, you've been to Fiji, But
have you been to any of these places recently? I mean, Billy,
I know you were just in Estonia and loved it.
Speaker 3 (24:28):
Yeah, I'm gonna say I won't bore you all with it,
but I will bore you all with it.
Speaker 5 (24:32):
I loved it.
Speaker 3 (24:34):
I loved it Estonia. I didn't know much about it.
I think most US travelers familiarity with it is Talent
in the capitol, which is a stop on Baltic cruises.
So that's the port that people go to, and they
don't really get out of that city, and that is
just a missed opportunity. The country's small, it's phenomenal, it's gorgeous.
(24:56):
You've got this beautiful UNESCO World Heritage old town in Talent,
which is gorgeous. It's like fourteenth century castles and walls
and things and then you can go two hours outside
and in a couple of national parks. I went hiking
in a bog which was like walking on snowshoes on
Imagine a carpet of peat moss, like a foot thick,
(25:20):
and it just kind of sinks slightly and you're on
converted snowshoes, so you're sort of walking on water and
it's just gorgeous. So I got to do that and
hike through a forest and you can pick your own
mushrooms because everything is like fresh and natural and all
of it. Everything's like two hours apart, and it's super modernized,
like the roads in the highways, everybody speaks English. There's
(25:41):
Wi Fi everywhere, like the country is really committed to
internet access and digital education and stuff, so it's very
easy for travelers to experience. And then in Tartu, which
is the second largest city, it's only about.
Speaker 5 (25:55):
One hundred thousand people, so it's still pretty small.
Speaker 3 (25:58):
They are one of Europe's cultural capitals for twenty twenty four,
So there we talked about events, but all year long
in twenty twenty four, they're going to be various things
that people can go and experience and get to know
that city. Which is also surprised me because you get
to the main town square and it looks like something
out of like Nice, like it looked like southern Europe.
(26:21):
It's like a cobblestone town square with a statue in
the middle and these beautiful, colorful, stately buildings around and
open air cafes everywhere and a river running through it.
So it has this very European feel that my guess
is people don't associate with that far north in Europe.
Speaker 5 (26:40):
And it was just cool.
Speaker 3 (26:41):
And so there's all this like very sort of classical
europe feeling stuff, but there's also leftover Soviet era relics
and that was really interesting to see. I had a blast.
I've met so many cool people and I can't recommend
it enough.
Speaker 4 (26:55):
Go to Estonia, Billy, What makes you want to go
there in the first place.
Speaker 3 (26:59):
I'd read an article in BBC Travel where a writer
had interviewed this man who lives in the area where
they do the bog hiking, and I think the writer
hadn't even gone because it during the pandemic.
Speaker 5 (27:12):
But you can cut all this out Acelin, but.
Speaker 3 (27:15):
There is in this region of Estonia where it's all bogs,
like it's all marshes and stuff. They have what they
call a fifth season that happens in March when all
the snow melt from the surrounding areas. There's no real
mountains in Estonia, but there's a lot of rivers, so
from the surrounding areas floods these rivers, and every couple
(27:36):
of years like cars sink, you know, like the water
rays is really high, and everybody has to get around
on canoes. And I just thought that sounded so interesting,
and it was such an interesting climate story. It was
such an interesting cultural adaptation story, and I just thought
it was fascinating. So I was like, well, I want
(27:58):
to go there. And then the rest of the trip happened,
and then I got to meet that man who does
the canoeing in the box.
Speaker 5 (28:04):
He's the one who took me hiking.
Speaker 3 (28:05):
So you never know, people read our stories and then
years later they go to these places. And then it
turned out because Tartu was going to be the one
of the twenty twenty four European Capitals of Culture, it
was like, okay, well now it's there's a moment happening.
How is this country going to embrace that and show
off you know, their arts and culture.
Speaker 5 (28:24):
Scenes for the rest of the world. Was that true?
Speaker 2 (28:27):
Man? That is one thing I just love about our
list in general is just hopefully, even if people aren't
able to go this year, it just plants a seed
somewhere that hey, this is the place that I never
really thought of before, and hopefully one day when I'm
able to go somewhere that this may be someone on
my list. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (28:46):
Absolutely, It's something that you kind of save, right like
you saved this version of the magazine or bookmark the
article online and hopefully use it as inspiration for years
to come.
Speaker 2 (28:56):
I was just thinking the destinations I wrote about, which
is La mu Kenya, I think is hopefully going to
be that for a lot of people, because I think
many people who come to Africa for the first time
the continent of Africa, which contains fifty four countries that
they do typically go on safari to experience Africa's wild places,
which are incredible, and I totally understand that. At the
(29:19):
same time, there is so much more to the continent
than animals and wild places. There's also just incredible cities,
and in this case, the one that I've wrote about,
this island with a really very unique and well preserved
Swahili culture, which is this blend of Bantu like East
African culture combined with Arabic and Persian and some European
(29:43):
and Indian and Chinese cultures that have sort of made
this melting pot. And it's very you know, you wouldn't
be able to find this architecture in many other places
or a lot of other cultural facets that are very
well preserved. Again, Lamu Town, which is the main town
on the island, is also a UNESCO World Heritage Site
for that reason, and I think anyone who is planning
(30:06):
a trip to the continent, I feel like it's it's
also really worth going to places like this.
Speaker 1 (30:12):
How far is it from you where you live.
Speaker 2 (30:14):
It's about an hour flight flying is the best way
to get there, and that's from Nairobi, and there's direct flights,
and there's gorgeous hotels and guesthouses to stay at. Like truly,
you just feel like you're in a photo shoot all day.
Then the really anique thing about the island is that
there's no cars, so and there's not really like any
like street signs or anything, so you just kind of
(30:36):
walk around and there's there's this they're like meandering alleys
and you kind of find your way, you know. That's
the thing, Like you will get lost at some point,
but then you'll be like, oh, yeah, I recognize that,
I recognize that tree, or I recognize that donkey. There's
a lot of donkeys there, and you sort of sort
of just like find your way again.
Speaker 1 (30:54):
I mean, there's so few opportunities to get lost anymore.
I love that.
Speaker 2 (30:57):
But still feel safe, you know, it's like you're you
feel like you're still contained with this a small place,
like you really can't go very far. The donkey will
take you, donkey will feel yeah, in distinct There actually
is like a donkey rehabilitation site on the island as well.
Go and visit and see just you know, three like
(31:17):
a donkeys that are being rehabilitated and all sorts of
other things. It's pretty cool. So another African destination that
we've mentioned in our list is another city on the
other side of Africa, Tan Tier, Morocco, which is in
the very very far north of Morocco. I ended up
learning a lot about the colonial history of the city
and it used to be considered part of an international
(31:40):
zone and it was managed by consortium of other countries,
including like Italy and Spain, so it wasn't really considered
part of Morocco for a long time, and it has
a bit of an international edge to it. Now the
city is becoming a lot more connected to its Moroccan identity.
There's a lot of really creative Moroccans who are doing
(32:00):
amazing things, like they're running restaurants and cultural programs and
shops that are selling different types of home goods and
beauty products that are all Moroccan led companies, and a
lot of them are also run by young women. So
I think it's a really cool way to experience a
city that has historically had this international, very also very
(32:21):
artsy edge to it, but now that artsyness is being
led by a lot of creative young Moroccans. So it
seems like a place that I would be really excited
to go and kind of see both all Tangier and
the New Tangier combined.
Speaker 1 (32:35):
Yeah, there are so many great cities on this list
this year. Are there any that you feel like we
didn't talk about that we should.
Speaker 4 (32:42):
Yeah, I'll give a pitch for San Diego. It's in
our list along with Tijuana. The two cities on both
sides of the border are the World Design Capital twenty
twenty four cities lots of design focused events and lots
of great architecture to see there, which is you know,
people think of San Diego and just beaches and tacos,
and obviously there's a huge city and there's lots to
(33:02):
sea in that regard, and I was there i think
earlier this year, driving an EV around for an EV
road trip for digital article, and so it's very easy
to fly in and rent an eving and not have
to have a gas power car. And some of the
design things are happening up in La Joya, which is
this lovely neighborhood north of the city on the cliffs.
(33:23):
You can go see kayaking in the caves. There's leopard
sharks in the waters and bright orange caralbody fish and
snorkeling and it's just beautiful, beautiful place. So it's hard
to recommend.
Speaker 3 (33:35):
That I give a shout out to Philadelphia.
Speaker 5 (33:38):
We put that in. We're all pretty excited.
Speaker 3 (33:40):
About Philadelphia this year. People know Philadelphia. Obviously it's a
place for American history. Castitution was written there, but the
food scene is just on fire. It won more James
Beard Awards in twenty twenty three than any other city
for the chefs and restaurants, and they're diverse and just
so so interesting and varied, and it's a great reason
(34:04):
to rethink and revisit that city this year. Plus, the
arts scene has always been great, and there's amazing institutions
of art like the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the
Barnes Foundation. But also the gallery scene has long been
thriving and.
Speaker 5 (34:17):
It still is.
Speaker 3 (34:18):
They still do a First Friday every month where the
galleryes stay open that's actually expanded. It's near New York,
so I've been there a lot, so I'm very excited.
Speaker 4 (34:26):
You know, when you said it has more James Beard
Award winners, I was reaching for the handclapping emoji to
pop up on the I think I've spent too much
time on Microsoft teams.
Speaker 2 (34:36):
I'll also give a shout to Toronto, which is I
did not know this that it is by many measures
the most diverse city in the world, even more so
than New York City and London. There are upwards of
one hundred and eighty languages spoken there and just this year.
One of the reasons why it became included on our
list this year is because they elected their first mayor
(34:58):
who's a woman of color, Olivia Chow, who has talked
a lot about diversity. And the piece takes you through
several of the neighborhoods where you can go to a
little to and have momos. You can go to Koreatown
and go, you know, seeing karaoke there. You can go
to a neighborhood where there's a lot of Somali people
and there's also similar to Philadelphia, there are also some
(35:21):
more high end gastronomical experiences to have, and also just
a lot of cultural events happening throughout the year. The
Caribbean Festival in August draws us I think a million people,
and then there's a Contemporary Arts night in October that's
an all night affair and just brings in Torontonians from
all stripes.
Speaker 1 (35:38):
Amazing, and we're going as a company in March. I'm
so excited.
Speaker 2 (35:42):
I know, I've actually, like, you know, I feel like
the entire essay for that is basically just like my
to do list of all the different restaurants, neighborhoods, taking
it to check off.
Speaker 3 (35:52):
It is we have much more to eat than we
have time for.
Speaker 1 (35:56):
Unless we can extend or come early now.
Speaker 5 (35:59):
Thus do all our things at the rest of lash first.
Speaker 2 (36:02):
Dinner or second dinner.
Speaker 4 (36:03):
Yeah, we had a great run of digital stories on
Toronto earlier this year as well. So you look at
the Toronto Guide on the website. We do this thing
with My Perfect Day and it's a local runs us
through how they'd spend a perfect day and won by
Tiffany Ramsubic, who runs Owed, which is Towanso's only black
(36:24):
owned boutique hotel. We've got a lot to do. We're
going to need some extra time because we don't want
to just be in meetings.
Speaker 1 (36:30):
No, the meetings should be in the restaurants. I think, well,
we've talked a lot about these urban destinations, arts and culture.
What about people who like to travel for nature or
to be outside.
Speaker 2 (36:41):
Billy had briefly mentioned Bhutan. I think that Bhutan is
an amazing country. I have not been myself, but Kathleen
Rellahan she went last year and was one of the
first people to hike the newly restored trans Bhutan trail
that fell into disrepair in the sixties and just reopened
last year and now just this year Bhutan is lowered.
(37:02):
It's always had a tourist tax, so that covers, you know,
various things like lodging and a guy and whatnot. It's
recently lowered the tourist text to now one hundred dollars
a day in order to spur more tourism. And there's
also a lot of new hotels that have opened, as
well as the Transbutant Trail. So the Transbutan Trail goes
through the Boutanese countryside and you get to pass both
(37:25):
the stupas and temples and all types of small towns
and villages that were previously pretty much off limits entirely
to foreigners. So lots of really cool reasons to visit Bhutan.
It's also hugely conservation minded, so sixty percent of the
country must be under forest cover, and it's the first
carbon negative country in the world, so that's another cool
(37:48):
reason to visit. See how they did it.
Speaker 6 (37:50):
Absolutely, yes, yes, we were all ready regular the clapping
hands of thank you.
Speaker 2 (38:00):
One of our roundups that we have in the book
is classic spots that are potentially worth a revisit. One
of them is Machu Picchu, which is Peru's most popular
destination with good reason. I mean, Machu Picchu is a
brilliant feat of Incan engineering. The Sacred Valley, though more generally,
is just it's one of the prettiest places in the
(38:24):
world in my opinion, and Intrepid Tours has recently opened
up a new hike that takes people to be able
to see Machu Picchu but also see lesser visited sides
of the Sacred Valley. So it's called the Quarry Trail,
and they're able to visit older Incan towns and also
just see some waterfalls and some other sites that were
(38:46):
previously a bit more off limits. So definitely, I love
the idea of revisiting a classic destination, but with a
bit of a twist on it.
Speaker 4 (38:54):
I would say, if you like your outdoors with a
glass of wine, then head to Uruguay. This year we
had a lovely piece from Julia Buckley who wrote about
this region called Maldonado. It's a coastal region. I think
it's the next one along from montevide and kind of
notice but anyway, it's very much the up and coming
wine region of the country. And there's a Somelia there
(39:15):
who's worked on a Mappa Delvino, which is a map
of all of the boutique vineyards in Uruguay, so you
can follow that trail and it just looks beautiful land
of al fresco food tastings and great red red wines.
And yeah, definitely added that to my list after working
on that piece.
Speaker 1 (39:32):
Well, I'd love to just pivot a little bit more
broadly to kind of where we're traveling next year, how
we're traveling. You know, twenty twenty three, with such a
busy travel year, do you have any predictions for twenty
twenty four.
Speaker 5 (39:44):
It's still going to be busy. That's not going away
anytime soon. But don't let that stop you.
Speaker 3 (39:50):
I think that's one of the messages of our list
to you know, look to places off the mainstream path
for example, you know in Europe, Estonia and Bruno. In Africa,
Lamu and Tangier, and then also rethink places that may
be familiar to you, like a World or Toronto. There's
a actually there's another layer that we're trying to bring
(40:11):
to the surface. So maybe that will that will help
people avoid the goat track of the main masses of tourism.
Speaker 4 (40:19):
Yeah, the busy places are just going to get busy
and climate will obviously play part, so be prepared for that.
In certain places, try and go shoulder season where you can.
You know, the pandemic was a big reminder that you
never know what's around the corner, so travel where you
can make the most of it, and that kitchen extension
on Newcock can wait and you get out there to
(40:40):
see the world.
Speaker 1 (40:41):
Book your travel insurance. We'll link to our episode about
that well. I'd love to end this conversation with where
you are planning to go this year? Where you want
to go. It could be places on the list, it
could be other trips that you have planned. Where are
you editors going?
Speaker 2 (40:56):
In part inspired by not our list, but a future
story in our previous issue, our Epic Trips issue Over
the Holidays, I'm going with my family to Oman, which
I'm really excited about. I'd know a bit about it,
but didn't really know just how diverse it was in
terms of the types of things that you can do there,
from snorkeling or scuba diving, to mountain climbing to visiting
(41:21):
the desert to of course like spending time in cities
and eating lots of delicious Middle Eastern food. So I'm
really excited to be able to do all of that,
and definitely was also additionally inspired by our future story,
which is absolutely gorgeous. The photographs as well, are just
breath taking. Some of these waddies, which are these big gorges,
(41:42):
very sand colored and then they have bright turquoise blue
water running through them. They just look like they're, i
don't know, out of a movie set or something like that.
They don't even look real well.
Speaker 1 (41:52):
Link to that story as well, because it's such a
good one.
Speaker 5 (41:56):
It is one of my favorite.
Speaker 2 (41:57):
Yeah, yeah, I should say the writing is amazing and
the photographs are just kind of add to it even
more so it's just like on both sides of it,
you're just like, Wow, this place is just other worlds.
Speaker 1 (42:07):
Got to go Philly. How about you? What's your list
look like this year?
Speaker 3 (42:12):
I'm heading to Kenya in February, so yeah, visits Tarca
and then see if I can also get to allow
move from our list. And I often will travel for
music or a like one random event, so Burno's on
my list. They have that free music festival in August
and cool and Manchester has a bunch of stuff going
(42:33):
on because they have also we were talking about arts
and culture, have opened several venues, including the UK's largest
entertainment basically concert venue is purpose built for music, and
so there's concerts there I want to see and I've
already got a couple on my list, including the citywide
what's it called. It's called the City of Floating Sounds
(42:55):
and it's an interactive symphony project where there's music throughout
the city of Manchester and then it'll guide you through
it and then back to this new theater space called
the Viva Studios at Factory International, which just opened this year,
and the reasons that the city's on our list and
then it'll end up there. So that's in June and
I want to go back for that.
Speaker 1 (43:15):
Oh my gosh, Yeah that sounds I want to go to.
Speaker 3 (43:19):
Come on second Company meeting.
Speaker 1 (43:21):
Yeah, I wish.
Speaker 4 (43:24):
I love your Manchester Peace, Billy how Obviously the city's
so well known for its music scene, but there's so
much more happening nowadays that people maybe not be aware of.
Speaker 3 (43:33):
Yeah, yeah, and that was one of the reasons I
went because it had that music history, but I was
just floored by how much more there is, including amazing libraries,
but that's another episode.
Speaker 1 (43:44):
Tim, Where will you be podcasting from the next.
Speaker 4 (43:47):
Time, I'll be back in my office at home. My
travel calendar is looking quite light, considering I've been working
on this feature. I'm going to Palm Springs in January
and we have the trip to Toronto. But other than that,
I'm looking at a blank slate that's filling up with
other things, so I need to get the travels slotted in.
I'd love to go to Peru. I think there's a
direct flight from la and the idea of doing a
(44:07):
trail like the Quarry Trail really.
Speaker 1 (44:09):
So yeah, we shall see. Would you take your kids?
Do you think? Are they still too young?
Speaker 5 (44:17):
Very quick?
Speaker 1 (44:20):
No, not even a moment of hiking.
Speaker 4 (44:23):
And four year olds.
Speaker 1 (44:25):
It doesn't sound fun to you.
Speaker 4 (44:27):
We were going to We'll go back to England in
the summer, but we just bounced it back to the
next Christmas now and then.
Speaker 1 (44:33):
Wow, I'm not looking for I look forward to seeing
how your slate fills up. Well, thank you so much.
I mean, the list is phenomenal. The work that you
did is really incredible, So thank you and thanks. I
feel very inspired to go to all twenty five and
twenty four. I think that's doable.
Speaker 3 (44:51):
Right, where do you want to golett, I know what's
on your list?
Speaker 1 (44:55):
Well, all of them. I mean Manchester the music aspect
sounds wonderful, Toronto is obvious, we're going to do that
as a company, and then I don't know. I feel
like Kenya would probably be the first one that I
would pick if I were just to go anywhere tomorrow.
Speaker 2 (45:11):
That means welcome to Kenya.
Speaker 1 (45:12):
Yeah, that's right. Yes for this power when you come. No,
that's okay, I appreciate that. I'll just bring my solar charger. Hey,
it's Acelin again. If you enjoyed the episode and want
to hear more stories like this, follow Unpacked by Afar
on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite listening app.
Pushkin. Hey, they're not lost, listeners. It's Acelin Green, host
of the acclaimed weekly podcast series Unpacked by AFAR, the
podcast that helps you navigate the travel world, whether you
want advice on an ethical dilemma or just to figure
out where to travel next. This season Unpacked, I'm speaking
(00:38):
with seasoned travelers and industry professionals to unpack the most
captivating and challenging topics in the travel industry, one conversation
at a time. Today, I am thrilled to share a
special episode of Unpacked with you. It's a roundtable discussion
examining the twenty five most exciting places around the world
to visit in twenty twenty four. Featuring myself and AFAR
(01:00):
editors Saraka Bunsel, Tim Chester and Billy Cohen. We chat
about everything from the sites to see in Rome that
are beyond your normal tourist activities, reasons why travelers visiting
Africa for the first time should go to Lamu Kenya,
and the best destinations to view twenty twenty four solar eclipse.
Needless to say, Unpacked is the perfect companion podcast and
(01:21):
not lost, especially if you're looking for another podcast that
dives into the heart of travel, so make sure to
follow Unpacked on your favorite podcast app. With that said,
here's the show. Hi everyone, Welcome to Unpacked. Welcome back
to Unpacked.
Speaker 2 (01:38):
Thanks so much for tulling us. We're just so excited
to be here to talk about where to go.
Speaker 1 (01:42):
I know and you are fresh off making this list happen.
Speaker 3 (01:46):
It's burned into our brains. We're all very excited for
twenty twenty four to happen so we can start taking
these trips we've been writing and editing about for months.
Speaker 1 (01:53):
Before we start talking about the list, I'd love to
just start with having everyone introduce themselves and say where
they are in the world. Sarka, do you want to start?
Speaker 2 (02:02):
Hi? I'm Saraka bunsel I am the editorial director. I'm
based in Nairobi, Kenya. There's been a country wide power
outage of the last twenty four plus hours now, so
I have a bit of a cobbled setup right now.
Luckily we do have like a good solar power backup
and everything, but but I feel very like I'm glad
(02:23):
I'm here by the string of my teeth.
Speaker 1 (02:26):
It is very impressive that you're here given all of that.
Thank you. And Billy hop at you.
Speaker 2 (02:33):
Hi.
Speaker 3 (02:33):
I'm Billy Cohen, executive editor, and I'm based in New
York and you have power and we have power.
Speaker 1 (02:40):
Yeah it's not too.
Speaker 3 (02:41):
Yeah, yeah, if it is not summer right where everything?
There are a ton of brownets in the city. But yeah,
seems to be doing okay. We have construction though, So
if you hear any of that out out of my
back window, that's what that will be.
Speaker 1 (02:54):
And Tim, that leaves you.
Speaker 4 (02:56):
Hi, I'm Tim Chester, I'm deputy editor. I'm in a
very sunny power field southern California, thousand Oaks near LA
where I always am when we do these. I thought
I was a traveler, but I always seem to be
as podcast time.
Speaker 1 (03:09):
So yeah, we need to plan the next recording for
when you are somewhere really fascinating. Yeah, maybe someplace on
the list. Yeah all right, Well, let's dig into this
wonderfulness that you've put together. I mean it's a big one.
How did you approach this this year? What was your
mindset going into it?
Speaker 2 (03:28):
I think a couple of things that we tend to
look for when we start getting pitches in are Of course,
there's just no shortage of great places to go. Ever,
and I know that these lists can sometimes feel a
little bit random. One of the things that we really
try to filter for is like what's new in a
place or what places are really having a moment, and
(03:48):
that can be you know, one of many things. If
there's a cultural opening, or if there's something exciting happening
regarding conservation, or if there's just some big event happening
that is a reason to go specifically next year. That's
one thing that we really typically try to look for.
And then we also really you know, are looking to
get a good geographical mix, so you know, we don't
(04:10):
want to just focus a bunch of places in Europe,
but really want to try to get around the globe
and give people reasons to go, maybe back to places
that they've already been, and also consider some places in
the world that they may not have ever heard of.
And I think our list has a nice mix of
both of those.
Speaker 4 (04:25):
One hundred percent. My favorite part of making the list
and working on this, apart from when the issues just
left the building, is right at the beginning, when we
solicit pitches and we have writers and contributors all around
the world and all sorts of places and getting back
in touch with them, finding out where they are, where
they're recommending, what they're excited about. We kind of get
all these ideas in like well over one hundred, couple
(04:47):
of hundred ideas and divide them up by continent and
then have a look at them together. And it's just
really interesting to sort of take the post the travel
writer community and see what's exciting everyone, and then the
hard work of kind of narrowing it down, you know,
all a list comes in.
Speaker 3 (05:01):
Yeah, And I love that we're working with writers and
our staff who've actually been in these places with their
feet on the ground.
Speaker 5 (05:09):
Some of them are live in these places.
Speaker 3 (05:11):
So we get all these pitches and we get all
these ideas, and sometimes they are locations that surprise us
because maybe we wouldn't have thought of that, but because
that person is very familiar with that location, they're able
to give a new spin on it that we think
is really interesting and will be really interesting to travelers
as well.
Speaker 1 (05:30):
I love that. I love that there's so much knowledge
and kind of intimate experience with these places going into
the list. Tim, you mentioned it started as a pretty
big list, and this year we have twenty five destinations
on the list, which still feels like sometimes more, how
did you wind up with twenty five?
Speaker 4 (05:46):
Well, it couldn't be twenty four twenty four.
Speaker 6 (05:48):
That, No, we don't go in for that kind of
numerical puntery. Other funds are five but not rest totally.
Wait till we start talking about Bruno.
Speaker 5 (06:03):
First, obviously obviously.
Speaker 4 (06:08):
This second question you beat me too. What we're talking about?
Should we just talk about that joke? Now there's one
of the places, Yeah, go for it, and it's felt Brno,
which is obviously Bruno without the you and believe you
want to explain.
Speaker 2 (06:25):
Why that.
Speaker 3 (06:28):
Because of Encanto And so the minute it got pitched,
I just started making that terrible pun every time it
came up. I was like, let's talk about Bruno. Let's
talk about Bruno. And then I enlisted him to ask
him to repeat the joke every time he was talking
about it too, and he very gamely agreed. So here
we are, and here all the listeners get to get
(06:49):
to know the high jinks behind the scenes and my
love of puns.
Speaker 4 (06:54):
I think with the list, we did get it down
to sort of a dozen, and then and then we
kept having places that we really wanted to have in
and so it went up. Oh yeah, sort of doubled
in size, isn't it. And obviously some of them are
rounded up in thematic pieces.
Speaker 2 (07:07):
Yeah. Yeah, we started seeing some places like, for example,
Paris has the Summer Olympics going on, so it felt
like an obvious inclusion, but we also didn't want to
give it so much space in the magazine because the
Summer Olympics could be for a lot of people a
reason not to go to Paris next year, but we
didn't want to not mention it. So it became like
(07:27):
we had a few places like Bruno, che Chechia and
a bunch of others that we were really excited to feature,
but then there were some others that also just felt
like there were important enough things happening there, or they
were capitals of something like the European Capital of Culture
and whatnot that felt, you know, really interesting and important
(07:48):
to mention, but then we didn't want to give it
as much space in the print magazine.
Speaker 1 (07:53):
Yeah that makes sense. Well, you mentioned events, and that
does seem to be a bit of a theme throughout
the list. We'll talk about some in particular a little
later on. But why was that a focus and what
are you most excited about.
Speaker 5 (08:06):
I'll jump in.
Speaker 3 (08:07):
One of the big events for twenty twenty four is
the solar clips that's happening on April A. Across the
staff at AFAR, we're all seemed to be obsessed with
these eclipses.
Speaker 5 (08:15):
So that was in Texas.
Speaker 3 (08:17):
So the idea was raised by one of our colleagues,
Mah Hamilton, that Texas and the hill country in Texas
would be an ideal place to experience the eclipse coming aprillly,
so we knew we wanted to do something on that,
and then using that as an opportunity to talk about
that area of the country where there's also a lot
going on. There's a lot in the wine scene, there's
(08:37):
a lot of small towns with a lot of culture
to visit. It seemed like a great way to talk
about an event but also make it more about a
place that people could experience beyond that one day. Another
way that we were thinking about events not just go
and have the event and experience the event, but what
can we share with people about the location that that
event has taking place in.
Speaker 4 (08:58):
I think that really comes out nicely in Texas. On
the choice of photography, when I thought of that piece,
I imagine just big, wide open text and plane at night
with some stars or something obvious about the eclipse. But
actually what we've got is this lovely shot of two
girls swimming underwater at one of the swimming holes and
a truck driving through the kind of wildflower meadows. And
that's one of my favorite things about writing for a magazine, especially,
(09:21):
is when the art team bring it to life and
it just it's just amazing. I love it.
Speaker 1 (09:25):
Yeah, an unexpected look at the place. Why do you
think so many people are drawn to traveling for solar eclipses?
Speaker 2 (09:33):
It feels like a nerdy phenomenon that's still cool and
you can everyone can still appreciate the enormous power of it.
I think it's also a moment to just feel connected
with this much broader galaxy that we live in, and
to just realize that we are quite quite small. I
felt that for sure. I got to see some really
far away galaxies in a telescope, you know, very powerful telescope,
(09:57):
and just that feeling of being really small and reminded of,
you know, that we are just little dots. Kind of
an amazing feeling. I think it just brings people together.
Speaker 3 (10:05):
Yeah, and the fact that we all get to witness
it together. I think there are some really special about that.
Speaker 4 (10:11):
Astric tourism seems to be a big thing at hotels
everywhere nowadays. I mean a number of places. Someone at
a hotel, someone's rolled out a telescope and has been
an impromptu stargazing type experience. I think people are just
traveling for that all the time. So obviously the eclipse
is like the big festival, you know, dramatic version of that.
Speaker 1 (10:29):
Absolutely. Well, what else surprised you on this year's list.
Speaker 4 (10:35):
I don't want to give, but I know too much
of the limelight, And obviously Prague is the more well
known city, and great story from Emma John about just
the arts and culture and the vibe of that city
and some of the really interesting things going on there
like cabinet moots, this vegan cafe by day and banned
venue at night, Museum of Fine Arts with floating chairs
(10:58):
and as part of the exhibits, cocktail bar where you
take part in the story, and a hotel that's only
twenty six feet wide. I think in that piece she
really brought out all the sort of interesting curiosities of
that place and definitely made me want to visit, which
is obviously the point of these pieces.
Speaker 2 (11:14):
I'll say two things generally that surprised me about the list.
One is a lot of places that we chose are
places that you had I mean, of course, we do
have the Burgnos and a few others that I think
will be quite new for a lot of readers, but
we do have quite a few places that I think
people have heard of and may have traveled to before,
but we have sort of fresh reasons to visit. Two
(11:38):
examples that come to mind there are Rome, Italy and
Los Angeles, California, and both of them are pretty well
known destinations. In the case of Rome, there are a
lot of new, beautiful looking hotels that I think will
be a draw for people to come and not just
come in and try to see the coliseum and try
(11:59):
to do all of the bucket list type of things
Rome is famous for, but also just try to stay
and enjoy the city and experience a lot of the
other piece of the city that may be overlooked. There
are also a lot of archaeological sites that are being
breathed new life into and I think that that just
gives a lot of people who maybe have been to
(12:20):
Rome once before on a europe trip at some point
a reason to go back and really try to explore
the city afresh. In Los Angeles, there's a really large
black art movement that's going on there, a really large
space that's opening up, and also a ton of new
restaurants that I think a lot of our readers would
be excited to check out. And the second thing that
surprised me about our list is that a lot of
(12:42):
destinations we chose because of their sustainability and conservation commitment.
This is true for places like Fiji where a lot
of hotels have strong commitments to help preserve ocean life,
places like Norway where there's just so much green transport
and ways to get around the country, and many others
(13:04):
too that I think that really have done quite a
lot on the environment, which was one of our factors
and choosing it.
Speaker 3 (13:10):
Yeah, some of the places that we chose had a
cultural sustainability and a cultural aspect that was coming up
obviously events and festivals. But one of the places that
surprised me or that I learned something about was Saint Kitts.
The pitch came in from a writer we've worked with
Rosalinda Cummings Eats, and she had been there and met
two people who were sort of bringing back the legacy
(13:34):
of rom in Saint Kitts. Now it's in the Caribbean,
and I think people sort of widely know that there
was sugar plantations there during the various colonial eras of
those islands, and Saint Kitts had been a British colony
for a very long time where there were a lot
of plantations that were farmed by enslaved African peoples. And
recently there's this movement to reclaim that really painful and
(13:57):
complicated past, but through local residents, local coetitions they call themselves.
So there's two companies that are doing that to sort
of bring back that history and talk about it in
a new light, really re evaluating that history and sharing
what it meant to the local people who were living
there and their descendants now and I think especially in
the Caribbean where maybe people are just thinking about it
(14:20):
as a sun and beach destination, to learn that there
are points of cultural connection that are available, that was
surprising and exciting to me.
Speaker 1 (14:31):
That's so cool. And you can taste the rum, yes,
you can.
Speaker 3 (14:35):
You can go to these places. The two companies. One
is run by this guy, Jack Whittison. It's called Old
Road Rum Company. And he grew up on in a
state that was a sugar plantation and when he was
like a teenager, they are archaeologists who found the ruins
of an old distillery on it. They dated it back
to the sixteen hundreds and they think it's the oldest
rum distillery in the Caribbean. And he was like fourteen
(14:58):
when they found this, and so then he grows up
and he's like, you know what I'm going to do.
I'm going to start our own company. He's trying to
rebuild that distillery actually so that they can for the
first time long time, you know, make rum actually on
the island. But in the meantime he's blending RUMs from
the region and inviting people to the property where he
does tours and lets the taste and talks about this history.
(15:20):
So yeah, you can go, and there's a tour you
can take called the Sant Kids rum Master's Tour, so
you can go and visit the Old World Rum. And
another company called Hibiscus Spirits and Taste and learn how
to make Saint Kits Cetician cocktails and Caribbean influenced cocktails
and really hear the story and learn about the history
and a new perspective.
Speaker 1 (15:41):
Well, one of the other things that I'm hearing you say,
I think all three of you, is that you learned
so much through making this list. Is there anything in
kind of a broader sense that you feel like you
learned kind of putting this list together?
Speaker 3 (15:54):
How many places there are in the world that I
cannot wait to visit? You know, it's never ending, which
I mean, thank goodness.
Speaker 2 (16:01):
I think also we have a lot of focus on
arts and culture this year, and a lot of our
stories like Los Angeles that I had mentioned before, Saint Kits,
There's many others to Manchester, England, which Billy wrote, and
they all seem so specific their art scenes. You can
get to some things that feel like, you know, you
could be anywhere, but all of the ones that we highlight,
I feel like they seem very specific to the place,
(16:24):
which I just I love.
Speaker 1 (16:25):
That some of that really seems to come because many
of the writers who wrote pieces this year actually live
in these places or know them really well. You mentioned
Rome earlier, Sarka, and that was written by someone who
lives there and has that kind of insider knowledge.
Speaker 2 (16:40):
Right, Yeah, Laura, it's Goitz. She first moved to Rome
for a couple of years in two thousand and nine,
and now she's lived there permanently since twenty nineteen or so.
It was so clear working with her just how knowledgeable
she was. One thing I really enjoyed while working on
that story in particular, was she talks about some of
the archaeological digs and these different sites that were uncovered
(17:02):
first by Mussolini and then fell a little bit more
into disrepair and then are now being brought back. And
I almost felt like as I was reading the story,
I was getting the type of tour that she was
talking about in Rome that so many tourists don't do
because they're just focused on hitting up the coliseum, going
to the forum, then you know, booking it to the
Amalfi coast so they can take all their Instagram photos.
(17:24):
And this was just such a just even the process
of reading the story, I felt like, oh, I get
what she's talking about, and every question that I had
for her, she would just write these long paragraphs and
then say, well, if this doesn't work, then we can
try this site and she would just tell me all
about the history of that site, going back to like
Julius Caesar, and it was a little bit of a
(17:46):
European history primer that I was getting.
Speaker 1 (17:48):
You need to put that out there somewhere for listeners
to read. I also wanted to talk about sustainability. You
mentioned it earlier. Is there anything else that you want
to add about how this list was framed for a
climate conscious traveler.
Speaker 2 (18:00):
Yeah, So a couple of things that come to mind
for me and Billy and Tim please add. One is
that we do have a decent number of domestic destinations
and the list as well, so people don't have to
travel halfway around the world in order to get to
experience something magical, like we do highlight a few great
American cities, including places like Philadelphia and Seattle and Charleston
(18:25):
that are having moments right now, and other North American
cities too, like Toronto and Los Angeles. So all of
these places I think are much closer for a lot
of our readers to actually get to. So that's something
that of course, like you know, the actual act of
traveling somewhere uses a lot of the carbon and then
a lot of the hotels that we mention throughout the piece.
(18:47):
They also have really strong climate initiatives. For example, for
getting back to Rome again the sixth Senses that we
mention as one of the hotels there that's recently opened,
they actually are on one hundred percent green power. So
you know, guests can feel a little bit better about
staying at places that have such strong climate commitments, and
so you can make your trip greener growth than how
(19:08):
you get there, and then once you get there, where
you stay. Like, all of these things sort of add
up and you can have a much lighter footprint than
maybe a more traditional traveler wide.
Speaker 4 (19:17):
Yeah, I think you covered it. I mean, obviously we're
always trying to help people find lesser known, lesser touristed places,
or if they're going somewhere like Rome, to stay longer,
and I think there's plenty of ideas in their own
piece for making a longer trip supporting local businesses. I
will say, I talk about what we learned making the list.
I realized I need to see a lot more of
La which is just down the road. Obviously, Destination Crench
(19:39):
or the Black Art Project is finally opening next year,
but there's loads of small businesses in that piece I
could go and support and check out some great food options.
It's also just while we're on LA the one hundredth
anniversary of the Hollywood Sign as well, so as well
as everything new there, there's a lot of heritage obviously
to enjoy. And I went for a walk up to
(20:00):
the letters with the Hollywood Sign Trust chairman. It's very
it's very vitigenous. Hi, I'm not one for heights. He
was giving me a long story of the history of
the sign while I was kind of like holding onto
the piece of wood that used to hold up the
l for the land when it was Hollywood Land. And yeah,
some great history there. And you can walk all the
(20:20):
way out behind it and see the sign and the
city behind it. So sustainability wise, what do we miss?
Speaker 3 (20:25):
There are three locations in particular on the list that
are notable for their sustainability efforts, and those Refiji, which
Tim wrote about, and he could talk about Norway and Bhutan.
Norway it's almost, I won't say behind the scenes, but
there's a sort of a countrywide effort to honor the
beautiful nature that's there. Right obviously they have fjords and
(20:47):
beautiful water and mountains, and they know it right, but
they also know, hey.
Speaker 1 (20:52):
We have to protect this.
Speaker 3 (20:53):
So the public transportation options, they're working on hybrid electric
trains and fully electric trains. The country is phasing out
internal combustion cars, so like I think one in every
five cars is an electric vehicle. Very easy to rent that,
So the sort of day to day of your trip,
if you were traveling there could be respectful of the
(21:16):
nature that you were seeing, and we wanted to recognize that. Tim,
you want to talk about Fiji, there's a similar kind
of thing going on there.
Speaker 2 (21:24):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (21:24):
What stopped me about fijis there's obviously lots of high
end resorts there, but a lot of them are taking
ocean conservation really seriously and letting guests help with that.
So you can help plant coral, you can plant mangrove saplings,
So mangroves is obviously the kind of plant superheroes when
it comes to carbon sequestrian sequestration. How what is the
(21:47):
word then, putting going down carbon and also acting as
flood barriers and habitat. So yeah, I went there a
year ago to stay at Nanuku Resort on the south
coast of the main island Viti. Levu. Yeah, it just
met some really passionate people there who just doing lots
of great things in the ocean and on the land.
Speaker 3 (22:06):
I thought that was so cool that their resorts have
marine biologists on staff. Yeah. Yeah, it's amazing, right, not
just for sustainability but for nerdiness, Like now I want
to go to Fiji and just hang out with the
marine biologists.
Speaker 4 (22:19):
Yeah. And they're doing great work with local communities as well,
helping them come and see the project, get involved, and
they're planting these mangroves near the villages to help sort
of flood protection there rather than you know, building big
concrete walls and putting bricks down. The other thing that
struck me about Fiji is very few people go there
from the States. When I went from LA it's a
direct flight. You have to take an overnight flight both ways,
(22:41):
which is the downside. But the plus side is in
twenty twenty two, seventy thousand people went from the US
and seven point seven million went to Hawaii. So if
you're looking for somewhere with a lot of tourists and
a lot more space to enjoy all this natural beauty,
then I recommend it. I love I loved it.
Speaker 1 (23:06):
Well. We talked a little bit about events earlier. One
that really cut my eye was I think the whimsy
of it was the Kite Festival. Can you tell us
a little bit more about the Chinese city that hosts.
Speaker 4 (23:17):
It, Yeah, I Fang. I've never been there myself. I've
only been to Beijing, but it's about halfway between Beijing
and Shanghai, about four or five hours drive from each
and next year is the culture city of East Asia.
It's sort of one of the places that has a
claim to be in the birthplace of kites, but it's
definitely known as a kite capital of the world. And
they have this festival every April International Kite Festival. It
(23:40):
draws in tens of thousands of people and as you
can imagine, all the kind of colorful kites, and they
have a World Kite Museum. I don't know if you
guys flown kites. For me, it's like half an hour
of untangling and for three minutes of fun. So I
imagine it's amazing to see experts beautifully made, you know,
handbag kites. The sky is full of them.
Speaker 5 (23:59):
It does sound so cool.
Speaker 4 (24:01):
Yeah, White Fang's also Unesco creative city of craft and
folk arts, so it's not just kites. The visitors there
can earn about clay modeling for cutting, wood, block printing.
It just sounds like a very interesting creative city and
apparently has a great night food market scene as well.
Speaker 1 (24:17):
Well. I think it kind of came up naturally earlier.
But you know, because Tim, you've been to Fiji, But
have you been to any of these places recently? I mean, Billy,
I know you were just in Estonia and loved it.
Speaker 3 (24:28):
Yeah, I'm gonna say I won't bore you all with it,
but I will bore you all with it.
Speaker 5 (24:32):
I loved it.
Speaker 3 (24:34):
I loved it Estonia. I didn't know much about it.
I think most US travelers familiarity with it is Talent
in the capitol, which is a stop on Baltic cruises.
So that's the port that people go to, and they
don't really get out of that city, and that is
just a missed opportunity. The country's small, it's phenomenal, it's gorgeous.
(24:56):
You've got this beautiful UNESCO World Heritage old town in Talent,
which is gorgeous. It's like fourteenth century castles and walls
and things and then you can go two hours outside
and in a couple of national parks. I went hiking
in a bog which was like walking on snowshoes on
Imagine a carpet of peat moss, like a foot thick,
(25:20):
and it just kind of sinks slightly and you're on
converted snowshoes, so you're sort of walking on water and
it's just gorgeous. So I got to do that and
hike through a forest and you can pick your own
mushrooms because everything is like fresh and natural and all
of it. Everything's like two hours apart, and it's super modernized,
like the roads in the highways, everybody speaks English. There's
(25:41):
Wi Fi everywhere, like the country is really committed to
internet access and digital education and stuff, so it's very
easy for travelers to experience. And then in Tartu, which
is the second largest city, it's only about.
Speaker 5 (25:55):
One hundred thousand people, so it's still pretty small.
Speaker 3 (25:58):
They are one of Europe's cultural capitals for twenty twenty four,
So there we talked about events, but all year long
in twenty twenty four, they're going to be various things
that people can go and experience and get to know
that city. Which is also surprised me because you get
to the main town square and it looks like something
out of like Nice, like it looked like southern Europe.
(26:21):
It's like a cobblestone town square with a statue in
the middle and these beautiful, colorful, stately buildings around and
open air cafes everywhere and a river running through it.
So it has this very European feel that my guess
is people don't associate with that far north in Europe.
Speaker 5 (26:40):
And it was just cool.
Speaker 3 (26:41):
And so there's all this like very sort of classical
europe feeling stuff, but there's also leftover Soviet era relics
and that was really interesting to see. I had a blast.
I've met so many cool people and I can't recommend
it enough.
Speaker 4 (26:55):
Go to Estonia, Billy, What makes you want to go
there in the first place.
Speaker 3 (26:59):
I'd read an article in BBC Travel where a writer
had interviewed this man who lives in the area where
they do the bog hiking, and I think the writer
hadn't even gone because it during the pandemic.
Speaker 5 (27:12):
But you can cut all this out Acelin, but.
Speaker 3 (27:15):
There is in this region of Estonia where it's all bogs,
like it's all marshes and stuff. They have what they
call a fifth season that happens in March when all
the snow melt from the surrounding areas. There's no real
mountains in Estonia, but there's a lot of rivers, so
from the surrounding areas floods these rivers, and every couple
(27:36):
of years like cars sink, you know, like the water
rays is really high, and everybody has to get around
on canoes. And I just thought that sounded so interesting,
and it was such an interesting climate story. It was
such an interesting cultural adaptation story, and I just thought
it was fascinating. So I was like, well, I want
(27:58):
to go there. And then the rest of the trip happened,
and then I got to meet that man who does
the canoeing in the box.
Speaker 5 (28:04):
He's the one who took me hiking.
Speaker 3 (28:05):
So you never know, people read our stories and then
years later they go to these places. And then it
turned out because Tartu was going to be the one
of the twenty twenty four European Capitals of Culture, it
was like, okay, well now it's there's a moment happening.
How is this country going to embrace that and show
off you know, their arts and culture.
Speaker 5 (28:24):
Scenes for the rest of the world. Was that true?
Speaker 2 (28:27):
Man? That is one thing I just love about our
list in general is just hopefully, even if people aren't
able to go this year, it just plants a seed
somewhere that hey, this is the place that I never
really thought of before, and hopefully one day when I'm
able to go somewhere that this may be someone on
my list. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (28:46):
Absolutely, It's something that you kind of save, right like
you saved this version of the magazine or bookmark the
article online and hopefully use it as inspiration for years
to come.
Speaker 2 (28:56):
I was just thinking the destinations I wrote about, which
is La mu Kenya, I think is hopefully going to
be that for a lot of people, because I think
many people who come to Africa for the first time
the continent of Africa, which contains fifty four countries that
they do typically go on safari to experience Africa's wild places,
which are incredible, and I totally understand that. At the
(29:19):
same time, there is so much more to the continent
than animals and wild places. There's also just incredible cities,
and in this case, the one that I've wrote about,
this island with a really very unique and well preserved
Swahili culture, which is this blend of Bantu like East
African culture combined with Arabic and Persian and some European
(29:43):
and Indian and Chinese cultures that have sort of made
this melting pot. And it's very you know, you wouldn't
be able to find this architecture in many other places
or a lot of other cultural facets that are very
well preserved. Again, Lamu Town, which is the main town
on the island, is also a UNESCO World Heritage Site
for that reason, and I think anyone who is planning
(30:06):
a trip to the continent, I feel like it's it's
also really worth going to places like this.
Speaker 1 (30:12):
How far is it from you where you live.
Speaker 2 (30:14):
It's about an hour flight flying is the best way
to get there, and that's from Nairobi, and there's direct flights,
and there's gorgeous hotels and guesthouses to stay at. Like truly,
you just feel like you're in a photo shoot all day.
Then the really anique thing about the island is that
there's no cars, so and there's not really like any
like street signs or anything, so you just kind of
(30:36):
walk around and there's there's this they're like meandering alleys
and you kind of find your way, you know. That's
the thing, Like you will get lost at some point,
but then you'll be like, oh, yeah, I recognize that,
I recognize that tree, or I recognize that donkey. There's
a lot of donkeys there, and you sort of sort
of just like find your way again.
Speaker 1 (30:54):
I mean, there's so few opportunities to get lost anymore.
I love that.
Speaker 2 (30:57):
But still feel safe, you know, it's like you're you
feel like you're still contained with this a small place,
like you really can't go very far. The donkey will
take you, donkey will feel yeah, in distinct There actually
is like a donkey rehabilitation site on the island as well.
Go and visit and see just you know, three like
(31:17):
a donkeys that are being rehabilitated and all sorts of
other things. It's pretty cool. So another African destination that
we've mentioned in our list is another city on the
other side of Africa, Tan Tier, Morocco, which is in
the very very far north of Morocco. I ended up
learning a lot about the colonial history of the city
and it used to be considered part of an international
(31:40):
zone and it was managed by consortium of other countries,
including like Italy and Spain, so it wasn't really considered
part of Morocco for a long time, and it has
a bit of an international edge to it. Now the
city is becoming a lot more connected to its Moroccan identity.
There's a lot of really creative Moroccans who are doing
(32:00):
amazing things, like they're running restaurants and cultural programs and
shops that are selling different types of home goods and
beauty products that are all Moroccan led companies, and a
lot of them are also run by young women. So
I think it's a really cool way to experience a
city that has historically had this international, very also very
(32:21):
artsy edge to it, but now that artsyness is being
led by a lot of creative young Moroccans. So it
seems like a place that I would be really excited
to go and kind of see both all Tangier and
the New Tangier combined.
Speaker 1 (32:35):
Yeah, there are so many great cities on this list
this year. Are there any that you feel like we
didn't talk about that we should.
Speaker 4 (32:42):
Yeah, I'll give a pitch for San Diego. It's in
our list along with Tijuana. The two cities on both
sides of the border are the World Design Capital twenty
twenty four cities lots of design focused events and lots
of great architecture to see there, which is you know,
people think of San Diego and just beaches and tacos,
and obviously there's a huge city and there's lots to
(33:02):
sea in that regard, and I was there i think
earlier this year, driving an EV around for an EV
road trip for digital article, and so it's very easy
to fly in and rent an eving and not have
to have a gas power car. And some of the
design things are happening up in La Joya, which is
this lovely neighborhood north of the city on the cliffs.
(33:23):
You can go see kayaking in the caves. There's leopard
sharks in the waters and bright orange caralbody fish and
snorkeling and it's just beautiful, beautiful place. So it's hard
to recommend.
Speaker 3 (33:35):
That I give a shout out to Philadelphia.
Speaker 5 (33:38):
We put that in. We're all pretty excited.
Speaker 3 (33:40):
About Philadelphia this year. People know Philadelphia. Obviously it's a
place for American history. Castitution was written there, but the
food scene is just on fire. It won more James
Beard Awards in twenty twenty three than any other city
for the chefs and restaurants, and they're diverse and just
so so interesting and varied, and it's a great reason
(34:04):
to rethink and revisit that city this year. Plus, the
arts scene has always been great, and there's amazing institutions
of art like the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the
Barnes Foundation. But also the gallery scene has long been
thriving and.
Speaker 5 (34:17):
It still is.
Speaker 3 (34:18):
They still do a First Friday every month where the
galleryes stay open that's actually expanded. It's near New York,
so I've been there a lot, so I'm very excited.
Speaker 4 (34:26):
You know, when you said it has more James Beard
Award winners, I was reaching for the handclapping emoji to
pop up on the I think I've spent too much
time on Microsoft teams.
Speaker 2 (34:36):
I'll also give a shout to Toronto, which is I
did not know this that it is by many measures
the most diverse city in the world, even more so
than New York City and London. There are upwards of
one hundred and eighty languages spoken there and just this year.
One of the reasons why it became included on our
list this year is because they elected their first mayor
(34:58):
who's a woman of color, Olivia Chow, who has talked
a lot about diversity. And the piece takes you through
several of the neighborhoods where you can go to a
little to and have momos. You can go to Koreatown
and go, you know, seeing karaoke there. You can go
to a neighborhood where there's a lot of Somali people
and there's also similar to Philadelphia, there are also some
(35:21):
more high end gastronomical experiences to have, and also just
a lot of cultural events happening throughout the year. The
Caribbean Festival in August draws us I think a million people,
and then there's a Contemporary Arts night in October that's
an all night affair and just brings in Torontonians from
all stripes.
Speaker 1 (35:38):
Amazing, and we're going as a company in March. I'm
so excited.
Speaker 2 (35:42):
I know, I've actually, like, you know, I feel like
the entire essay for that is basically just like my
to do list of all the different restaurants, neighborhoods, taking
it to check off.
Speaker 3 (35:52):
It is we have much more to eat than we
have time for.
Speaker 1 (35:56):
Unless we can extend or come early now.
Speaker 5 (35:59):
Thus do all our things at the rest of lash first.
Speaker 2 (36:02):
Dinner or second dinner.
Speaker 4 (36:03):
Yeah, we had a great run of digital stories on
Toronto earlier this year as well. So you look at
the Toronto Guide on the website. We do this thing
with My Perfect Day and it's a local runs us
through how they'd spend a perfect day and won by
Tiffany Ramsubic, who runs Owed, which is Towanso's only black
(36:24):
owned boutique hotel. We've got a lot to do. We're
going to need some extra time because we don't want
to just be in meetings.
Speaker 1 (36:30):
No, the meetings should be in the restaurants. I think, well,
we've talked a lot about these urban destinations, arts and culture.
What about people who like to travel for nature or
to be outside.
Speaker 2 (36:41):
Billy had briefly mentioned Bhutan. I think that Bhutan is
an amazing country. I have not been myself, but Kathleen
Rellahan she went last year and was one of the
first people to hike the newly restored trans Bhutan trail
that fell into disrepair in the sixties and just reopened
last year and now just this year Bhutan is lowered.
(37:02):
It's always had a tourist tax, so that covers, you know,
various things like lodging and a guy and whatnot. It's
recently lowered the tourist text to now one hundred dollars
a day in order to spur more tourism. And there's
also a lot of new hotels that have opened, as
well as the Transbutant Trail. So the Transbutan Trail goes
through the Boutanese countryside and you get to pass both
(37:25):
the stupas and temples and all types of small towns
and villages that were previously pretty much off limits entirely
to foreigners. So lots of really cool reasons to visit Bhutan.
It's also hugely conservation minded, so sixty percent of the
country must be under forest cover, and it's the first
carbon negative country in the world, so that's another cool
(37:48):
reason to visit. See how they did it.
Speaker 6 (37:50):
Absolutely, yes, yes, we were all ready regular the clapping
hands of thank you.
Speaker 2 (38:00):
One of our roundups that we have in the book
is classic spots that are potentially worth a revisit. One
of them is Machu Picchu, which is Peru's most popular
destination with good reason. I mean, Machu Picchu is a
brilliant feat of Incan engineering. The Sacred Valley, though more generally,
is just it's one of the prettiest places in the
(38:24):
world in my opinion, and Intrepid Tours has recently opened
up a new hike that takes people to be able
to see Machu Picchu but also see lesser visited sides
of the Sacred Valley. So it's called the Quarry Trail,
and they're able to visit older Incan towns and also
just see some waterfalls and some other sites that were
(38:46):
previously a bit more off limits. So definitely, I love
the idea of revisiting a classic destination, but with a
bit of a twist on it.
Speaker 4 (38:54):
I would say, if you like your outdoors with a
glass of wine, then head to Uruguay. This year we
had a lovely piece from Julia Buckley who wrote about
this region called Maldonado. It's a coastal region. I think
it's the next one along from montevide and kind of
notice but anyway, it's very much the up and coming
wine region of the country. And there's a Somelia there
(39:15):
who's worked on a Mappa Delvino, which is a map
of all of the boutique vineyards in Uruguay, so you
can follow that trail and it just looks beautiful land
of al fresco food tastings and great red red wines.
And yeah, definitely added that to my list after working
on that piece.
Speaker 1 (39:32):
Well, I'd love to just pivot a little bit more
broadly to kind of where we're traveling next year, how
we're traveling. You know, twenty twenty three, with such a
busy travel year, do you have any predictions for twenty
twenty four.
Speaker 5 (39:44):
It's still going to be busy. That's not going away
anytime soon. But don't let that stop you.
Speaker 3 (39:50):
I think that's one of the messages of our list
to you know, look to places off the mainstream path
for example, you know in Europe, Estonia and Bruno. In Africa,
Lamu and Tangier, and then also rethink places that may
be familiar to you, like a World or Toronto. There's
a actually there's another layer that we're trying to bring
(40:11):
to the surface. So maybe that will that will help
people avoid the goat track of the main masses of tourism.
Speaker 4 (40:19):
Yeah, the busy places are just going to get busy
and climate will obviously play part, so be prepared for that.
In certain places, try and go shoulder season where you can.
You know, the pandemic was a big reminder that you
never know what's around the corner, so travel where you
can make the most of it, and that kitchen extension
on Newcock can wait and you get out there to
(40:40):
see the world.
Speaker 1 (40:41):
Book your travel insurance. We'll link to our episode about
that well. I'd love to end this conversation with where
you are planning to go this year? Where you want
to go. It could be places on the list, it
could be other trips that you have planned. Where are
you editors going?
Speaker 2 (40:56):
In part inspired by not our list, but a future
story in our previous issue, our Epic Trips issue Over
the Holidays, I'm going with my family to Oman, which
I'm really excited about. I'd know a bit about it,
but didn't really know just how diverse it was in
terms of the types of things that you can do there,
from snorkeling or scuba diving, to mountain climbing to visiting
(41:21):
the desert to of course like spending time in cities
and eating lots of delicious Middle Eastern food. So I'm
really excited to be able to do all of that,
and definitely was also additionally inspired by our future story,
which is absolutely gorgeous. The photographs as well, are just
breath taking. Some of these waddies, which are these big gorges,
(41:42):
very sand colored and then they have bright turquoise blue
water running through them. They just look like they're, i
don't know, out of a movie set or something like that.
They don't even look real well.
Speaker 1 (41:52):
Link to that story as well, because it's such a
good one.
Speaker 5 (41:56):
It is one of my favorite.
Speaker 2 (41:57):
Yeah, yeah, I should say the writing is amazing and
the photographs are just kind of add to it even
more so it's just like on both sides of it,
you're just like, Wow, this place is just other worlds.
Speaker 1 (42:07):
Got to go Philly. How about you? What's your list
look like this year?
Speaker 3 (42:12):
I'm heading to Kenya in February, so yeah, visits Tarca
and then see if I can also get to allow
move from our list. And I often will travel for
music or a like one random event, so Burno's on
my list. They have that free music festival in August
and cool and Manchester has a bunch of stuff going
(42:33):
on because they have also we were talking about arts
and culture, have opened several venues, including the UK's largest
entertainment basically concert venue is purpose built for music, and
so there's concerts there I want to see and I've
already got a couple on my list, including the citywide
what's it called. It's called the City of Floating Sounds
(42:55):
and it's an interactive symphony project where there's music throughout
the city of Manchester and then it'll guide you through
it and then back to this new theater space called
the Viva Studios at Factory International, which just opened this year,
and the reasons that the city's on our list and
then it'll end up there. So that's in June and
I want to go back for that.
Speaker 1 (43:15):
Oh my gosh, Yeah that sounds I want to go to.
Speaker 3 (43:19):
Come on second Company meeting.
Speaker 1 (43:21):
Yeah, I wish.
Speaker 4 (43:24):
I love your Manchester Peace, Billy how Obviously the city's
so well known for its music scene, but there's so
much more happening nowadays that people maybe not be aware of.
Speaker 3 (43:33):
Yeah, yeah, and that was one of the reasons I
went because it had that music history, but I was
just floored by how much more there is, including amazing libraries,
but that's another episode.
Speaker 1 (43:44):
Tim, Where will you be podcasting from the next.
Speaker 4 (43:47):
Time, I'll be back in my office at home. My
travel calendar is looking quite light, considering I've been working
on this feature. I'm going to Palm Springs in January
and we have the trip to Toronto. But other than that,
I'm looking at a blank slate that's filling up with
other things, so I need to get the travels slotted in.
I'd love to go to Peru. I think there's a
direct flight from la and the idea of doing a
(44:07):
trail like the Quarry Trail really.
Speaker 1 (44:09):
So yeah, we shall see. Would you take your kids?
Do you think? Are they still too young?
Speaker 5 (44:17):
Very quick?
Speaker 1 (44:20):
No, not even a moment of hiking.
Speaker 4 (44:23):
And four year olds.
Speaker 1 (44:25):
It doesn't sound fun to you.
Speaker 4 (44:27):
We were going to We'll go back to England in
the summer, but we just bounced it back to the
next Christmas now and then.
Speaker 1 (44:33):
Wow, I'm not looking for I look forward to seeing
how your slate fills up. Well, thank you so much.
I mean, the list is phenomenal. The work that you
did is really incredible, So thank you and thanks. I
feel very inspired to go to all twenty five and
twenty four. I think that's doable.
Speaker 3 (44:51):
Right, where do you want to golett, I know what's
on your list?
Speaker 1 (44:55):
Well, all of them. I mean Manchester the music aspect
sounds wonderful, Toronto is obvious, we're going to do that
as a company, and then I don't know. I feel
like Kenya would probably be the first one that I
would pick if I were just to go anywhere tomorrow.
Speaker 2 (45:11):
That means welcome to Kenya.
Speaker 1 (45:12):
Yeah, that's right. Yes for this power when you come. No,
that's okay, I appreciate that. I'll just bring my solar charger. Hey,
it's Acelin again. If you enjoyed the episode and want
to hear more stories like this, follow Unpacked by Afar
on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite listening app.
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